HEINE, hi'* Heinrich, German poet: b. Dfisseldorf, 13 Dec. 1797 (according to others, 1799) ; d. Paris, France, 17 Feb. 1856. His father, Samson Heine, of Hanover, was a merchant of honorable family which sprang from Bfickeburg. He was good-natured but i without marked intellectual gifts and of little business ability. The mother, Peira (Betty) van Geldern, came from one of the oldest and most prominent Jewish families on the Rhine. Her father, Gottschalk, was one of the first Jewish physicians who graduated as Med.D. from a German university; her brother, Joseph, was also a graduate. Her uncle, Simon van Geldern, was a strange, adventurous, enthusi astic man. He journeyed all through Europe, went to Jerusalem and returned from there to Germany after a varied and checkered •experi ence. His diary of travel and other writings are still preserved. The fate of this strange relative made a deep impression on the mind of the mature and gifted boy, who first was sent to a private school and then to a lyceum in charge of priests until the year 1814. The greatest influence on his education was exer cised by his intellectually gifted mother, who read Rousseau and Goethe and was an enthu siastic German patriot while his father was just as enthusiastic for Napoleon. Between these contrasts Heine in his youth, swayed con stantly in both directions. The whole life of the poet can be described in one sentence: He was a German who was born of Jewish parents in a Roman Catholic city on the Rhine in the period of Napoleon's supremacy on the one hand and of flourishing romanticism on the other. In these words lies the entire biography of Heine, everything which uplifted and hampered, all his defects and excellences, and all the deep con trasts and dissonances with which his life was filled.
When he left the gynasium, he was ready, with his companions to volunteer in the struggle against Napoleon. His first poems glorify Geo. man custom and loyalty, German patriotism But this spirit soon 'changed, and soon, like so many eminent Germans of the time, he became one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the emperor's heroic figure, whose fame then filled the entire world. His most ardent with at that time was to study.. But his parents, whose busi ness was already in decline, could not gratify this desire; and even his rich uncle, the cele brated banker, Solomon Heine, in Hamburg, on whose bounty the whole family in reality lived, preferred to have the youth become a clever merchant. So his father in 1815 took him to tilt
Frankfort Fair (Messe) and placed him there with the banking firm of M. G. Rindskopf. But the position was not long to Harry's taste nor was a grocery more endurable. After a short time he returned to Diisseldorf. The attempt was now made to have him settle in Hamburg, first in his uncle's counting-house and then in an independent concern of his own, which was a branch of his father's business. But he showed little talent as a merchant and in 1818 his firm failed.
In the three gloomy years at Hamburg, how ever, Heine became a poet. Under the pseudo nym Freudhold Ricsenharf" appeared in those days in a Hamburg magazine his first 'Traumbilder' and poems. A luckless love for his rich uncle's fair daughter Amelia filled his heart and aroused those lamentations of deep sorrow which formed the basis of his poetry. The well known poem, "A youth loves a maiden, who chose contained almost literally his entire heart's romance. After it was shown that Heine had absolutely no mer cantile ability, his uncle finally consented that he might study law.
In October 1819 he entered the University of Bonn, which had just been reopened. A fresh and stimulating spirit prevailed at this university both among teachers and pupils. Men like August Wilhelm v. Schlegel, who in terested himself very much in the young poet; E. A. Arndt and others, belonged to the teach ing staff. Among the students we find names like Wolfgang Menzel, Hoffmann v. Fallers leben, Hengstenberg, etc. His special friends were Friedrich Steinmann, J. B. Rousseau and Josef Neunzig. In the vacation, after the first year of study. Heine resided in the little town Beuel, near Bonn. and there he worked on his first tragedy, (Almansor,) the plot of which was placed in the period of Moorish decline in Spain. In the poem, however, Heine wished to present a picture of the battles which Judaism in Germany had to endure. 'Almansor' is a lamentation of crushed and persecuted Judaism. From Bonn Heine went to GOttingen, whose faculty of law was quite famous at that time. But he did not enjoy its instruction very long, for he had to leave the university on account of a duel, and in February 1821 came to Berlin.