ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Six songs to poems by Heinrich Heine published by Tobias Haslinger in Schwanengesang, Easter 1829. The songs are Der Atlas, Ihr Bild, Das Fischermadcben, Die Stadt, Am Meer and Der Doppelganger. Heine was born in Dusseldorf in 1797, and was therefore the same age as Franz Schubert. After attending schools organized on French models, he tried to become a businessman, first in Frankfurt am Main, then in Hamburg. Heine's character is most succinctly revealed. The poem concerns an encounter with the ghostly representative of his other self and dramatically encapsulates the dual nature of his personality. Schubert would have been particularly drawn to the poem because, like Heine, he too was aware of having a dual nature. Schubert's dual nature had two distinct patterns. One was the alternation of depression and hypomania, the other the alternation of the cognitive and behavioural sides of hypomania.
