Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff

Common card · No. 454865

Joseph Karl Benedikt Freiherr von Eichendorff (German: [fɔn ˈaɪçn̩dɔʁf]; 10 March 1788 – 26 November 1857) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism. Ever since their publication and up to the present day, some of his works have been very popular in German-speaking Europe. Eichendorff first became famous for his 1826 novella Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts (freely translated: Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing) and his poems. The Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing is a typical Romantic novella whose main themes are wanderlust and love. The protagonist, the son of a miller, rejects his father's trade and becomes a gardener at a Viennese palace where he subsequently falls in love with the local duke's daughter. As, with his lowly status, she is unattainable for him, he escapes to Italy – only to return and learn that she is the duke's adopted daughter, and thus within his social reach. With...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Franz Kugler, Public domain