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FREILIGRATH

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Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 95 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FREILIGRATH . See also:

FERDINAND (1810-1876), See also:German poet, was See also:born at Detmold on the 17th of See also:June 1810. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native See also:town, and in his sixteenth See also:year was sent to See also:Soest, with a view to preparing him for a commercial career. Here he had also See also:time and opportunity to acquire a See also:taste for See also:French and See also:English literature. The years from 1831 to 1836 he spent in a See also:bank at See also:Amsterdam, and 1837 to 1839 in a business See also:house at See also:Barmen. In 1838 his Gedichte appeared and met with such extraordinary success that he gave up the See also:Battle of See also:FREIBURG English See also:Miles t 1 French .= eauariana N.B. Pos,nons shown ore thnl of 3rd. Aovu,t,t644. See also:idea of a commercial See also:life and resolved to devote himself entirely to literature. His repudiation of the See also:political See also:poetry of 1841 and its revolutionary ideals attracted the See also:attention of the See also:king of See also:Prussia, See also:Frederick See also:William IV., who, in 1842, granted him a See also:pension of 300 talers a year. He married, and, to be near his friend Emanuel See also:Geibel, settled at St Goar. Before See also:long, however, Freiligrath was himself carried away by the rising See also:tide of liberal-ism.

In the poem Ein Glaubensbekenntnis (1844) he openly avowed his sympathy with the political See also:

movement led by his old adversary, Georg See also:Herwegh; the See also:day, he declared, of his own poetic trifling with Romantic themes was over; Romanticism itself was dead. He laid down his pension, and, to avoid the inevitable political persecution, took See also:refuge in See also:Switzerland. As a sequel to the Glaubensbekenntnis he published Ca ira! (1846), which strained still further his relations with the German authorities. He fled to See also:London, where he resumed the commercial life he had broken off seven years before. When the Revolution of 1848 See also:broke out, it seemed to Freiligrath, as to all the liberal thinkers of the time, the See also:dawn of an era of political freedom; and, as may be seen from the poems in his collection of Politische and soziale Gedichte (1849-1851), he welcomed it with unbounded See also:enthusiasm. He returned to See also:Germany and settled in See also:Dusseldorf; but it was not long before he had again called down upon himself the See also:ill-will of the ruling See also:powers by a poem, See also:Die Toten an die Lebenden (1848). He was arrested on a See also:charge of lese-majeste, but the See also:prosecution ended in his acquittal. New difficulties arose; his association with the democratic movement rendered him an See also:object of See also:constant suspicion, and in 1851 he judged it more prudent to go back to London, where he remained until 1868. In that year he returned to Germany, settling first in See also:Stuttgart and in 1875 in the neighbouring town of See also:Cannstatt, where he died on the 18th of See also:March 1876. As a poet, Freiligrath was the most gifted member of the German revolutionary See also:group. Coming at the very See also:close of the Romantic See also:age, his own purely lyric poetry re-echoes for the most See also:part the See also:familiar thoughts and imagery of his Romantic predecessors; but at an See also:early age he had been attracted by the See also:work of French contemporary poets, and he reinvigorated the German lyric by grafting upon it the orientalism of See also:Victor See also:Hugo.

In this reconciliation of French and German romanticism See also:

lay Freiligrath's significance for the development of the lyric in Germany. His remarkable See also:power of assimilating See also:foreign literatures is also to be seen in his See also:translations of English and Scottish See also:ballads, of the poetry of See also:Burns, Mrs See also:Hemans, See also:Longfellow and See also:Tennyson (Englische Gedichte aus neuerer Zeit, 1846; The See also:Rose, See also:Thistle and Shamrock, 18J3, 6th ed. 1887); he also translated See also:Shakespeare's Cyinbeline, See also:Winter's See also:Tale and See also:Venus and See also:Adonis, as well as Longfellow's See also:Hiawatha (18J7). Freiligrath is most See also:original in his revolutionary poetry. His poems of this class suffer, it is true, under the disadvantage of all political poetry—purely temporary See also:interest and the unavoidable admixture of much that has no claim to be called poetry at all—but the agitator Freiligrath, when he is at his best, displays a vigour and strength, a power of See also:direct and cogent poetic expression, not to be found in any other political See also:singer of the age. Freiligrath's Gedichte have passed through some fifty See also:editions, and his Gesammelte Dichtungen, first published in 187o, have reached a See also:sixth edition (1898). Nachgelassenes (including a See also:translation of See also:Byron's Mazeppa) was published in 1883. A selection of Freiligrath's best-known poems in English translation was edited by his daughter, Mrs Freiligrath-Kroeker, in 1869; also Songs of a Revolutionary See also:Epoch were translated by J. L. Joynes in 1888. Cp. E.

See also:

Schmidt-See also:Weissenfels, F. Freiligrat, eine Biographie (1876) ; W. See also:Buchner, F. Freiligrath, ein Dichterleben in Briefen (2 vols., 1881); G. Freiligrath, Erinnerungen an F. Freiligrath (1889) ; P... Hessen, Freiligrath (See also:Paris, 1899) ; K. See also:Richter, Freiligrath als Ubersetzer (1899). (J. G.

End of Article: FREILIGRATH

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