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Annette von Droste-Hülshoff

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Image

DROSTE-HÜLSHOFF, Annette Elizabeth, Baroness von (1797-1848). A distinguished German lyric poet. She was born in the family castle of Hülshoff, near Münster, passed her life largely in seclusion, and died in the castle of Meersburg, on Lake Constance. Her Gedichte (1837; new ed., 1895), not numerous, are excellent in technique and gracefully sweet in character, particularly in their pictures of nature. In lyric and narrative forms they are well-nigh equally successful. Her poems appeal to the refined and thoughtful rather than to the ordinary reader. She is related artistically to Möricke, but she is more virile. Selections from them find place in most general collections of German verse. The posthumously printed Das geistliche Jahr (1852; new ed., 1883) consists largely of religious poems. She was an ardent Catholic. Her collected works, including the Letzte Gabcn (1860), in which her splendid prose tale Die Judenbuche was printed, appeared in 3 vols. in 1878-79. Consult Schücking, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (Hanover, 1871), and Busse, Annette von Drostc-Hülshoff (Bielefeld, 1903).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. VII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 269.