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Ludwig Hölty Biography

Ludwig Hölty Image

HÖLTY, Ludwig Heinrich Christoph (1748-76). A popular German poet, born at Mariensee, the son of a country parson. He studied theology at Göttingen (1769), fell in there with Bürger, Voss, and the Stolbergs, and assisted in founding the patriotic poetic league of the Hainbund. He was naturally sentimental and dwelt, though not morbidly, on death, nature, and solitude, showing the influence of Rousseau and especially of the Night Thoughts of Young. Occasionally there is also a joyous or even a playful strain, but it is with harmonious melancholy that he is associated in the popular mind. In some of his odes he surpassed his teacher, Klopstock (q.v.). A few of his poems are known wherever German is sung. Hölty's Works were collected in 1789; his complete works appeared in 1882. There is a life by Ruete (Guben, 1883), and biographies in the critical editions by Voss (Hamburg, 1835), Voigt (Hanover, 1858), and Halm (Leipzig, 1870).