Anna Karsch

The poet Anna Karsch was dubbed “the German Sappho” in 1761 by her friend and literary advisor Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim. The daughter of an innkeeper, Karsch received no formal education and is said to have had a difficult life, marked by poverty and two abusive marriages. Her natural abilities as a poet, however, stunned her contemporaries. Karsch’s poetic subjects ranged from the beauty of the countryside to the horrors of war. Gleim published two volumes of her poetry, in 1664 and 1772.