ABSTRACT
Evaluations of Heinrich Heine’s poetry have been bedevilled by comparisons with Goethe. In that august company his lyrical poetry has inevitably been branded as shallow and derivative, his emotions as insincere and divided. He himself, it must be admitted, invites the comparison. Almost to the end of his life he wrote poetry which, consciously or instinctively, alludes to the tradition of the Volkslied that Goethe had all but initiated and immeasurably enriched. In verse-forms, range of images and sentiments alike these allusions span Heine’s creative life, from Early Sorrows (1817) and the immensely popular Book of Songs of 1827 (published when Heine was thirty) to the Last Poems of 1852 and the posthumously published verses of his Paris exile. To speak of Heine as a German poet is to speak of one who continues the tradition of the Volkslied into the post-Romantic age, and completely modifies it to accommodate a new, un-Goethean kind of consciousness. Overall evaluation apart, the comparison with Goethe is justified when we consider the sheer variety and range of Heine’s poetic œuvre.
