Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853)

I continue to read lesser-known 19th century German authors because I have found that I enjoy writers from this place and time, though I usually prefer realist writers to romantic writers. Tieck falls clearly in the latter category and so I was surprised to enjoy some of his stories as much as I did. They are, I think, a bit melodramatic and “overdone,” but he is a wonderful storyteller. His stories reminded me of nothing so much as Grimms’ fairy tales turned into short stories. And it turns out that Tieck (1773-1853) and the Grimms were pretty much contemporaries. One of the stories, “The Fair-Haired Eckbert,” is often considered to be the start of German romanticism and all of the stories I read clearly fall into that mode: valuing emotion instead of intellect; emphasizing the beauties of nature and imagination and spiritual truth; and focusing on the hero, his passions and his inner struggles. To achieve this, Tieck relies on folk culture, the story of national/ethnic origins (often illustrated with medieval situations and circumstances) and a lot of the exotic, the mysterious, and the occult. For these reasons, I think, that the Grimms are a good comparison. Because Tieck is largely ignored today (at least in the USA), the only translation I could find was by the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (done in 1827!); fortunately, Carlyle’s translation is mostly quite good and reads surprisingly easily. It is dated, certainly, but less so than one might imagine. Recommended, but largely for those tempted by this kind of thing.… (more)

A historical novel set in Lisbon, it describes the last days of the poet Luís de Camões, which coincide with the last days of Portugal as an independent nation: King Sebastian engaged on a fatal campaign in Africa, got himself killed, and Philip of Spain took over the kingdom.
I am tempted to say that it is typical of what we expect from the Romantics; everything is larger than life, people more beautiful, feelings more intense, faith more fervent, fates more desperate. Death and the futility of life loom large. There's also the parallel between the nation's ingratitude towards its greatest poet and the decline of Portugal as a great colonial empire, and this was an aspect I found hard to swallow. This fervent nationalism, coupled as it is with the firm belief in white peoples' superiority, is very much a product of its time, a fact I was constantly reminded of by the author's quaint, old-fashioned style. It's so odd that I went to look at a digitised copy of an original printing just to reassure myself that he had actually written it like this.… (more)