- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJoseph Karl Benedikt Freiherr von Eichendorff
- Joseph von Eichendorff was born into an old catholic noble family on the 10th of March 1788. After schooling he went to the university Halle for studying law, he completed his basic studies in Heidelberg 1808. After a journey to Paris and Berlin, he met Brentano, Kleist and Arnim, he ended his studies finally at the university of Vienna in 1812. He succeeded in getting a job in some departments of the Prussian state and served until he retired in 1844. Eichendorff died on the 26th of November 1857. Eichendorff is a famous writer of the late "Romantik" in Germany. Famous both for his poems and short novels, he is widely known for his "Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts", in which he combined prose and lyrics.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Benjamin Stello
- His parents were Adolf Freiherr von Eichendorf, a Prussian officer, and his wife Karoline Freiin von Kloche. Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff came from a Catholic family that was part of the small rural nobility. He grew up with his brother Wilhelm, who was only 18 months older. From 1805 to 1806 he studied law in Halle and from 1807 to 1808 in Heidelberg, where he met the romantics Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim. The Eichendorff brothers then went on an educational trip to Paris and Vienna with stops in Lubowitz and Berlin. From 1810 to 1812, Joseph von Eichendorff continued his studies in Vienna and completed it with the state examination. Joseph von Eichendorff and his brother met Friedrich Schlegel and his son, the painter Phillip Veit. From 1813 to 1815 he took part in the wars of liberation against Napoleon and then married Luise von Larisch. In the same year, 1815, he became a father and accepted a position in the Prussian civil service as a secretary to the Chief War Commissioner. Work on "Ahnung und Aktuell" (1815) began.
In 1816 he became a trainee lawyer in Breslau and from 1819 in Berlin. Daughter Therese was born in 1817. Eichendorff's story "The Marble Picture" (1818) appeared in the "Women's Pocket Book for the Year 1819"; Together with the novella "Zauberei im Herbst" (1808/1809), which was published even earlier, the works represent an escape from everyday bourgeois life into a transfigured world. And his early poems also signal Eichendorff's striving for harmonious nature and an escape from the everyday bourgeois life of his time - completely contrary to his professional civil service duties. His son Rudolf was born in 1818. In 1821 he became a government councilor in Danzig and three years later senior presidential councilor in Königsberg. In 1826 the story "From the Life of a Good-for-nothing" was published, with which Eichendorff became famous. The collection of poems "The Marble Picture" was published in the same volume. Eichendorff went back to Berlin and from 1831 held a position at the Berlin Ministry of Culture. During this time he met Adalbert von Chamisso and Franz Kugler. From 1832 he wrote numerous articles in journals.
In 1836, Eichendorff translated works by the Spaniard Pedro Calderon de la Barca. These works resulted in the two-volume work "Spiritual Plays by Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca" (1846-1853). In 1841 he became a Privy Councilor and three years later he retired. In the same year his treatise "History of the Restoration of Marienburg Castle" (1844) was published. From 1846 to 1847 he moved to Vienna. His other stops were Berlin and Neisse. In particular, Eichendorff's songs set to music and the story "From the Life of a Good-for-nothing" made him the most important poet of the late Romantic period and the best-known poet of the Romantic era. He integrated many lyrical works into his stories; only later were they collected and published individually. Above all, his hiking songs and nature poems, which are written in folk song tone, are influenced by his personal experience of the Silesian native nature and surroundings.
The home landscape repeatedly appears as a model, even though the narrative takes place in completely different areas, for example in the story "The Dürande Castle" (1837) or in the love story "The Abduction" (1839), in which the Loire landscape plays a role. Eichendorff wrote in simple forms, in a limited and formulaic imagery and in a similar choice of words. But this simplicity conceals a complex network of facts, metaphors and symbolic references as an interpretation of the world and nature. Eichendorff depicts nature as both an idyllic place of fulfillment of human desires and a demonic place. His landscape descriptions are not just written for their own sake, but there is a deeper meaning hidden behind them. They stand as a warning against the disconnection from faith, increasing subjectivism and thinking about convenience and purpose, of which the "good-for-nothing" stands as an ironic example.
Eichendorff did not create any innovations in poetry that were based on role models such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe or Matthias Claudius. But it was intended as an expression of a diversity of feelings. Joseph von Eichendorff also tried his hand at writing tragedies and epic poems, but these were unsuccessful. In his later contemporary poems and satirical pieces he wrote against the revolutionary ideas of his time. His polemical writings on literary criticism and literary history, which he most recently wrote in the spirit of the Catholic movement, also had little impact on the public.
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff died on November 26, 1857 in Neisse.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth
- SpouseLuise von Larisch(April 7, 1815 - 1855) (her death, 5 children)
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