Born in Oberholzheim, German poet Christoph Martin Wieland was the son of a Pietist parson. Educated at the University of Tübingen, Wieland’s literary community included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Johann Gottfried Herder. Wieland’s early work often engages themes of faith and devotion, while in his later work he explores romantic themes. His numerous publications include The Nature of Things (1752), Agathon (1766), Oberon (1781), and The Secret History of Peregrinus Proteus (1791). He also published translations of Horace, Lucian, Cicero, and Shakespeare (as an eight-volume edition in prose). Wieland is the subject of Derek Maurice Van Abbé’s scholarly work, Christoph Martin Wieland, 1733-1813: A Literary Biography (1961).
 
He served as a professor of philosophy at Erfurt, and later moved to Weimar to teach the sons of Duchess Anna Amalie. Wieland died in Weimar.