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LENAU, NIKOLAUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 417 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LENAU, NIKOLAUS , the See also:pseudonym of NIKOLAUS See also:FRANZ NIEMBSCH VON STREHLENAU (1802-1850), See also:Austrian poet, who was See also:born at Csatad near See also:Temesvar in See also:Hungary, on the 15th of See also:August 1802. His See also:father, a See also:government See also:official, died at See also:Budapest in 1807, leaving his See also:children to the care of an affectionate, but jealous and somewhat hysterical, See also:mother, who in 1811 married again. In 1819 the boy went to the university of See also:Vienna; he subsequently studied Hungarian See also:law at See also:Pressburg and then spent the best See also:part of four years in qualifying himself in See also:medicine. But he was unable to See also:settle down to any profession. He had See also:early begun to write verses ; and the disposition to sentimental See also:melancholy acquired from his mother, stimulated by love disappointments and by the prevailing See also:fashion of the romantic school of See also:poetry, settled into gloom after his mother's See also:death in 1829. Soon afterwards a See also:legacy from his grandmother enabled him to devote himself wholly to poetry. His first published poems appeared in 1827, in J. G. See also:Seidl's See also:Aurora. In 1831 he went to See also:Stuttgart, where he published a See also:volume of Gedichte (1832) dedicated to the Swabian poet Gustav Schwab. Here he also made the acquaintance of See also:Uhland, Justinus See also:Kerner, Karl See also:Mayer' and others; but his restless spirit longed for See also:change, and he determined to seek for See also:peace and freedom in See also:America. In See also:October 1832 he landed at See also:Baltimore and settled on a See also:home-See also:stead in See also:Ohio.

But the reality of See also:

life in " the primeval See also:forest " See also:fell lamentably See also:short of the ideal he had pictured; he disliked the Americans with their eternal " See also:English lisping of dollars " (englisches Talergelispel); and in 18J3 he returned to See also:Germany, where the appreciation of his first volume of poems revived his See also:spirits. From now on he lived partly in Stuttgart and partly in Vienna. In 1836 appeared his See also:Faust, in which he laid See also:bare his own soul to the See also:world; in 1837, See also:Savonarola, an epic in which freedom from See also:political and intellectual tyranny is insisted upon as essential to See also:Christianity. In 1838 appeared his Neuere Gedichte, which prove that Savonarola had been but the result of a passing exaltation. Of these new poems, some of the finest were inspired by his hopeless See also:passion for Sophie von Lowenthal, the wife of a friend, whose acquaintance he had made in 1833 and who " understood him as no other." In 1842 appeared See also:Die Albigenser, and in 1844 he began See also:writing his See also:Don Juan, a fragment of which was published after his death. Soon after-wards his never well-balanced mind began to show signs of See also:aberration, and in October 1844 he was placed under See also:restraint. He died in the See also:asylum at Oberdobling near Vienna on the 22nd of August r85o. Lenau's fame rests mainly upon his shorter poems; even his epics are essentially lyric in quality. He is the greatest See also:modern lyric poet of See also:Austria, and the typical representative in See also:German literature of that pessimistic Weltschmerz which, beginning with See also:Byron, reached its See also:culmination in the poetry of See also:Leopardi. Lenau's .Samtliche Werke were published in 4 vols. by A. Gran (1855); but there are several more modern See also:editions, as those by M.See also:Koch in Kerschner'sDeutscheNationalliteratur,vols.154-155 (1888), and by E. See also:Castle (2 vols., 1900).

See A. See also:

Schurz, Lenaus Leben, grosstenteils aus See also:des Dichters eigenen Briefen (1855) ; L. A. See also:Frankl, Zu Lenaus Biographic (1854, and ed., 1885); A. Marchand, See also:Les Pates lyriques de l'Autriche (1881) ; L. A. Frankl, Lenaus Tagebuch and Briefe an Sophie Lowenthal (1891); A. Schlossar, Lenaus Briefe an die Familie Reinbeck (1896); L. Roustan, Lenau et son temps (1898); E. Castle, Lenau and die Familie Lowenthal (1906).

End of Article: LENAU, NIKOLAUS

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