Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei

Abstract

The devotees of Apollo have to give a good account of themselves in Olympia before they can become persona grata on Olympus. They spend their lives, more or less, at the various games of poetry. Some, like Goethe, win in the majority of trials, and then we study all of their records regardless of their individual excellence. Some, like Immermann in Oberhof, win only once, but this is sufficient to insure immortality. Some play and joust, run and wrestle with constancy and grace; their records, just after starting and just before finishing, are interesting, but in the end they are always defeated. And when this is the case, posterity, lay and initiated, forgets their names and concerns itself in no wise with their records, unless it be for statistical purposes. It is to the latter class that Graf von Loeben' belongs. For twenty-five years he was a per-1 Ferdinand August Otto Heinrich Graf von Loeben, the scion of an old, aristocratic, Protestant family, was born at Dresden, August 18, 1786. He received his first instruction from private tutors. For three years from 1804 on, he unsuccessfully, because unwillingly, studied law at the University of Wittenberg. In 1807 he entered, to his profound delight, the University of Heidelberg, where, in association with Arnim, Brentano, and Gorres, he satisfied his longing for literature and art. Beginning with 1808 he lived alternately at Wien, Dresden, and Berlin and with Fouque at Nennhausen. He took an active part in the campaign of 1813-14, marched to Paris, and returned, after his company had been disbanded, to Dresden, where, in 1817, he married Johanna Victoria Gottliebe geb. von Bressler and established there his permanent abode. In 1822 he suffered a stroke of apoplexy from which he never recovered; even the magnetic treatment given him by Justinus Kerner proved of no avail. He died at Dresden, April 3, 1825. See Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, XIX, 40-45. The article is by Professor Muncker. Wilhelm Mtiller also wrote an article full of lavish praise of Loeben