Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder

Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich (1773–98), one of the most important writers of the early romantic movement in Germany. He studied law at Erlangen and Göttingen and was a close friend of Ludwig Tieck. His early works on Italian Renaissance painters indicate that he would have played an important role in German romanticism if he had not died at an early age. As it is, he wrote two significant romantic works: Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (Confessions from the Heart of an Art‐Loving Friar, 1797) and Phantasien über die Kunst für Freunde der Kunst (Fantasies on Art for Friends of Art, published posthumously in 1799), which included ‘Ein wunderbares morgendländisches Märchen von einem nackten Heiligen’ (‘A Wondrous Oriental Tale of a Naked Saint’). The protagonist of this tale is a misunderstood genius who rejects the pettiness of everyday life. Only music can save him, and he abandons earth for a more divine artistic life. This theme was central to the German romantic fairy tales of the 19th century and was also picked up by Hermann Hesse at the beginning of the 20th century.

Bibliography

• Alewyn, Richard, ‘Wackenroders Anteil’, Germanic Review, 19 (1944).
• Frey, Marianne, Der Künstler und sein werk bei W. H. Wackenroder und E. T. A. Hoffmann (1970).
• Schubert, Mary Hurst, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder's Confessions and Fantasies (1971).
• Thornton, Karin, ‘Wackenroder's Objective Romanticism’, Germanic Review, 37 (1962).
• Zipes, Jack, ‘W. H. Wackenroder: In Defense of his Romanticism’, Germanic Review, 44 (1969).

— Jack Zipes

Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich (Berlin, 1773-98, Berlin), a close friend from boyhood of L. Tieck, was the son of a highly placed Prussian civil servant who became minister of justice. With Tieck he studied for a semester at Erlangen and was enraptured by Bamberg and Nuremberg and by Dürer's art. Sensitive and receptive, Wackenroder responded enthusiastically and intelligently to the great works of painting he saw on a visit to Dresden in 1796. He and Tieck were joint authors of the work by which he is principally known, Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (1797, ed. R. Benz, 1961), but Wackenroder's share was much the larger.

Wackenroder, an outstandingly perceptive critic, rejected analysis, basing his work on empathy, and ranking inspiration and piety high in his assessment of artists. He was the author of three novels, Die Unsichtbaren (1794), Der Demokrat (1796), and Das Schloß Montford (1796). Tieck incorporated some writings from Wackenroder's posthumous papers in Phantasien über die Kunst, für Freunde der Kunst (1799) and published later a second edition composed entirely of Wackenroder's work (Phantasien über die Kunst, von einem kunstliebenden Klosterbruder, 1813). The sensitive narration Das merkwürdige musikalische Leben des Tonkünst-lers Joseph Berglinger (see Berglinger, J.), portraying a composer torn between the inspiration of his art and the mundane ties of life, has affinities with Wackenroder's own situation. Wackenroder is thought to have collaborated with Tieck in the planning of Tieck's novel Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen.

Wackenroder's works and correspondence appeared in 2 vols., ed. F. von der Leyen, in 1910, and an edition by L. Schneider in 1938 (reprinted and extended 1967); the historisch-kritische Ausgabe, Sämtliche Werke und Briefe, ed. S. Vietta and P. Littlejohns (2 vols.) in 1991.