Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heinewas a German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Liederby composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert. Heine's later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and irony. He is considered part of the Young Germany movement. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities. Heine spent...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 December 1797
CountryGermany
High in the air rises the forest of oaks, high over the oaks soar the eagle, high over the eagle sweep the clouds, high over the clouds gleam the stars... high over the stars sweep the angels...
Perhaps already I am dead, And these perhaps are phantoms vain;— These motley phantasies that pass At night through my disordered brain. Perhaps with ancient heathen shapes, Old faded gods, this brain is full; Who, for their most unholy rites, Have chosen a dead poet's skull...
If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.
Our sweetest hopes rise blooming. And then again are gone, They bloom and fade alternate, And so it goes rolling on. I know it, and it troubles My life, my love, my rest, My heart is wise and witty, And it bleeds within my breast.
Life is the greatest of blessings and death the worst of evils.... all great, powerful souls love life.
The cloudlets are lazily sailing O'er the blue Atlantic sea; And mid the twilight there hovers A shadowy figure o'er me...
Round my cradle shimmered the last moonbeams of the eighteenth century and the first morning rays of the nineteenth.
And the dancing has begun now, And the Dancings whirl round gaily In the waltz's giddy mazes, And the ground beneath them trembles.
Literary history is the great morgue where all seek the dead ones whom they love, or to whom they are related.
Our souls must become expanded by the contemplation of Nature's grandeur, before we can fully comprehend the greatness of man.
The arrow belongs not to the archer when it has once left the bow; the word no longer belongs to the speaker when it has once passed his lips, especially when it has been multiplied by the press.
He who fears to venture as far as his heart urges and his reason permits, is a coward; he who ventures further than he intended to go, is a slave.
Nothing is sillier than this charge of plagiarism. There is no sixth commandment in art. The poet dare help himself wherever he lists, wherever he finds material suited to his work. He may even appropriate entire columns with their carved capitals, if the temple he thus supports be a beautiful one. Goethe understood this very well, and so did Shakespeare before him.
It is only kindred griefs that draw forth our tears, and each weeps really for himself.