biography
| name: |
Frischlin, Philipp Nikodemus
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| |
also spelled Nicodemus
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pronunciation:
[frishleen]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1547–90)
|
| biography:
| Writer, born in Balingen, SW Germany. The son of a parish priest, he was appointed professor of poetry and history in Tübingen in 1568, and after 1582 became a school director. Besides neo-Latin lyric poems he wrote German- and Latin-language plays, particularly satires and comedies (including the scholastic ‘Schuldrama’). These often employed a biblical theme and combined moralistic elements from Latin drama with popular realism, while mixing tragedy with comedy. His principal work is Julius Cäsar redivivus (1582–4), and other plays include the biblical Rebecca (1576) and Susanna (1578), alongside Hildegardis magna and Frau Wendelgard (both 1579). A leading humanist, his attacks on theologians and the nobility earned him censure from Duke Ludwig von Württemberg, who banned his writing. Imprisoned in the fortress Hohen Urach for contravening this, he died from a fall while trying to escape. |
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