Barthold Feind was a leading figure in the cultural life of Hamburg in the early eighteenth century, when the city was a major musical and literary center and cultural life was closely entwined with religion and politics. Feind is known today chiefly as an opera librettist, one whose works in that genre rank with the best; but he was also a capable poet, the author of two major critical essays, and a journalist and political pamphleteer who played a major role in the political turmoil of the day.

Information about Feind's life comes from scattered comments in his own works and from the equally dubious, and frequently libelous, remarks of his many contemporary opponents. He was born on 23 November 1678 in Hamburg, where his father, Barthold Feind Sr., a prolific author of learned works in various fields, was a teacher at the Johanneum, the city's leading school. His mother...