author
Theodor Körner
1791–1813
A gifted young poet and playwright, he became one of the most remembered literary voices of the German Wars of Liberation. His life was brief, but his patriotic verse and dramatic career left a lasting legend.
1 Audiobook
Syyn sovitus: Murhenäytelmä yhdessä näytöksessä
by Theodor Körner
About the author
Born in Dresden on September 23, 1791, Theodor Körner grew up in a cultured household closely connected to German literary life. He studied in Freiberg, Leipzig, and Berlin, and showed literary promise early, publishing poems while still young.
Körner later moved to Vienna, where he wrote plays and light comedies for the Burgtheater and quickly gained attention as a dramatist. In 1813, during the struggle against Napoleon, he left that promising theatrical career to join Lützow’s Free Corps as a soldier.
His poems from that final period made him famous after his death in battle on August 26, 1813, near Gadebusch. Because his writing joined youthful energy, romantic feeling, and strong patriotic emotion, he was long remembered not only as an author, but also as a symbolic figure of sacrifice and national idealism.