One of the leading poets of the German Baroque, Paul Fleming was a master of the poetic conventions of his Neo-Latin, Romance and German predecessors and contemporaries, but he surpassed them through innovative combinations and techniques that brought his lyrical output close to the threshold of the “confessional poetry” (Erlebnisdichtung) later developed by Johann Christian Günther (1695-1723) and the young Goethe. Fleming himself was quite conscious of his achievements as a poet, as his own epitaph (“Grabschrift für sich selbst”) confirms: “Mein Schall floh überweit. Kein Landsmann sang mir gleich [...] Man wird mich nennen hören / Bis dass die letzte Glut dies alles wird verstören” [“My reputation spread everywhere. No countryman sang like me [...] My name will be mentioned / Till the last conflagration will destroy everything”]. He was right, because at...
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Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "Paul Fleming". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 June 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5658, accessed 09 June 2026.]
