Theodor Storm

Born Sept. 14, 1817, in Husum; died July 4, 1888, in Hademarschen. German writer.

The son of a lawyer, Storm studied law in Kiel in 1837 and 1838 and in Berlin in 1838 and 1839. He began his career as a lawyer in 1843 and practiced law in Husum, Potsdam, and other cities.

In many ways, Storm’s lyric poetry continued the romantic tradition. His verse was characterized by immediacy and sincerity of feeling and by musicality; it had roots in folklore. Storm’s main themes were love, art, and the natural beauty of Schleswig-Holstein; many of his poems are about the history of his native region. Storm’s novellas are also deeply lyrical. He evolved from his early novellas of mood, such as Immensee (1849, published 1852) and Angelica (1855), to his novellas of action written in the 1870’sandl880’s.

The social content of Storm’s later and artistically most perfect novellas, such as Hans and Heinz Kirch (1882), attest to the increasingly realistic and antibourgeois tendencies of his work. The theme of art, as seen in Paul Puppetmaster (1874), and that of the historical past, as seen in Renate (1878), are linked to Storm’s basic theme of the disappearance of the patriarchal order. Storm’s greatest literary achievement is the novella. The Rider of the White Horse (1888).