Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg

Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (3 January 1737 – 1 November 1823) was a German poet and critic.

After attending school in Husum and at the Christianeum Hamburg, and studying law at the University of Jena (1757–1759), he entered 1760 the Danish military service and took later part in the Russian campaign of 1762.

From 1775 to 1783 he represented Denmark's interests as Danish Resident at Lübeck, and in 1786 received a judicial appointment at Altona, where he died in November 1823.

But he did perhaps even better service to the new literary movement with his Briefe über Merkwürdigkeiten der Litteratur (1766–1770), in which the critical principles of the Sturm und Drang, and especially its enthusiasm for Shakespeare, were first definitely formulated.

The Briefe über Merkwürdigkeiten der Litteratur were republished with an introduction by Alexander von Weilen (1888).