Heine and Shakespeare

Shakespeare is a major figure of bearing, reference and identification in Heine’s œuvre and also the subject of a whole work, Shakespeares Mädchen und Frauen (1838). ¹ The experts cannot agree whether it is a minor piece with major overtones, or perhaps a larger complex that remains fragmentary (a Shakespeare project) or even a kind of extension of his ‘Deutschland-Schriften’ which start around 1832. Certainly, it has elements of all these, but above all it is an occasional piece, eclectic, pluralistic, open-ended, like so much of Heine’s own creation and his view of creation itself. It is also, as opposed to allusions, his last major statement on Shakespeare.