The Austrian Biedermeier writers of distinguished himself as a poet, who shows his complete works in a strong ambivalence. On the one hand, acting as his poetic works of world-weariness, melancholy and decay, on the other hand, are mission for his political poems of freedom, democracy and emancipation. As a poet he was able to masterfully combine musicality with language onomatopoeia. Nikolaus Lenau’s poetic productivity focused above all on the nature of poetry. His pictures of nature at the same time, death, loneliness, transience and loss are connected. From 1844 the sensitive poet fell into madness. His work on “Don Juan” was left unfinished …Nikolaus Lenau was on 13 Dignified 1802, the son of the writer’s bursary Niembsch Franz and his wife Maria Theresa Antonia, born Maigraber in Csatàd today Lenauheim, born in Temesvár.
Whose real name was Nicholas Lenau Nikolaus Niembsch, Edler von Strehlenau (from 1822). Lenau was raised in an impoverished corner of the learning officer’s family. His childhood and youth were spent in Pest, Trokaj, Vienna and Stockerau near Vienna. From 1812 to 1815, he went to the Piarist in Pest. In 1816 the family went to Tokaj, where he also received private instruction in addition to violin and guitar lessons. In 1817 he passed his examination at the Piarist in Sátoraljaújhely and 1818 at the Gymnasium in Budapest. Then he went to his wealthy paternal grandparents in Vienna to Stockerau. 1820 was his grandfather, Colonel Joseph Niembsch the nobility title, Nikolaus Lenau was inherited with his death 1822nd From this he derived his stage name.
With his schooling he studied with the financial support of grandparents from 1822 to 1832 law, philosophy, agriculture and medicine in Bratislava, Vienna, Hungarian-Altenburg and Heidelberg, but without completing a degree. In 1828 he was the first time one of his works, the poem “The dreams of youth” in JG Seidl’s Pocketbook “Aurora” publish. From 1830 he used his pen name Lenau. 1831 in Württemberg he had first contact with members of the “Swabian poets circle,” where he met Gustav Schwab, Ludwig Uhland, Justinus Kerner, the Earl Alexander of Württemberg and Carl Mayer. The professor, editor and poet, Gustav Schwab, he owed in the first publications Cotta. In Stuttgart, he traveled in various salons in which he recited his own poems.
From 1832 to 1833 he traveled to America in order to make a fresh initiation, which failed, but. There he encountered a similar situation at home, which gave him no new motives for his poetic work. In Ferdinand Kiirnberger novel “The Weary America” (1855), his experiences have been processed. Lenau tried this trip before the political and intellectual narrowness in contemporary Germany to escape. Awakenings accompanied him in view of the fact that his childhood and in later times. This homelessness was passed on to his poetic work, in which he went between melancholy and commitment. 1833 Lenau fell into the Viennese married Sophie von Lowenthal, in whose house he lived in the years 1837 to 1841, with interruptions. He started a life of on edge travel between Württemberg and Vienna.
Lenau was a several engagements, which he looked way out of his miserable like, – but none of them led to a pleased end. In 1836 he met the Danish theologian Hans Lassen Martensen. He and his reading of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, influenced his thought and creativity. Between 1833 and 1842, Nicholas wrote his three fantastic hybrids “Faust” (1836), “Savonarola” (1837) and “The Albigensian” (1842). These dramatic works with epic tone are characterized by exceptionally lyrical elements that are found also in other dramatic pieces and in his epic poems. Lenau’s poetic productivity focused above all on the nature of poetry. His pictures of nature at the same time death, loneliness, transience and loss are connected. Lenau is proposing a tone of sadness and melancholy.
This is compared to its often aggressive political and accusatory poems advocating a European freedom, emancipation, liberalism and democracy. These two sides make the ambivalence of the poetic work of Nikolaus Lenau. His lyrical works are characterized not only by rich images and metaphors, but also by an onomatopoeic language that appeals to all senses. 1844 was followed by the physical and mental collapse from the recovered Nikolaus Lenau, never more. The sensitive poet became insane, suffered a stroke and committed multiple suicide attempts. He came into clogged hospitals in Stuttgart and Vienna, where he spent another six years. His work on “Don Juan” was never completed.
Nikolaus Lenau, died on 22 Dignified 1850 in Oberdöbling / Vienna.
