Einbeck, 1612-76, Wolfenbüttel), an eminent philologist, studied in Helmstedt, Hamburg, and Leyden, where he registered in the Faculty of Law in 1635. Events of the Thirty Years War (see Dreissigjähriger Krieg) brought him in 1638 to the court of August of Braunschweig-Lüneburg where he remained for the rest of his life.
Initially engaged as tutor (1638-46), he used the stage as a medium of education and wrote a number of plays for his pupils, the most famous being the largely allegorical Neu erfundenes FreudenSpiel genandt FriedensSieg (1648, repr. ed. F. E. Koldewey, 1900), initially performed in 1642 to celebrate the end of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel's involvement in the war. One of his plays, Theatralische Neue Vorstellung von der Maria Magdalena, performed in 1644, was set to music by H. Schütz and marks Schottelius's contribution to early German musical drama. These plays, or extracts from them, were published in Fruchtbringender Lustgarte (1647, facs. with postscr. by M. Wehrli, 1967), a collection of poems dedicated to August's children. In these years Schottelius also published a series of patriotic and philological tracts. Lamentatio Germaniae Exspirantis. Der numehr hinsterbenden Nymphen Germaniae elendeste Todesklage (1640), Der Teutschen Sprache Einleitung (1643), allegorical poems in alexandrines, express despair at the war-torn state of Germany and the abasement of the German language through the introduction of foreign expressions. Believing that the moral health of the nation depended on the health of its language he published his grammar, Teutsche Sprachkunst (1641). His contribution to the theory of German poetry, Teutsche Vers- oder Reimkunst, followed in 1645 (facs. 1976). In recognition he was admitted in 1642 to the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft as der Suchende, and in 1646 to the Hirten- und Blumenorden an der Pegnitz as Fontano.
His massive Ausführliche Arbeit Von der Teutschen HaubtSprache (1663, facs. ed. W. Hecht, 1967), largely based on these tracts, stresses the ancient origins of German, its rich vocabulary, its particular capacity to express the essence of the object it denotes, and so seeks to enhance the status of German as a prominent language. Schottelius's Ethica Die Sittenkunst oder Wollebenskunst (1669, facs. ed. by J. J. Berns, 1980), dedicated to the eldest son of Anton Ulrich, is a philosophy of ethics written in German which could be used in schools. At the same time as he was engaged in his writing Schottelius, a highly qualified lawyer, was also a prominent figure in the ducal administration. In the last years of his life he wrote much religious poetry.Horrendum Bellum Grammaticale, 1673, was reprinted as Der schreckliche Sprachkrieg in 1991.
