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FISCHART, JOHANN (c. 15451591) , German satirist and publicist, was born, probably at Strassburg (but according to some accounts at Mainz), in or about the year 1545, and was educated at Worms in the house of Kaspar Scheid, whom in the preface to his Eulenspiegel he mentions as his " cousin and preceptor." He appears to have travelled in Italy, the Nether-lands, France and England, and on his return to have taken the degree of doctor juris at Basel. From 1575 to 1581, within which period most of his works were written, he lived with, and was probably associated in the business of, his sister's husband, Bernhard Jobin, a printer at Strassburg, who published many of his books. In 1581 Fischart was attached, as advocate to the Reichskammergericht (imperial court of appeal) at Spires, and in 1583, when he married, was appointed Amtmann (magistrate ) at Forbach near Saarbriicken. Here he died in the winter of 1590-1591. Fischart wrote under various feigned names, such as Mentzer, Menzer, Reznem, Huldrich Elloposkleros, Jesuwalt Pickhart, Winhold Alkofribas Wiistblutus, Ulrich Mansehr von Treubach, and Im Fischen Gilt's Mischen; and it is partly owing to this fact that there is doubt whether some of the works attributed to him are really his. More than 50 satirical works, however, both in prose and verse, remain authentic, among which areNachtrab oder Nebelkrdh (1570), a satire against one Jakob Rabe, who had become a convert to the Roman Catholic Church; Von St Dominici des Predigermonchs and St Francisci Barfussers artlichem Leben (1571), a poem with the expressive motto " Sie haben Nasen vnd riechen's nit " (Ye have noses and smell it not), written to def end the Protestants against certain wicked accusations, one of which was that Luther held communion with the devil; Eulenspiegel Reimensweis (written 1571, published 1572); Aller Praktik Grossmutter (1572), after Rabelais's Prognostication Pantagrueline; Floh Haz, Weiber Traz (1593), in which he describes a battle between fleas and women; Affentheuerliche and ungeheuerliche Geschichtschrift vom Leben, Rhaten and Thaten der . . . Helden and Herren Grandgusier Gargantoa and Pantagruel, also after Rabelais (1J75, and again under the modified title, Naupengeheurliche Geschichtklitterung, 1577); Neue kiinstliche Figuren biblischer Historien (1576); Anmahnung zur christlichen Kinderzucht (1576); Das glilckhafft Schiff von Zurich (1576, republished 1828, with an introduction by the poet Ludwig Uhland), a poem commemorating the adventure of a company of Zurich arquebusiers, who sailed from their native town to Strassburg in one day, and brought, as a proof of this feat, a kettleful of Hirsebrei (millet), which had been cooked in Zurich, still warm into Strassburg, and intended to illustrate the pro-verb " perseverance overcomes all difficulties "; Podagrammisch Trostbiichlein (1579); Philosophisch Ehzuchtbilchlein (1578); the celebrated Bienenkorb des heiligen romischen Immenschwarms, &c., a modification of the Dutch De roomsche. Byen-Korf, by Philipp Marnix of St Aldegonde, published in 1579 and reprinted in 1847; Der heilig Brotkorb (158o), after Calvin's Traite des reliques; Das vierhornige Jesuiterhiitlein, a rhymed satire against the Jesuits (158o); and a number of smaller poems.
To Fischart also have been attributed some " Psalmen and geistliche Lieder " which appeared in a Strassburg hymn-book of 1576.
Fischart had studied not only the ancient literatures, but also those of Italy, France, the Netherlands and England. He was a lawyer, a theologian, a satirist and the most powerful Protestant publicist .of the counter-reformation period; in politics he was a republican. Above all, he is a master of language, and was indefatigable with his pen. His satire was levelled mercilessly at all perversities in the public and private life of his timeat astrological superstition, scholastic pedantry, ancestral pride , but especially at the papal dignity and the lives of the priesthood and the Jesuits. He indulged in the wildest witticisms, the most abandoned caricature; but all this he did with a serious purpose. As a poet, he is characterized by the eloquence and picturesqueness of his style and the symbolical language he employed. Thirty years after Fischart's death his writings, once so popular, were almost entirely forgotten. Recalled to the public attention by Johann Jakob Bodmer and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, it is only recently that his works have come to be a subject of investigation, and his position in German literature to be fully understood.
Freiherr von Meusebach, whose valuable collection of Fischart's works has passed into the possession of the royal library in Berlin, deals in his Fischartstudien (Halle , 1879) with the great satirist. Fischart's poetical works were published by Hermann Kurz in three volumes (Leipzig , 18661868) ; and selections by K. Goedeke (Leipzig , 1800) and by A. Hauffen in Kurschner's Deutsche Nationallileratur (Stuttgart, 1893) ; Die Geschichtklitterung and some minor writings appeared in Scheible's Kloster, vols. 7 and 10 (Stuttgart, 18471848). Das gluckhafft Schiff has been frequently reprinted, critical edition by J. Baechtold (1880). See for further biographical details, Erich Schmidt in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 7; A. F. C. Vilmar in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia; W. Wackernagel, Johann Fischart von Strassburg and Base's Anteil an ihm (2nd ed., Basel, 1875) ; P. Besson, Etude sur Jean Fischart (Paris, 1889) ; and A. Hauffen, Fischart-Studien " (in Euphorion, 18961909).
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