Heinrich Heine Article

Heinrich Heine summary

verifiedCite
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
Feedback
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites
Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Heinrich Heine.

Heinrich Heine, orig. Harry Heine, (born Dec. 13, 1797, Düsseldorf—died Feb. 17, 1856, Paris, France), German poet. Born of Jewish parents, he converted to Protestantism to enter careers that he never actually pursued. He established his international literary reputation with The Book of Songs (1827), a collection of bittersweet love poems. His prose Pictures of Travel, 4 vol. (1826–31), was widely imitated. After 1831 he lived in Paris. His articles and studies on social and political matters, many critical of German conservatism, were censored there, and German spies watched him in Paris. His second verse collection, New Poems (1844), reflected his social engagement. His third, Romanzero (1851), written while suffering failing health and financial reverses, is notably bleak but has been greatly admired. He is regarded as one of Germany’s greatest lyric poets, and many of his poems were set as songs by such composers as Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms.