Clement Brentano
Clement Brentano (Ehrenbreitstein, September 8, 1778 - Aschaffenburg, July 28, 1842), was a German poet and novelist of the Romantic generation. His sister was the well-known Bettina von Arnim, Goethe's correspondent.
He studied at Jena, and afterwards resided at Heidelberg, Vienna and Berlin. In 1818, weary of his somewhat restless and unsettled life, he joined the Roman Catholic Church and withdrew to the monastery of Dulmen, where he lived for some years in strict seclusion, taking on there the position of secretary to the Catholic visionary, Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, of whom it was said that, during the last 12 years of her life, she could eat no food except Holy Communion, nor take any drink except water, subsisting entirely on the Holy Eucharist. From 1802 until her death, she bore the wounds of the Crown of Thorns, and from 1812, the full stigmata, including a cross over her heart and the wound from the lance. Clement Brentano made her acquaintance, was converted to Catholicism, and remained at the foot of the stigmatist's bed copying her dictation without embellishment from l8l8-l824. When she died, he prepared an index of the visions from her journal, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The latter part of his life he spent in Regensburg, Frankfort and Munich, actively engaged in Catholic propaganda. Brentano assisted Ludwig Achim von Arnim, his brotherin-law, in the collection of folk-songs forming Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1806-1808), which Gustav Mahler drew upon for his song cycle.
Brentano, whose early writings were published under the pseudonym Maria, belonged to the Heidelberg group of German romantic writers, and his works are marked by extravagant and fantastic imagery and by abrupt, bizarre modes of expression. His first published writings were Satiren und feeiische Spiele (1800), and a romance Godwi (1801-1802); of his dramas the best are Ponce de Leon (1804), Victoria (1817) and Die Grundung Prags (1815). On the whole his finest work is the collection of Romanzen vom Rosenkranz (published posthumously in 1852); his short stories, and more especially the charming Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schnen Annerl (1838), which has been translated into English, are still popular.
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Lorelei
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