Hölty, Ludwig Christoph Heinrich (nr. Hanover, 1748-76, Hanover), German poet, who, as a student of theology at Göttingen University, was an original member of the Göttinger Hainbund. Hölty's uneventful life was ended when he was 27 by tuberculosis. Of amiable and gentle character, he wrote a number of poems, some of them in classical metres, in which the perpetual nostalgic accentuation of May and springtime is linked with the awareness of impending death. Their bitter sweetness has been caught in musical settings, especially by Brahms in ‘Die Mainacht’. Only separate poems appeared in Hölty's lifetime. His Gedichte were published in 1783 by his friends F. L. Stolberg and J. H. Voß.
The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Copyright © 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
