“Baroque” presumably derives from Portuguese “barroco”, describing an irregular “pearl baroque” (1531). This etymology indicates both the European origin and the early application of the term to asymmetrical art (jewelry, architecture, sculpture, painting, music) from a classicist perspective. Early in the twentieth century it broadened to cover anti-classicist literature, thereby gradually losing its pejorative connotation. Deutsche Barockliteratur [German Baroque literature] is used as a convenient if controversial label to designate literature between the age of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, covering roughly 150 years from the 1570s to the 1720s. Several issues diminish the suitability of the label: first, without readily definable period borderlines, one cannot simply state that Baroque literature is equivalent to German literature of the seventeenth century. Second, because there existed no convincing congruence with the multiplicity of styles in...
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Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "German Baroque Literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 September 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1332, accessed 14 December 2025.]
