EMANUEL

GEIBEL (1815–1884)  , German poet, was born at Lubeck on the 17th of October 1815, the son of a pastor in the city . He was originally intended for his father's profession. and studied at Bonn and Berlin, but his real interests lay not in theology but in classical and romance philology . In 1838 he accepted a tutorship at 'Athens, where he remained until 1840 . In the same year he brought out, in conjunction with his friend Ernst Curtius, a volume of translations from the Greek . His first poems, Zeitstimmen, appeared in 1841; a tragedy, Konig Roderick, followed in 1843 . In the same year he received. a pension from the king of Prussia, which he retained until his invitation to Munich by the king of Bavaria in 1851 as honorary professor at the university . In the interim he had produced KOnig Sigurds Brautfahrt (1846), an epic, and Juniuslieder (1848, 33rd ed . 19or), lyrics in a more spirited and manlier style than his early poems . A volume of Neue Gedichte, published at Munich in 1857, and principally consisting of poems on classical subjects, denoted a further considerable advance in objectivity, and the series was worthily closed by the Spdtherbstblatter, published in 1877 . He had quitted Munich in 1869 and returned to Lubeck, where he died on the 6th of April 1884 . His works further include two tragedies, Brunhild(1858, 5th ed . 1890), and Sophonisbe (1869), and translations of French and Spanish popular poetry .

Beginning as a member of the

group of political poets who heralded the revolution of 1848, Geibel was also the chief poet to welcome the establishment of the Empire in 1871 . His strength lay not, however, in his political songs but in his purely lyric poetry, such as the fine cycle Ada and his still popular love-songs . He may be regarded as the leading representative of German lyric poetry between 1848 and 1870 . Geibel's Gesammelte Werke were published in 8 vols . (1883, 4th ed . 1906) ; his Gedichte have gone through about 13o editions . An excel-lent selection in one volume appeared in 1904 . For biography and criticism, see K . Goedeke, E . Geibel (1869) ; W . Scherer's address on Geibel (1884) ; K . T .

Gaedertz, Geibel-Denkwzirdigkeiten (1886) ; C . C . T . Litzmann, E . Geibel, aus Erinnerungen, Briefen and Tagebiichern (1887), and

biographies by C . Leimbach (2nd ed., 1894), and K, T . Gaedertz (1897) .