Uz, Johann Peter
UZ, JOHANN PETER (1720-1796), German poet, was born at Ansbach on the 3rd of October 1720. He studied law, 1730-43, at the university of Halle, where he associated with the poets Johann Ludwig Gleim (q.v.) and Johann Nikolaus Gotz (g.v.), and in conjunction with the latter translated the odes of Anacreon (1746). In 1748 Uz was appointed unpaid secretary to the Justizcollegium, an office he held for twelve years; in 1763 he became assessor to the imperial court of justice at Nuremberg, in 1790 was made a judge and, on the annexation of Ansbach to Prussia (2nd of December 1791), entered the Prussian judicial service, and died, shortly after his appointment as Landrichter, at Ansbach on the 12th of May 1796. Uz wrote a number of graceful lyrics in Gleim's style, and some patriotic odes; he is the typical representative of the rococo period in German poetry. In 1749 the first collection of his Lyrische Gedichte was anonymously published. He also wrote, in alexandrines, Der Sieg des Liebesgottes (1753), a close imitation of Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock, and a didactic poem, Versuchuber die Kunst stets frohlich zu sein (1760).
A complete edition of Uz's works Samtliche Poetische Werke was published at Leipzig, 1768; a new edition (Vienna, 1804), which has been often reprinted. A critical edition was published by A. Sauer in 1890. See Henriette Feuerbach, Uz and Cronegk (1866), Briefe von Uz an einen Freund aus den Jahren 1753-82 (published by A. Henneberger (1866) and E. Petzet, Johann Peter Uz (Ansbach, 1896).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
