JUNG-STILLING, JOHANN HEINRICH

born Sept. 12, 1740, Grund, Westphalia died April 2, 1817, Karlsruhe original name Johann Heinrich Jung, also called Heinrich Stilling German writer best known for his autobiography, Heinrich Stillings Leben, 5 vol. (1806), the first two volumes of which give a vividly realistic picture of village life in an 18th-century pietistic family. Raised in great poverty, Jung-Stilling became a schoolteacher at 14, worked as a tailor, among other jobs, and only after great difficulty and deprivation was able to achieve his goal of becoming a doctor. He studied medicine at Strasbourg, where he met J.W. von Goethe, who was impressed by him and published the first, and best, two volumes of Heinrich Stillings Jugend (1777; Heinrich Stilling's Youth). This work's piety and simplicity was influential in the pietistic tide opposed to the rationalism of the Enlightenment. In 1772 Jung-Stilling settled as a physician at Elberfeld and made a name for himself with his successful operations for cataract. In 1778 he became a lecturer in economics and other related subjects at the Kameralschule in Kaiserslautern and then in 1787 at Marburg. In 1803 he received a pension from the prince-elector of Baden. In addition to his autobiography and economic textbooks, he wrote mystical-pietistic works and novels, the best known of which is the allegorical novel Das Heimweh (179497; Homesickness).