Voss

Voss, JOHANN HEINRICH, scholar and poet, was born of poor parents at Sommersdorf in Mecklenburg, 20th February 1751. At first a tutor, he began in 1772 to study at Göttingen, and there joined the famous Dichterbund. From theology he soon turned to Greek and Roman antiquities under Heyne. In 1778 he went from the editing of the Muscalmanach at Wandsbeck to be rector at Otterndorf. Here he prepared his translation of the Odyssey. In 1782 he became rector of Eutin, whence in 1789 he issued his translation of Virgil's Georgics. His controversies with Heyne form his Mythologische Briefe (2 vols. 1794); in answer to Crenzer he wrote Antisymbolik (2 vols. 1824-26). In 1802 he settled in Jena, was called in 1805 to Heidelberg, and there died, March 29, 1826. At Heidelberg he translated Horace, Hesiod, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, and Tibullus; other translations were Aristophanes and (with the aid of his two sons) Shakespeare—a work far inferior to Schlegel's. His original idyllic poem, Luise (1795), rests secure of immortality. See biographies by Paulus (1826) and by Herbst (2 vols. 1872-76).