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Mörike, Eduard (1804–75), Swabian novelist and poet. Mörike published three prose narratives explicitly called ‘fairy tales’. ‘Der Bauer und sein Sohn’ (‘The Farmer and his Son’, 1856) chronicles the supernatural punishment and redemption of an animal‐abusing farmer. In ‘Die Hand der Jezerte’ (‘Jezerte's Hand’, 1853), the king's jealous consort is supernaturally deformed and killed for defiling her late rival's grave. Both picaresque and fairy‐tale‐like, the novel Das Stuttgarter Hutzelmännlein (The Wrinkled Old Man from Stuttgart, 1853) employs the entire fairy‐tale arsenal (water sprites, helpful dwarfs, magic shoes, spell of invisibility) in the story of a shoemaker seeking the right wife.

— William Crisman

Mörike, Eduard Friedrich (Ludwigsburg, 1804-75, Stuttgart), invariably known as Eduard Mörike, was the son of a physician who suffered a paralytic stroke in 1815 and died in 1817. The boy was sent to school in Stuttgart and then in 1818 to Urach, where he remained until 1822. In these years falls an attachment to his cousin Klara Neuffer. Following the accustomed path for a future Württemberg pastor, he was next admitted to the Tübinger Stift, from which he emerged as a clergyman in 1826. Among his fellow-students his particular friends included L. Bauer, F. Th. Vischer, and D. F. Strauß. In 1823 he became deeply attached for a time to the mysterious vagrant Maria Meyer, who appears in his poetry as Peregrina. Mörike spent the next eight years as a curate, serving in nine different parishes, of which the more important were Möhringen (1827), Plattenhardt (1829), Owen (twice), and Ochsenwang (1832). He soon discovered that by temperament he was ill suited to clerical life and, as early as 1827, sought and obtained leave of absence to seek other employment. No sooner had he obtained a post in periodical journalism than he regretted the step and returned to clerical duties. Mörike's first published poems appeared in 1828 in the Stuttgart Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände, and his first substantial publication was the romantic novel Maler Nolten (1832), through which were scattered some thirty more poems. In 1829 he became engaged to Luise Rau a pastor's daughter, but after a four-year betrothal with little prospect of a benefice the engagement was dissolved. In the following year (1834), however, the long-awaited cure of souls was given to him at Cleversulzbach near Weinsberg, and here Mörike, by now a confirmed valetudinarian, lived with his mother and youngest sister, devoting as little time as possible to his pastoral cares. His first lyrical collection, Gedichte, which comprised 143 poems, was published in 1838. This collection was expanded in new editions in 1847, 1856, and 1867, reaching in the last a total of 226 poems. His mother died in 1841, and two years later Mörike, with whose inactivity the parishioners had expressed some dissatisfaction, was pensioned at his own request. The pension was minimal, and, after staying a few months with a clerical friend, he lived with his sister in very modest circumstances, first at Schwäbisch-Hall, then (1844) at Bad Mergentheim, where he met his future wife, Margarete von Speeth. They were married in 1851 and lived first at Stuttgart where Mörike had been appointed to a part-time post at a young ladies' seminary, teaching German literature for two hours a week. The marriage began inauspiciously, for Mörike's sister was unwilling to relinquish her long-standing position as housekeeper and chief companion to him. After long years of bickering (perturbatio domestica was Mörike's recurring note in his diary) the couple separated in 1873, though Margarete returned when Mörike was dying.

Of Mörike's other works the Idylle vom Bodensee appeared in 1846, the fairy-tale Das Stuttgarter Hutzelmännlein in 1853, and the Novelle Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag in 1855. In the 1850s Mörike's increasing poetic reputation led to a friendship and correspondence with Theodor Storm, and he was also on close terms with the painter Moritz von Schwind, who illustrated some of his works. From 1852 he began to receive tokens of respect and admiration in the form of honorary doctorates, an honorary professorship, decorations, and a modest pension from the Schillerstiftung. He resigned his part-time teaching appointment in 1866, though the small stipend was continued.

Mörike's ineffectualness in the practical affairs of life was probably related to the exceptional sensitiveness of his mind. The subject-matter of his poetry is highly personal, yet fully accessible, and he exhibits a remarkable power of entering sympathetically into the minds of others. His poetry has a truth of feeling and a subtlety of perception which few poets have equalled; his craftsmanship, exemplified in forms and metres varying from folk-song-like stanzas to classical hexameters and elegiacs, is superb; and he possesses a highly flexible and adaptable sense of rhythm. Though his calibre was not fully realized in his lifetime, the 20th c. has recognized in the inadequate village pastor a poet of the first rank with a special niche, shared by no other, in which the popular and homely encounter the subtle and refined. Mörike had pronounced musical sensitivity and his poems lend themselves readily to musical treatment. The perceptive settings by Hugo Wolf of 53 poems (Mörike-Lieder, 1888) did much to broaden the appeal of Mörike's poetry.

Werke and Briefe, ed. H. Göpfert, appeared in 1954 and Sämtliche Werke. Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe (19 vols.), ed. H.-H. Krummacher, H. Meyer, B. Zeller in 1967 ff. Editions of Mörike's correspondence with M. von Schwind, Th. Storm, H. Kurz, F. Th. Vischer, Margarethe von Speeth, and Luise Rau were published between 1918 and 1926. The first edition of Briefe Mörikes (2 vols.), ed. K. Fischer, was published 1903-4, and Unveröffentlichte Briefe, ed. F. Seebaß, in 1941 (revised edn. 1945).

(ā'dūärt mö'rĭkə) , 1804–75, German writer and clergyman, a leader of the Swabian school. Over 50 of his rich and varied lyrics, among them “Schlafendes Jesuskind” [the sleeping Child Jesus] and “Auf ein altes Bild” [to an old painting], were set to music by Hugo Wolf. He also wrote a novel, Maler Nolten (1832), and a distinguished novella, Mozart's Journey from Vienna to Prague (1856; tr. 1913–15).