Background
Karl Wilhelm Ramler was born on February 25, 1725 at Kolberg, Poland.
Karl Wilhelm Ramler was born on February 25, 1725 at Kolberg, Poland.
He graduated from the University of Halle.
He went to Berlin, where, in 1748, he was appointed professor of logic and literature at the cadet school. Ramler was a skilful but cold and uninspired versifier; and the reputation he enjoys as poet and critic is mainly due to his skill in imitating and reproducing in German, classical (mostly Horatian) metrical forms; and he had a reputation, not unfounded, of correcting his friends' writings out of recognition. His Tod Jesu, a cantata, is well known owing to its musical setting by Karl Heinrich Graun. Ramler published Geistliche Cantaten (1760) and Oden (1767).