Emanuel Geibel

Geibel, Emanuel (Lübeck, 1815-84, Lübeck), son of a pastor, was already a fertile poet in his schooldays. He studied at Bonn and Berlin universities, making the acquaintance of most of the literary celebrities of Berlin. In 1838 he accepted an invitation to become tutor to the family of the Russian minister in Athens. In 1839 he made a tour of the Aegean islands, returning to Lübeck in 1840.

Geibel had no inclination for any conventional employment—his chief wish was to write poetry—and in 1842 he had the good fortune to receive a pension from King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. He lived for a time in St Goar on the Rhine (1843), visited J. Kerner in Weinsberg in 1844, and then settled once more in Lübeck, though he soon resumed his travels in Germany. By this time he was the author of two volumes of poems (Gedichte, 1840; Zeitstimmen, 1841), a collection of translations (Volkslieder und Romanzen der Spanier, 1843), and a verse tragedy (König Roderich, 1844), which he afterwards discarded. He next published Zwölf Sonette (1846) and the Juniuslieder (1848). In 1852 he was appointed to an honorary professorship in Munich on the personal intervention of King Maximilian II, and became a prominent member of the Munich School of poets (see Münchner Dichterkreis). Together with Paul Heyse he published in the same year the Spanisches Liederbuch, some poems of which were later set to music by Hugo Wolf. He generally spent the summer in Lübeck. The remaining publications of his Munich years were the tragedies Brunhild (1858) and Sophonisbe (1868) and the translations Romanzero der Spanier und Portugiesen (1860), in which he co-operated with Count A. F. von Schack, and Fünf Bücher französischer Lyrik (1862). A poetic encomium of King Wilhelm I of Prussia in 1868, when Bavaro-Prussian relations were under strain, cost Geibel his professorship, but he was immediately compensated by the renewal of the Prussian pension. From then on he lived solely in Lübeck, writing patriotic and other poetry (Heroldsrufe, 1871; Spätherbstblätter, 1877).

Geibel's reputation as a poet of refinement and an apostle of Beauty stood high in the 19th c. It has declined since his lack of originality and his derivative, though elegant, diction have become apparent. The number of his poems in The Oxford Book of German Verse dropped from fourteen in 1911 to three in 1967.

Werke (3 vols.), ed. W. Stammler, appeared in 1918-20.

Quotes:

"To express the most difficult matters clearly and intelligently, is to strike coins out of pure gold."

Emanuel Geibel

Emanuel von Geibel (October 17, 1815–April 6, 1884), German poet and playwright, was born at Lübeck, the son of a pastor in the city.

He was originally intended for his father's profession and studied at Bonn and Berlin, but his real interests lay not in theology but in classical and romance philology. In 1838 he accepted a tutorship at Athens, where he remained until 1840. In the same year he published, in conjunction with his friend Ernst Curtius, a volume of translations from the Greek. His first poems in a volume entitled Zeitstimmen was published in 1841. In 1842 he entered the service of Frederick William IV, the king of Prussia, with an annual stipend of 300 thalers; under whom he produced König Roderich (1843), a tragedy, König Sigurds Brautfahrt (1846), an epic, and Juniuslieder (1848), lyrics in a more spirited and manlier style than his early poems.

In 1851 he was invited to Munich by Maximilian II of Bavaria as honorary professor at the university, and he relinquished his Prussian stipend. While in Munich he was at the center of the literary circle called Die Krokodile (Crocodile Society), which was concerned with traditional forms. In 1852 he married Amanda Trummer and the next year they had a daughter, Ada Marie Caroline. A volume of Neue Gedichte, published at Munich in 1857, and principally consisting of poems on classical subjects, denoted a further considerable advance in his objectivity. The series was worthily closed by the Spätherbstblätter, published in 1877. He had left Munich in 1869 and returned to Lübeck, where he remained until his death.

His works further include two tragedies, Brunhild (1858, 5th ed. 1890), and Sophonisbe (1869), and translations of French and Spanish popular poetry. Beginning as a member of the group of political poets who heralded the revolution of 1848, Geibel was also the chief poet to welcome the establishment of the Empire in 1871. His strength lay not, however, in his political songs but in his purely lyric poetry, such as the fine cycle Ada and his popular love-songs. He may be regarded as the leading representative of German lyric poetry between 1848 and 1870.

Bibliography

• Gesammelte Werke published in 8 vols (1883, 4th ed. 1906)
• The Gedichte have gone through about 130 editions.
• A selection of his poems in one volume appeared in 1904.

For biography and criticism, see

• Karl Goedeke, E Geibel (1869)
• Wilhelm Scherer's address on Geibel (1884)
• K. T. Gaedertz, Geibel-Denkwurdigkeiten (1886)
• C. C. T. Litzmann, E Geibel, aus Erinnerungen, Briefen und Tagebüchern (1887)
• Biographies by C. Leimbach (2nd ed., 1894), and K. T. Gaedertz (1897).

References

•  "Geibel, Emanuel". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 

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