page_title: Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Annette von Droste-Hülshoff / Biography / Early years
caption_attribution_description: Türkçe: Havixbeck (Almanya):şato Burg Hülshoff, yazar Annett von Droste-Hülshoff'un doğum yeri English: Havixbeck (Germany): castle Burg Hülshoff, birthplace of poetess Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Nederlands: Havixbeck (Duitsland): kasteel Burg Hülshoff, geboorteplaats van de dichteres Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Deutsch: Havixbeck (Deutschland): Burg Hülshoff, Geburtshaus der Dichterin Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Français&#160;: Havixbeck (Allemagne): le château Burg Hülshoff, où naquit la poétesse Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
context_page_description: Baroness Anna Elisabeth Franziska Adolphine Wilhelmine Louise Maria von Droste zu Hülshoff, known as Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, was a 19th-century German writer and composer. She was one of the most important German poets and author of the novella Die Judenbuche.
  In an article for the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, Francis Joste wrote, "The fame of the poetess rests chiefly on her lyric poems, her pastorales, and her ballads. In the poetic representation of nature, few can equal her. The poetical works of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff are imperishable. What makes them so is their originality, the proof that they are the works of a genius. It is this too that gained for their author the well-earned title of "Germany's greatest poetess.'"
context_section_description: Annette von Droste-Hülshoff was born at the castle of Burg Hülshoff (now a part of Havixbeck) in the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. Her family, the Barons Droste zu Hülshoff belongs to the oldest Catholic aristocracy of Westphalia. Her father Clemens August von Droste zu Hülshoff (1760–1826) was a learned man who was interested in ancient history and languages, ornithology, botany, music and the supernatural. Her mother Therese Luise (1772–1853) came from another aristocratic Westphalian family, the Barons von Haxthausen. Annette was the second of four children: she had an elder sister Maria Anna (nicknamed "Jenny", 1795-1859) and two younger brothers, Werner Konstantin (1798–1867) and Ferdinand (1800–1829). Annette was born one month prematurely and only saved by the intervention of a nurse. She suffered from problems with her health throughout her life, including headaches and eye troubles.
  Droste was educated by private tutors in ancient languages, French, natural history, mathematics and music (she inherited considerable musical talent from her father). She began to write as a child; 50 poems written between 1804 and 1814 have been preserved. Droste's maternal grandfather Werner Adolf von Haxthausen had remarried after the death of his first wife (Annette's grandmother) in 1772 and built himself a new castle, Schloss Bökerhof, in the village of Bökendorf, Paderborn. Here his sons from his second marriage, Werner and August, had formed an intellectual circle. They were in contact with such celebrated cultural figures as the Brothers Grimm, Clemens Brentano, Friedrich Schlegel, Adele and Johanna Schopenhauer. Droste visited the castle frequently and made the acquaintance of Wilhelm Grimm. She and her sister contributed folk tales from Westphalia to the Grimms' famous collection of fairy stories. However, neither Grimm nor her step-uncles gave any encouragement to the young girl's literary ambitions. The only literary figure to recognise Droste's precocious talent was Anton Matthias Sprickmann (1749–1833), whom she first met in 1812. Sprickmann was the founder of the theatre in Münster and had known important 18th-century poets such as Matthias Claudius and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Droste trusted Sprickmann's judgement and showed him many of her early works, including the unfinished tragedy Berta oder die Alpen ("Berta, or The Alps", 1813). Other examples of her juvenilia are the tale in verse Walter (1818) and a novel Ledwina (begun in 1819 but never completed).
  In 1819-1820, Annette spent a year with the Haxthausens at Schloss Bökerhof, interrupted only by a stay at the nearby spa town of Bad Driburg, where she hoped to find a cure for her health problems. Here she became romantically involved with Heinrich Straube (1794–1847), a Lutheran law student with literary interests, who was a friend of her step-uncle August von Haxthausen. What happened next is unclear, but it appears that the Haxthausen family, led by Annette's step-aunt Anna (who was in fact four years her junior), disapproved of the relationship because Straube was a commoner and devised a scheme to put an end to it. While Straube was away pursuing his legal studies at the University of Göttingen, they persuaded August von Arnswaldt, a Lutheran aristocrat with literary ambitions, to pretend to pay court to Annette. At first flattered by von Arnswaldt's attentions, Annette gave some indications she was in love with him, before telling him she really loved Heinrich Straube. By this time it was too late, as von Arnswaldt had all the evidence he needed. He traveled to Göttingen and gave Straube proof of Annette's behaviour. The two men wrote a joint letter (which has not been preserved), breaking off all contact with her. She never saw either man again. A few years later, August von Arnswaldt married a widowed Anna von Haxthausen, the ringleader of the intrigue. Straube became a lawyer in Kassel and married in 1824. When he died in 1847, a lock of Annette's hair was found among his possessions. The ensuing scandal was a catastrophe for Annette and severely 
caption: Burg Hülshoff in Havixbeck, Germany: birthplace of Annette von Droste
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