The friendship poems and letters of Johann Christian Günther

The Band of Friendship measures the longest miles, Günther wrote in 1716 to his childhood friend Hahn. The poet maintained his friendships quite irregularly but made significant efforts to sustain these relationships, mostly with men. Günther never celebrated friendship for its own sake but used his texts to seek allies, mostly patrons. In a time of a developing book market, he remained exclusively in the traditional poet-patron relationship. To what extent he followed the tradition in friendship poetry, where he highlighted nuances or transcended established norms, are guiding questions of the work. The reader sought something new and exciting, and Günther knew how to respond to this at the cost of his social reputation.