Friedrich Rudolf Ludwig Canitz Biography | Poet

CANITZ, FRIEDRICH RUDOLF LUDWIG, Freiherr Von (1654-1699), German poet and diplomatist, was born at Berlin on the 27th of November 1654. He attended the universities of Leiden and Leipzig, travelled in England, France, Italy and Holland, and on his return was appointed groom of the bedchamber (Kammerjunker) to the elector Frederick William of Brandenburg, whom he accompanied on his campaigns in Pomerania and Sweden. In 1680 he became councillor of legation, and he was employed on various embassies. In 1697 the elector Frederick III. made him a privy councillor, and the emperor Leopold I. created him a baron of the Empire. Having fallen ill on an embassy to the Hague, he obtained his discharge and died at Berlin in 1699. Canitz’s poems (Nebenstunden unterschiedener Gedichte), which did not appear until after his death (1700), are for the most part dry and stilted imitations of French and Latin models, but they formed a healthy 184contrast to the coarseness and bombast of the later Silesian poets.