Wilhelm Müller
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Wilhelm Müller (October 7, 1794 - September 30, 1827), German lyric poet, was born at Dessau, the son of a shoemaker.
He was educated at the gymnasium of his native town and at the university of Berlin, where he devoted himself to philological and historical studies. In 1813-1814 he took part, as a volunteer, in the national rising against Napoleon. In 1817 he visited Italy, and in 1820 published his impressions in Rom, Römer und Römerinnen. In 1818 he was appointed teacher of classics in the Dessau school, and in 1820 librarian to the ducal library.
Müller's earliest lyrics are contained in a volume of poems, Bundesbluten, by several friends, which was published in 1816. His literary reputation was made by the Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten (2vols., 1821-1824), and the Lieder der Griechen (1821-1824). The latter collection was Germany's chief tribute of sympathy to the Greeks in their struggle against the Turkish yoke, a theme which inspired many poets of the time. Two volumes of Neugriechische Volkslieder, and Lyrische Reisen und epigrammatische Spaziergänge, followed in 1825 and 1827. Müller also wrote a book on the Homerische Vorschule (1824; 2nd. ed., 1836), translated Marlowe's Faustus, and edited a Bibliothek der Dichtungen des 17 Jahrhunderts (1825-1827; 10 vols.).
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[edit] Müller and Schubert
Rightly or wrongly, Müller is not considered a major figure of German literature, and his work would probably be even less well known if his contemporary, the composer Franz Schubert, had not set a substantial amount of his poetry to music. Schubert's two song cycles, Die schöne Müllerin and Die Winterreise, are based on collections by Müller. Although readers today might tend not to appreciate the poetry on its own merits, there was evidently something in Müller's writing that compelled Schubert to compose remarkably sensitive settings of it. Indeed, much of the sophistication of these works should probably be attributed to Müller.
Müller's son was the Orientalist scholar and founder of comparative religion Friedrich Max Müller and his grandson was Wilhelm Max Müller.
[edit] References
- Wilhelm Müller's Gedichte were first collected in 1837 (4th ed., 1858); edited by his son, Friedrich Max Müller (1868)
- numerous other editions, notably one in Reclam's Universalbibliothek (1894)
- critical edition by J. T. Hatfield (1906)
- Müller's Vermischte Schriften edited with a biography by Gustav Schwab (3 vols., 1830).
- F. Max Müller's article in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie
- O. Franck, Zur Biographie des Dichters W. Müller (Mittellungen des Vereins fur anhaltische Geschichte, 1887)
- JT Hatfield, W. Müllers unveröffentlichtes Tagebuch und seine ungedruckten Briefe (Deutsche Rundschau, 1902).
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
