Uhland, Ludwig

Born Apr. 26, 1787, in Tübingen; died there Nov. 13,1862. German poet, dramatist, and public figure.

Uhland studied law and literature at the University of Tübingen from 1801 to 1810. In 1829 he became a professor of literature at the university, resigning from the position in 1833. Uhland began publishing his poetry in 1806. His first collection, Poems (1815; later expanded and published in many editions), established him in the tradition of German romanticism. Uhland’s best poems and ballads, which ring with a common hatred of tyranny, are distinguished by their clarity and precision of form; they also attest to the poet’s ability to evoke historical color. Among the first in Germany to make a systematic study of the Middle Ages and folklore, Uhland published the popular collection Old High and Low German Folk Songs (1844–45; reissued in numerous subsequent editions).

In 1819, Uhland became a member of the Landtag, where he served until 1826 and again from 1832 to 1838. He spoke out against the arbitrary rule of the bourgeois monarchy, both as a deputy and as a poet, as in his Patriotic Poems (first edition 1815—19). Many of Uhland’s poems were set to music by Brahms, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann. Among those who translated Uhland’s poems into Russian were V. A. Zhu-kovskii, F. I. Tiutchev, M. L. Mikhailov, A. A. Fet, and P. I. Veinberg.