Heinrich Heine

Born in Düsseldorf in 1797, Heinrich Heine became one of Germany’s most celebrated poets, while also working as a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He was born into a Jewish family, studied law in Bonn, Göttingen, and Berlin, and soon turned toward literature instead. Outside Germany, he is especially known for his early lyric poems, many of which were later set to music as Lieder by composers including Schumann, Schubert, and Mendelssohn.

Heine’s work is loved for its musical language, emotional clarity, and quick intelligence, but it also carries irony and a sharp eye for politics and society. Books such as Buch der Lieder helped make his reputation, while later works showed a more openly critical and satirical side. He spent much of his adult life in Paris, where he wrote about both German and French culture and remained an important literary voice in European public life.

In his final years, despite severe illness, he continued to write with striking honesty and force. He died in Paris in 1856, leaving behind poems, travel writing, criticism, and political commentary that have kept him widely read ever since.