The Life of a Good-for-nothing (Hesperus Classics) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

German lyric poet and novelist, Joseph Karl Benedikt Freiherr von Eichendorff, was born in March 1788. He was a Silesian nobleman by birth, living much of his early life on his parents estate, Schloss Lubowitz. Eichendorff, alongside his older brother, William, studied law at the universities of Halle, Heidelberg, and Berlin, and his first extant poems date from 1804, the year before his matriculation at Halle. Early military zeal saw him abandon study for the Prussian War of Liberation (1813) against Napoleon, and again obey a call to arms in 1815. In October 1814 he had married Luise von Larisch. After university, Eichendorff wrote a novel, entitled Future and Present (1815), a work composed in Lubowitz and Vienna, where he studied to enter the Prussian civil service. He later worked as a government official from 1816- 44, initially as a junior lawyer in Breslau, and then as a government adviser. A devout Catholic, Eichendorff wrote to honour Nature, which he deemed to exist wherever God s work was untarnished by humanity.His poems have inspired composers such as Mendelssohn and Richard Strauss, and his songs are now as popular as Volkslieder (folk-songs). A master of the short story, and a versatile dramatist, Eichendorff also translated Calderón s religious dramas, and devoted his later years to a history of German literature. His most famous work, however, remains his novella of 1826, 'Life of a Good-for-nothing', which is considered a perfect example of Romantic narrative fiction. He died in 1857.