Heinrich Heine (1797- 1856)
A tribute to the most translated German poet on his 200th birth anniversary
by Roswitha Joshi

Heinrich Heine was born in 1797 and can best be understood in the context of his time. It was a time when the French Revolution, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" boldly proclaiming on its banner, swept Europe and tore its feudal social fabric to shreds. When its fiercest protagonist, Napoleon Bonaparte, succumbed to the lures of imperial splendour to become Emperor Napoleon I, he stitched these shreds together again - not, however, by unifying the minds of the people to fight for those human rights but by conquering their countries. Wars of liberation followed. Napoleon was defeated, but the people found themselves in bondage again, though of a different type.

Reactionary political forces had assumed power and found their natural ally in the upper middle classes, i.e. investors and entrepreneurs of the burgeoning industries, who strongly felt the need to protect their interest against the now awakened fourth estate, the workers.

Their demand for a new social order accompanied the process of industrialization. The emergence of technical innovations, discoveries, new theories, faster modes of traffic led to a change of the Weltbild as such.

Heine's personal background is equally intriguing. Son of a Jewish family of merchants, bankers, doctors, adventurers he spent his childhood in Düsseldorf, the capital of a small Rhenish duchy, which showed itself to be liberal and tolerant towards the much discriminated Jews. Ironically this tolerance was partly the result of Napoleon's progressive laws. The same Napoleon, however, had forcibly occupied the Rhineland! Heine was, thus, exposed to a lot of hypocracy and contradiction from the beginning.

His education was initially designed to have him take over his father's business. The business, however, went into bankruptcy. Heine studied Law, and was awarded a doctorate by the University of Göttingen in 1825. The same year he had himself baptized, less as an act of conviction than expedience, as only members of a Christian church could apply for the civil services.

All the time that Heine was studying, he continued to pursue his interests in philosophy, history and literature and cultivated contacts in journalistic circles as well as Berlin's high society.This helped him to start publishing his romantic poetry and witty, hard-hitting prose and he soon gained fame as the German Byron.

His first books appeared in 1822 in Berlin, then in 1826 in Hamburg where he became closely associated with the publisher Julius Campe. His literary success, however, was in sharp contrast to his failure as an academic, both in Berlin and in Hamburg. And yet he could now make a living as a full-time writer as his breakthrough came in 1826/27 and 1830/31 with the appearance of his "Travel Pictures". Written in easy prose interlaced with poems, these pieces are a yarn spun of fact and fiction, wit and sarcasm and a heavy dose of social criticism. It was this particular style which made him the founder of the modern feuilleton.

A collection of poems published in 1827 under the name "Book of Songs" spread his fame beyond Germany's borders. Several of these poems were set to music by composers like Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert:

I wonder what it presages -
I am so sad at heart;
A legend of bygone ages
Haunts me and will not depart.

(translated by Walter W. Arndt)

The romantic realism of his poems was, however, accompanied by increasingly criticial statements on the political issues of the day. The political establishment was not amused to read verses like:

There are two kinds of rat:
The hungry and the fat
Neither was the clergy amused to be informed:
A novel song, a much better song,
For you, my friends, I will devise:
It's here on earth we want right now
Build us the paradise.

(translated by Roswitha Joshi)

They were confronted by a man whose personal background and experience had made him an open thinker, with a broadened vision fostered by his journeys abroad. His heightened perception of social evils, national characteristics, corruption and narrowmindedness in government and church found acerbic expression in writings like:

Philistines - the narrowminded -
Hidebound, spiritually blinded -
Never tease such types amiss.
But if hearts are big and wise
They know in our jesting lies
Loving friendship - only this.

(translated by Hal Draper)

In 1831 Heinrich Heine left Germany and moved to Paris as correspondent. He soon became a popular member of the cultural scene and joined the group of socialist thinkers around Count Saint-Simon who propagated a Golden Age of equality in which everybody prospered, benignly governed by an elite of scholars and technocrats. Successful in Paris, in Germany, however, his books were banned by parliament in 1835.

His French connection became even closer when he married a French lady called Mathilde whom he might have wooed in typical Heine style:

Once you are my wedded wife,
Enviable you will be,
Yours will be an idle life,
Full of bliss and glee.
And all your nagging I will face
With patience' gentle force;
But if my verses you don't praise,
Then Thou I shall divorce.

(translated by Roswitha Joshi)

He now perceived his literary role as that of an intermediary between Germany and France by familiarising through his writings one country with the other. Yet, Germany still beckoned him. And a visit to Hamburg resulted in his verse-satire "Germany - A Winter Tale" (1844) which his close associate of that time, Karl Marx, published in full in his newspaper "Forwards". It was a sharp attack on reactionary conditions in Germany. It was followed by "Atta Troll. A Mid-Summer Night's Dream" (1847) in which he poked fun at the utopian political writing then prevailing in Germany.

Heinrich Heine died in 1856 in Paris after a long illness which had left him bed-ridden for 8 years. Though acclaim-ed all over the world, he remained for many years controversial in Germany, a sort of outsider who was too much of an insider, or an insider who was too much on the outside. His sharp perceptions, exposure of individual as well as national characteristics and idiosyncracies depicted with easy wit in entertaining style have, however, endeared him to all those who share his humanistic vision which has not lost one iota of relevance today.

About the author: Mrs. Roswitha Joshi, a freelance writer, is an admirer of Heinrich Heine and has translated his poetry into English. The author acknowlegdes with thanks the background material and illustrations sent by Prof. Dr. Josef A. Kruse, Director of the Heinrich-Heine-Institut, Düsseldorf. Heinrich Heine. Oil on ivory, by Colla, ca. 1825.