Heinrich Heine

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 - 17 February 1856) was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century.
Heine was born into an assimilated Jewish family in Dusseldorf, Germany. His father was a tradesman.
After his father's business failed, Heine was sent to Hamburg. His uncle in Hamburg was a very successful banker, so Heine started learning banking, but he soon dropped it. Then Heine started to study law at the universities of Gottingen, Bonn and Berlin but was more interested in literature than law. He nonetheless took a degree in law in 1825. At the same time he decided to convert from Judaism to Protestantism because of the severe restrictions on Jews in the German states. Only Christians were allowed to have certain businesses or to be clerks of the state. Jews were also forbidden to become university professors, a particular ambition at the time for Heine. Heine himself said, his conversion was "the ticket of admission into European culture".
Heine is best known for his lyric poetry, much of which was set to music by lieder composers, including especially Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann.
His start as poet Heine was made with Gedichte ("Poems") in 1821. Heine's infatuation with his cousins Amalie and Therese later inspired him to write some of his loveliest lyrics; Buch der Lieder ("Book of Songs", 1827) was Heine's first comprehensive collection of verse.
Heine left Germany for Paris, France in 1831. There he associated with utopian socialists. He met people who followed Count Saint-Simon, who preached an egalitarian classless society.
He remained in Paris for the rest of his life. His only visit to Germany was in 1843. German authorities banned his works and those of others who were considered to be associated with the Young Germany movement in 1835.
Heine continued to comment on German politics and society from a distance. Heine wrote Deutschland. Ein Wintermarchen (Germany. A Winter's Tale). In 1844; his friend, Karl Marx, published it in his newspaper Vorwarts ("Forward") in 1844.
One of the books was burned by the Nazis. One of Heine's most famous lines is now: "Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too" (Almansor, 1821).
In 1851 Heinrich Heine wrote the "Konig Richard" poem. The poem was written in tribute to King Richard I of England and it was translated into several languages.
Some works
Gedichte, 1821
Tragodien, nebst einem lyrischen Intermezzo, 1823
Reisebilder, 1826-31
Die Harzreise, 1826
Ideen, das Buch le Grand, 1827
Englische Fragmente, 1827
Buch der Lieder, 1827
Franzosische Zustande, 1833
Zur Geschichte der neueren schonen Literatur in Deutschland, 1833
Die romantische Schule, 1836
Der Salon, 1836-40
Uber Ludwig Borne, 1840
Neue Gedichte, 1844 - New Poems
Deutschland. Ein Wintermarchen, 1844 - Germany
Atta Troll. Ein Sommernachtstraum, 1847
Romanzero, 1851
Der Doktor Faust, 1851.
Les Dieux en Exil, 1853
Die Harzreise, 1853
Lutezia, 1854
Vermischte Schriften, 1854
Letzte Gedichte und Gedanken, 1869
Samtliche Werke, 1887-90 (7 Vols.) (collected works)
Samtliche Werke, 1910-20 (collected works)
Samtliche Werke, 1925-30 (collected works)
Werke und Briefe, 1961-64 (works and letters)
Samtliche Schriften, 1968 (all written works)
Other websites
"Ihr Lieder! Ihr meine guten Lieder!" A guide to musical settings for one or two voices of the poetry of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) by Peter W. Shea.
Heinrich-Heine-Gesellschaft e.V.