In contrast to Germany, where Heine’s works were much maligned, censored and then prohibited (during the Restoration after 1835; later under the Nazis, 1933-45), his prose and poetry gained an enthusiastic reception beyond the borders of his native country in the second half of the nineteenth century. His poems were even more widely disseminated than Goethe’s to the far corners of Europe and the Americas in the original, in translation, and especially “auf den Flügeln des Gesanges” (“on the wings of songs”, Heine,
Lyrisches Intermezzo# 9). That he had such an astonishing effect on Romance literatures, i.e. those descended from the spoken Latin of the Roman Empire (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian), is due to several distinct reasons. Of primary importance was…
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Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "Heinrich Heine's Reception in Romance Literatures". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 April 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=16297, accessed 23 November 2024.]
