[New-Poetry] Heinrich Heine

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/heinrich-heine’s-travel-pictures

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE 


Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) wanted to have his cake and eat it too. In his writing he succeeded on this point, and mostly splendidly. He was hugely knowing and not a little naive; an eccentric who had lucid and prophetic insights about his time; an ardent defender of liberal causes yet an anarchic humorist who laughed at most things under the sun. Before his mid-20s he emerged, virtually fully-formed, as one of Germany's leading poets. Only a few years later, he was one of Europe's liveliest prose writers. Baudelaire saw a kindred spirit, praising him as a writer who "would be a genius if only he turned himself more often to the divine." George Eliot, adamant that he was a genius, asserted that Heine did more for German prose than Goethe

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