Background
He was born at the castle of Wallerstein in Franconia (Now Germany) on the 30th of November 1744.
He was born at the castle of Wallerstein in Franconia (Now Germany) on the 30th of November 1744.
He studied law for a short while at Halle.
After studies he entered the regiment of the crown prince of Prussia in Potsdam and was attached to it as officer for ten years. Disappointed in his military career, owing to the slowness of promotion, he retired in 1774, and accepting the post of tutor to Prince Konstantin of Weimar, accompanied him and his elder brother, the hereditary prince, on a tour to Paris. On this journey he visited Goethe in Frankfort-on-Main, and introduced him to the hereditary prince, Charles Augustus. This meeting is memorable as being the immediate cause of Goethe's later intimate connexion with the Weimar court. After Knebel's return and the premature death of his pupil he was pensioned, receiving the rank of major.
In 1805 he removed to Jena, where he lived until his death on the 23rd of February 1834. Knebel's Sammlung kleiner Gedichte (1815), issued anonymously, and Distichen (1827) contain many graceful sonnets. His translation of the elegies of Propertius, Elegien des Properz (1798), and that of Lucretius, De rerum natura (2 vols. , 1831) are deservedly praised.
Since their first acquaintance Knebel and Goethe were intimate friends, and not the least interesting of Knebel's writings is his correspondence with the eminent poet. Knebel's Literarischer Nachlass und Briefwechsel was edited by K. A. Varnhagen von Ense and T. Mundt in 3 vols. (1835; 2nd ed. , 1840).
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
In 1798 he married the singer Luise von Rudorf.
