AUERSPERG, ANTON ALEXANDER, GRAF VON (1806-1876), Austrian poet, who wrote under the pseudonym of ANASTASIUS GRUN, was born on April II 1806 at Laibach, and died at Graz on Sept. 12, 1876, and was head of the Thurn-am Hart branch of the Carniolan cadet line of the house of Auersperg. He studied law at Graz and Vienna. As a member of the estates of Carniola on the Herrenbank of the diet at Laibach, he was an outspoken critic of the Austrian Government, leading the op position of the duchy to the exactions of the central power. After the revolution of 1848 at Vienna he represented for a short time the district of Laibach at the German national assembly at Frankfurt, to which he tried in vain to persuade his Slovene compatriots to send representatives. In 186o he was summoned to the remodelled reichsrat by the emperor, who next year nominated him a life member of the Austrian upper house (Herrenhaus).
Count Auersperg's first publication was a collection of lyrics, Bliitter der liebe (1830) . His second production, Der letzte Ritter (1830), celebrates the deeds and adventures of the Emperor Maximilian I. (1493-1519) in a cycle of poems written in the strophic form of the Nibelungenlied. But Auersperg's fame rests almost exclusively on his political poetry ; two col lections entitled Spaziergange eines Wiener Poeten (1831) and Schutt (1836) created a sensation in Germany by their originality and bold liberalism. These two volumes of poems were the fore runners of the German "Freiheit" poetry of 184o-48. His Gedichte (1837), if anything, increased his reputation; his epics, Die Nibelungen im Frack (1843) and Der Pfaff vom Kahlenberg (1850), are characterized by a fine ironic humour. He also pro duced masterly translations of the popular Slovene songs current in Carniola (Volkslieder aus Krain, 185o), and of the English poems relating to "Robin Hood" (1864) .
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Anastasius Gesammelte Werke were pubBibliography.--Anastasius Gesammelte Werke were pub- lished by L. A. Frankl (i877) ; his Briefwechsel mit L. A. Frankl 0897). A selection of his Politische Reden and Schri f ten has been published by S. Hock (1906). See P. von Radics, Anastasius Griin (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1879).