Fouqué, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH KARL, BARON DE LA MOTTE

Fouqué, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH KARL, BARON DE LA MOTTE, German romanticist, was of Huguenot ancestry, and grandson of the Prussian general of this name (1698-1774) distinguished in the Seven Years' War. Born at Brandenbng, 12th February 1777, Fouqué served as Prussian cavalry officer in the campaigns of 1794 and 1813. The interval between these campaigns was devoted to literary pursuits in the country, and the rest of his life was spent alternately in Paris and on his estate at Nennhausen, and after 1830 at Halle. He died in Berlin, 23d January 1843. Fouqué appeared first under the pseudonym Pellegrin, as author of Dramatische Werke (1801). But Norse legend and old French and German poetry attracted him most strongly; one sees this in his long series of romances, both prose and verse, which picture the life of medieval Europe. These include Sigurd (1808)—the first work to which Fouqué attached his real name—The Magic Ring, Thiodulf the Iclander, Aslauga's Knight, Sintram and his Companions, The Two Captains, and Undine, of all of which and of several other romances English translations appeared soon after Fouqué's death. His masterpiece is Undine (1811); its tender grace and fairy glamour are exquisite. Otherwise Fouqué is too often chargeable with all the extravagances of the romantic school. Straining after fantastic conceits, he seems fascinated by the antique life which he pictures, rather merely from its quaint contrast with modern manners than as a form into which the life of actual living men had shaped itself in bygone days. He himself edited a selection of his works (Ausgewählte Werke, 12 vols. Halle, 1841). His second wife, Karoline (1773-1831), is also known in Germany as the author of innumerable romances and stories.