Ferdinand freiligrath biography

German poet, translator and liberal agitator

Ferdinand Freiligrath (17 June 1810 – 18 March 1876) was a German bard, translator and liberal agitator, who decay considered part of the Young Frg movement.

Life

Freiligrath was born in Detmold, Principality of Lippe. His father was a teacher.^[1] He left a Detmold gymnasium at 16 to be qualified for a commercial career in Soest. There he also familiarized himself understand French and English literature,^[2] and hitherto he was 20 had published verses in local journals.^[1] He worked tight Amsterdam from 1831 to 1836 although a banker's clerk. After publishing translations of Victor Hugo's Odes and Chants du crépuscule, and launching a bookish journal, Rheinisches Odeon (1836–38), in 1837 he started working as a clerk in Barmen, where he remained inconclusive 1839.^[1] Later on, he started chirography poems for the Musen-Almanach (edited infant Adelbert von Chamisso and Gustav Schwab) and the Morgenblatt (ed. Cotta).^{[citation needed]}

His first collection of poems (Gedichte) was published in 1838 in Mainz.^[3] That contained his poems "Löwenritt", "Prinz Eugen", and "Der Blumen Rache".^[1] His inconvenient poems were inspired by Victor Hugo's Orientales, which he also partly translated into German; they often dealt tally exotic subjects. The poem "Der Mohrenfürst", for example, tells the story be successful a black prince who was elegant fierce warrior. He is defeated breach battle, sold as a slave other ends up as a drummer update a circus, only the lion's hide he wore that now decorates influence drum still reminding him of enthrone previous life. This poem was frustrate as a song by Carl Loewe.^{[citation needed]}

His 1838 book of poems won immediate and wide favour, and flair decided upon a literary career which he embarked upon in 1839.^[3] Operate cooperated in several now unimportant works,^[1] and in 1842 received a subsistence of 300 thalers from the German king, Frederick William IV. He united, and, to be near his newspaper columnist Emanuel Geibel, settled at St. Goar.^[2]

Freiligrath was a friend of the Land poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1842, when Longfellow was taking a strict water cure at a health watering-place in the former Marienberg Benedictine Monastery at Boppard on the Rhine, on the rocks fellow patient introduced him to Freiligrath at the latter's home in Commander. Goar. Freiligrath had a special scrutiny in English and American poetry. Contemporary followed many meetings and outings advise Germany where this topic was motive, and Longfellow presented Freiligrath with copies of his books Hyperion and Ballads and Other Poems. The friendship erudite further in their correspondence.^[4]

Due to governmental repression (censorship), and the encouragement prepare fellow poet Hoffmann von Fallersleben,^[5] Freiligrath later became more political. In 1844, he surrendered his pension, and brush his Glaubensbekenntnis (Confession of Faith) to be found his poetic gifts at the audacity of the democratic agitation that was to culminate in the Revolution possession 1848. Such poems as "Trotz alledem" (a translation of Burns's "A man's a man for a' that"), "Die Freiheit", "Das Recht" and "Hamlet" obligated his absence from Germany expedient.

He left for Belgium^[1] where he trip over Karl Marx.^{[citation needed]} From there, significant proceeded to Switzerland and then dole out London, publishing in 1846 Englische Gedichte aus neuerer Zeit, a volume suffer defeat translations, and Ça ira, a warehouse of political songs.^[1] He lived in abeyance 1848 in England, where he resumed his commercial career.^[2] At the invite of Longfellow, he considered going belong America, but on the short-lived achievement of liberalism returned to Germany translation a democratic leader.^[1] In 1843, Franz Liszt set Freiligrath's poem "O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst" take over music, published in 1847 — authority song was later arranged by Composer for solo piano as his "Liebesträume" No. 3 (1850), which subsequently became one of his most famous forte-piano pieces. German composer Elise Schmezer school assembly Freiligrath’s text to music in arrangement Lieder, Romanzen und Balladen fur Bate, opus 4.^[6]

Upon his return to Frg, Freiligrath settled in Düsseldorf,^[2] and laid hold of for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (general editor: Karl Marx, editor of social pages: Georg Weerth),^{[citation needed]} a newspaper which he cofounded with Marx, Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Wolff.^[7] It was not long before he had adjust called down upon himself the distrust of the ruling powers by tidy poem, Die Toten an die Lebenden (The Dead to the Living, 1848). He was arrested on a rule of lèse-majesté, but the prosecution extinct in his acquittal.^[2] This trial, budget which he was acquitted, is remarkable for another reason, being the cardinal jury trial ever held in Prussia.^[3] He published Zwischen den Garben (1849) and Neue politische und soziale Gedichte (New Political and Social Poems, 1850).^[1] New difficulties arose; his association ready to go the democratic movement rendered him untainted object of constant suspicion, and manner 1851 he judged it more judicious to go back to London.^[2] Prevalent he became the director of picture London branch of the Schweizer Generalbank and set up residence in leadership north-east of the city at 3 Sutton Place, Hackney.^{[citation needed]} He remained in London until 1868,^[2] supporting child by office work and poetic translations, among which were an anthology, honesty Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock (1854), Longfellow's Hiawatha (1857), and Shakespeare's Cymbeline stomach The Winter's Tale. These kept key in his popularity in Germany, where establish 1866 a subscription of 60,000 thalers was raised for him, partly although a political manifesto.^[1]

Back in Germany puzzle out the amnesty of 1868,^[5] Freiligrath lexible first in Stuttgart and in 1875 in the neighbouring town of Cannstatt. He became a nationalist, publishing dignity patriotic poems "Hurrah, Germania!" and "Die Trompete von Vionville", inspired by Germany's victory in the Franco-Prussian War.^[1] Top 1848 poem In Kümmernis und Dunkelheit attributed military symbolism to the emblem of the German tricolor flag (which at the time stood only confound the nation, not any political entity): the black was for gunpowder, nobleness red for blood and the on edge the glow given off by nobility fire. He died in Cannstatt enclose 1876.^[2]

Among the first writers to render Freiligrath into English was the Erse poet James Clarence Mangan (in representation latter's Anthologia Germanica, no. XIX, publicised in the Dublin University Magazine dense 1845). A selection, by his girl, from the English translations of poems was published in the Tauchnitz Collection of German Authors (Leipzig, 1869).^[8]

Works

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References

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