author
Theodor Körner
1791–1813
A gifted young poet and playwright, he became one of the best-known literary voices of the German struggle against Napoleon. His life was cut short at just 21, which helped turn him into a lasting romantic and patriotic figure.
1 Audiobook
Syyn sovitus: Murhenäytelmä yhdessä näytöksessä
by Theodor Körner
About the author
Born in Dresden in 1791, Theodor Körner grew up in a cultured household; his father, Christian Gottfried Körner, was a close friend of Friedrich Schiller. He studied in Freiberg and Leipzig, and while still very young he began building a reputation as a writer of poems and plays.
Körner spent important years in Vienna, where he wrote comedies and other works for the Burgtheater. In 1813, during the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon, he joined the Lützow Free Corps. The poems connected with that final period, later collected as Lyre and Sword (Leyer und Schwerdt), became the work for which he was most widely remembered.
He was killed in August 1813, and his early death helped shape his legend as both poet and soldier. Later readers often saw him as a symbol of youthful idealism, patriotic feeling, and the close bond between literature and public life in the early 19th century.