author
Freiherr von Joseph Eichendorff
1788–1857
A defining voice of German Romanticism, he wrote poetry and fiction filled with wandering, nature, memory, and quiet longing. His work stayed popular long after his lifetime, especially the novella From the Life of a Good-for-Nothing and many widely set poems.
1 Audiobook
Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts: Novelle
by Freiherr von Joseph Eichendorff
About the author
Born in 1788 at Lubowitz Castle in Upper Silesia, Joseph von Eichendorff became one of the best-known writers of German Romanticism. He studied law at Halle and Heidelberg, and his writing moved easily between poetry, fiction, drama, criticism, translation, and anthology work.
Eichendorff is especially loved for the musical, dreamlike quality of his language. Again and again, his work returns to forests, roads, castles, songs, travel, homesickness, faith, and the pull between freedom and belonging. His novella Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts (From the Life of a Good-for-Nothing) remains his most famous prose work, and many of his poems were later set to music.
He died in 1857 in Neisse. Readers still come to Eichendorff for the clarity and grace of his writing: it can feel simple at first glance, yet it carries a lasting sense of wonder, melancholy, and motion.