Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff | |
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Born | Joseph Karl Benedikt Freiherr (Baron) von Eichendorff 10 March 1788 Schloss Lubowitz (Polish: Pałac Eichendorffów) near Ratibor, Prussian Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia |
Died | 26 November 1857 Neisse (Polish: Nysa), Prussian Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia | (aged 69)
Occupation | Novelist, poet, essayist |
Education | Heidelberg University |
Period | 19th century |
Genre | Novellas, fairy tales, poetry |
Literary movement | Romanticism |
Notable works | Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing, The Marble Statue |
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Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (10 March 1788 – 26 November 1857) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist.[1] Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism.[2] Ever since their publication and up to the present day, some of his works have been very popular in German-speaking Europe.[3]
Eichendorff first became famous for his 1826 novella Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts (freely translated: Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing)[4] and his poems.[5] The Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing is a typical Romantic novella whose main themes are wanderlust and love. The protagonist, the son of a miller, rejects his father's trade and becomes a gardener at a Viennese palace where he subsequently falls in love with the local duke's daughter. As, with his lowly status, she is unattainable for him, he escapes to Italy – only to return and learn that she is the duke's adopted daughter, and thus within his social reach.[1] With its combination of dream world and realism, Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing is considered to be a high point of Romantic fiction. One critic stated that Eichendorff's Good-for-Nothing is the "personification of love of nature and an obsession with hiking."[6] Thomas Mann called Eichendorff's Good-for-Nothing a combination of "the purity of the folk song and the fairy tale."[7]
Many of Eichendorff's poems were first published as integral parts of his novellas and stories, where they are often performed in song by one of the protagonists.[8] The novella Good-for-Nothing alone contains 54 poems.[9]