Uhländ

Uhländ, JOHANN LUDWIG, German poet, was born at Tübingen, 26th April 1787. When a young man at the university of his native place his mind was divided between law and ancient German literature. The latter was his favourite pursuit, and he began to publish poems at an early age, his first collection of Gedichte appearing in 1815. To this he kept adding all the rest of his life; the 60th edition was published in 1875, and there have been many more since. Other productions of Uhländ's are admirable essays, Ueber Walther von der Vogelweide (Stuttg. 1822) and Ueber den Mythus von Thor (1836); a most valuable collection of old popular songs, Alter hoch- und nieder-deutscher Volkslieder (1844-45); Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage (8 vols. 1866-69); and two respectable dramas, Herzog Ernst von Schwaben (1818) and Ludwig der Bauer (1819). He died at Tübingen, 13th November 1862. Uhländ was a patriotic politician as well as a poet. He entered the representative assembly of Württemberg in 1819 as liberal deputy from Tübingen, and was also a delegate to the Frankfort Assembly of 1848; but though Germany has reason to be grateful for his services to the cause of constitutional liberty, it is as a poet he is best remembered. His pieces are full of spirit, spontaneity, and truth, finely picturesque in their sketches of nature, and exquisite in their varied tones of feeling. Nothing, indeed, can surpass the brevity, vigour, and suggestive beauty of his ballads, in which a romantic sweetness of sentiment and a classic purity of style are happily combined. Uhländ is the acknowledged head of the 'Swabian school' of German poets. Long-fellow translated some of his ballads in Hyperion; and translations by Platt (1848), Skeat (1864), and Sandars (1869) have also appeared. See Lives by his widow (1874), Dederich (1886), Holland (1886), and H. Fischer (1887).