MOTTE, BARON German romantic writer, was born on Feb. 12, 1777 at Brandenburg. Fouque owed his in troduction to literature to A. W. Schlegel, who published his first book, Dramatische Spiele von Pellegrin in 1804. His next work, Romanzen vom Tal Ronceval (1805), showed more plainly his allegiance to the romantic leaders, and in the Historie vom edlen Ritter Galmy (18o6) he versified a 16th-century romance of mediaeval chivalry. Sigurd der Schlangentoter, ein Heldenspiel (18o8), the first modern German dramatization of the Nibelungen saga, attracted attention to him, and influenced considerably subsequent versions of the story.
Between 1810 and 1815 the romances and novels, plays and epics, which Fouque turned out with extraordinary rapidity, ap pealed exactly to the mood of the hour. The earliest of these are the best—Undine (181I ), being, indeed, one of the most charming of all German Marchen and the only work by which Fouque's memory still lives to-day. A more comprehensive idea of his powers may, however, be obtained from the two romances Der Zauberring (1813) and Die Fahrten Thiodul f s des Islanders (1815) . From 1820 onwards the quality of Fouque's work rapidly degenerated. He died in Berlin on Jan. 23, Fouque's Ausgewdhlte Werke, edited by himself, appeared in 12 vols. (1841) ; a selection, edited by M. Koch, will be found in Kiirschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vol. 146, part ii. (Stuttgart, 1893) ; Undine, Sintram, etc., in innumerable reprints. Bibliography in Goedeke's Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (2nd ed., vi. pp. 115 ff ., Dresden, 1898) . Most of Fouque's works have been translated, and the English versions of Aslauga's Knight (by Carlyle), Sintram and his Companions and Undine, have been fre quently republished. For Fouque's life to the year 1813 see his autobiography, Lebensgeschichte des Baron Friedrich de la Motte Fouque (Halle, 1840) . For criticism, see Jenthe, Fouque als Erzahler (Igio) • Th. Kramer, Das romantische Ritterepos bei Fouque (1913) ; G. Mehlis, Die deutsche Romantik (Munich, 1922) ; J. Haupt, Elementargeister bei Fouque, Immermann and Hoffmann (Leipzig, 1923).