biography
| name: |
Heine, (Christian Johann) Heinrich
|
pronunciation:
[hiynuh]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1797–1856)
|
| biography:
| Poet and essayist, born in Düsseldorf, W Germany, of Jewish parentage. He studied banking and law, and in 1821 began to publish poetry, establishing his reputation with his four-volume Reisebilder (1826–7, 1830–1, Pictures of Travel) and Das Buch der Lieder (1827, The Book of Songs). In 1825 he became a Christian to secure rights of German citizenship, but this alienated his own people, and his revolutionary opinions made him unemployable in Germany. Going into voluntary exile in Paris after the 1830 revolution, he turned from poetry to politics, and became leader of the cosmopolitan democratic movement, writing widely on French and German culture. Schubert and Schumann set many of his poems to music. |
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