Clemens Brentano
Encyclopedia
Clemens Brentano, or Klemens Brentano (September 9, 1778 – July 28, 1842) was a German
poet
and novelist.
, near Koblenz
, Germany
. His sister was Bettina von Arnim
, Goethe
's correspondent. His father's family was of Italian
descent. He studied in Halle
and Jena
, afterwards residing at Heidelberg
, Vienna
and Berlin
. He was close to Wieland
, Herder, Goethe
, Friedrich Schlegel
, Fichte and Tieck.
From 1798 to 1800 Brentano lived in Jena, the first center of the romantic movement. In 1801, he moved to Göttingen
, and became a friend of Achim von Arnim. He married Sophie Mereau on 29 October 1803. In 1804, he moved to Heidelberg
and worked with Arnim on Zeitungen für Einsiedler and Des Knaben Wunderhorn. After his wife Sophie died in 1806 he married a second time in 1807 to Auguste Busmann. In the years between 1808 and 1818, he lived mostly in Berlin
, and from 1819 to 1824 in Dülmen
, Westphalia
.
In 1818, weary of his somewhat restless and unsettled life, he returned to the practice of the Catholic
faith and withdrew to the monastery of Dülmen, where he lived for some years in strict seclusion. He took on there the position of secretary to the Catholic visionary nun, the Blessed
Anne Catherine Emmerich
, of whom it was said that, during the last twelve years of her life, she could eat no food except Holy Communion, nor take any drink except water, subsisting entirely on the Holy Eucharist. It was claimed that from 1802 until her death, she bore the wounds of the Crown of Thorns
, and from 1812, the full stigmata
, including a cross over her heart and the wound from the lance. Clemens Brentano made her acquaintance, was converted to the strong faith, and remained at the foot of the stigmatist's bed copying her dictation without embellishment from 1818-1824. When she died, he prepared an index of the visions and revelations from her journal, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (published 1833). One of these visions made known by Brentano later resulted in the actual identification of the real House of the Virgin Mary
in Ephesus
by Abbé Julien Gouyet, a French priest, during 1881.
The latter part of his life he spent in Regensburg
, Frankfurt
and Munich
, actively engaged in promoting the Catholic faith. Brentano assisted Ludwig Achim von Arnim, his brother-in-law, in the collection of folk-songs forming Des Knaben Wunderhorn
(1805–1808), which Gustav Mahler
drew upon for his song cycle. He died in Aschaffenburg
.
Brentano, whose early writings were published under the pseudonym Maria, belonged to the Heidelberg group of German romantic
writers, and his works are marked by excess of fantastic imagery and by abrupt, bizarre modes of expression. His first published writings were Satiren und poetische Spiele (1800), and a romance Godwi oder Das steinerne Bild der Mutter (1801); of his dramas the best are Ponce de Leon (1804), Victoria (1817) and Die Grundung Prags (1815).
On the whole his finest work is the collection of Romanzen vom Rosenkranz (published posthumously in 1852); his short stories, and more especially the charming Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schönen Annerl
(1817), which has been translated into English, were very popular.
Brentano's collected works, edited by his brother Christian, appeared at Frankfurt in 9 vols. (1851–1855). Selections have been edited by J. B. Diel (1873), M. Koch (1892), and J. Dohmke (1893). See J. B. Diel and William Kreiten
, Klemens Brentano (2 vols, 1877–1878), the introduction to Koch's edition, and R. Steig, A. von Arnim und K. Brentano (1894).
's novel Doctor Faustus. A cycle of thirteen songs, based on Brentano's poems, is noted in Chapter XXI as one of the composer protagonist's most significant early works.
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and novelist.
Overview
He was born in EhrenbreitsteinEhrenbreitstein
Ehrenbreitstein may refer to:, a district of Koblenz* Ehrenbreitstein Fortress * Ehrenbreitstein , the hill on which the fortress stands on the east bank of the Rhine...
, near Koblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. His sister was Bettina von Arnim
Bettina von Arnim
Bettina von Arnim , born Elisabeth Catharina Ludovica Magdalena Brentano, was a German writer and novelist....
, Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's correspondent. His father's family was of Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
descent. He studied in Halle
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
and Jena
Jena
Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
, afterwards residing at Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. He was close to Wieland
Christoph Martin Wieland
Christoph Martin Wieland was a German poet and writer.- Biography :He was born at Oberholzheim , which then belonged to the Free Imperial City of Biberach an der Riss in the south-east of the modern-day state of Baden-Württemberg...
, Herder, Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
, Friedrich Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel was a German poet, critic and scholar. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was a critical leader of German Romanticism.-Life and work:...
, Fichte and Tieck.
From 1798 to 1800 Brentano lived in Jena, the first center of the romantic movement. In 1801, he moved to Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
, and became a friend of Achim von Arnim. He married Sophie Mereau on 29 October 1803. In 1804, he moved to Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
and worked with Arnim on Zeitungen für Einsiedler and Des Knaben Wunderhorn. After his wife Sophie died in 1806 he married a second time in 1807 to Auguste Busmann. In the years between 1808 and 1818, he lived mostly in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, and from 1819 to 1824 in Dülmen
Dülmen
Dülmen is a municipality in the district of Coesfeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:Dülmen is situated in the south part of the Münsterland area, between the Lippe river to the south, the Baumberge hills to the north and the Ems river to the east...
, Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
.
In 1818, weary of his somewhat restless and unsettled life, he returned to the practice of the Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
faith and withdrew to the monastery of Dülmen, where he lived for some years in strict seclusion. He took on there the position of secretary to the Catholic visionary nun, the Blessed
Beatification
Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
Anne Catherine Emmerich
Anne Catherine Emmerich
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich was a Roman Catholic Augustinian nun, stigmatic, mystic, visionary and ecstatic....
, of whom it was said that, during the last twelve years of her life, she could eat no food except Holy Communion, nor take any drink except water, subsisting entirely on the Holy Eucharist. It was claimed that from 1802 until her death, she bore the wounds of the Crown of Thorns
Crown of Thorns
In Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ before his crucifixion...
, and from 1812, the full stigmata
Stigmata
Stigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus, such as the hands and feet...
, including a cross over her heart and the wound from the lance. Clemens Brentano made her acquaintance, was converted to the strong faith, and remained at the foot of the stigmatist's bed copying her dictation without embellishment from 1818-1824. When she died, he prepared an index of the visions and revelations from her journal, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (published 1833). One of these visions made known by Brentano later resulted in the actual identification of the real House of the Virgin Mary
House of the Virgin Mary
The House of the Virgin Mary is a Christian and Muslim shrine located on Mt...
in Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
by Abbé Julien Gouyet, a French priest, during 1881.
The latter part of his life he spent in Regensburg
Regensburg
Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
, Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
and Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, actively engaged in promoting the Catholic faith. Brentano assisted Ludwig Achim von Arnim, his brother-in-law, in the collection of folk-songs forming Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Des Knaben Wunderhorn is a collection of German folk poems edited by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, and published in Heidelberg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, between 1805 and 1808...
(1805–1808), which Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
drew upon for his song cycle. He died in Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburg is a city in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not considered part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is the administrative seat.Aschaffenburg is known as the Tor zum Spessart or "gate to the Spessart"...
.
Brentano, whose early writings were published under the pseudonym Maria, belonged to the Heidelberg group of German romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
writers, and his works are marked by excess of fantastic imagery and by abrupt, bizarre modes of expression. His first published writings were Satiren und poetische Spiele (1800), and a romance Godwi oder Das steinerne Bild der Mutter (1801); of his dramas the best are Ponce de Leon (1804), Victoria (1817) and Die Grundung Prags (1815).
On the whole his finest work is the collection of Romanzen vom Rosenkranz (published posthumously in 1852); his short stories, and more especially the charming Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schönen Annerl
Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schönen Annerl
Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schönen Annerl is a novella by Clemens Brentano, first published in 1817 in the book Gaben der Milde, edited by Friedrich Wilhelm Gubitz....
(1817), which has been translated into English, were very popular.
Brentano's collected works, edited by his brother Christian, appeared at Frankfurt in 9 vols. (1851–1855). Selections have been edited by J. B. Diel (1873), M. Koch (1892), and J. Dohmke (1893). See J. B. Diel and William Kreiten
William Kreiten
William Kreiten was a literary critic and poet.At the age of sixteen he entered the Jesuit novitiate of Friedrichsburg in Münster...
, Klemens Brentano (2 vols, 1877–1878), the introduction to Koch's edition, and R. Steig, A. von Arnim und K. Brentano (1894).
Cultural references
Brentano's work is referenced in Thomas MannThomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
's novel Doctor Faustus. A cycle of thirteen songs, based on Brentano's poems, is noted in Chapter XXI as one of the composer protagonist's most significant early works.
Poems
- Eingang
- Frühlingsschrei eines Knechtes
- Abendständchen
- Lore Lay
- Auf dem Rhein
- Wiegenlied
- An Sophie Mereau
- Ich wollt ein Sträusslein binden
- Der Spinnerin Lied
- Aus einem kranken Herzen
- Hast du nicht mein Glück gesehen?
- Frühes Lied
- Schwanenlied
- Nachklänge Beethovenscher Musik
- Romanzen vom Rosenkranz
- Einsam will ich untergehn
- Rückblick