Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder
Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (1773-1798) was a German writer who played a pivotal role in the early development of German Romanticism. Born in Berlin to a father who valued Enlightenment ideals, Wackenroder received a strong education that included art, music, and aesthetics. He is best known for his influential collection of essays, "Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders" (1796), which emphasized the emotional depth of medieval literature and art as a counterbalance to Enlightenment rationalism. His close collaboration with the Romantic poet Ludwig Tieck further shaped his literary voice, as they exchanged letters that documented their thoughts and experiences during the nascent Romantic movement.
Despite his remarkable talent, Wackenroder's life was tragically cut short when he died at the age of twenty-six from what was described as nervous fever, likely exacerbated by anxiety over legal examinations. After his death, Tieck gathered Wackenroder's writings and published a second volume of essays, "Phantasien über die Kunst, für Freunde der Kunst" (1799). The artistic philosophy developed by Wackenroder and Tieck positioned art as a profound, almost spiritual phenomenon, significantly influencing subsequent German thinkers and artists, including E. T. A. Hoffmann, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Richard Wagner. Their contributions marked a significant shift in understanding art's role in society, moving it away from mere entertainment to a source of deeper human connection and transcendence.
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Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder
Jurist
- Born: July 13, 1773
- Birthplace: Berlin, Prussia (now in Germany)
- Died: February 13, 1798
- Place of death: Berlin, Prussia (now in Germany)
Biography
Although obscure both today and in his lifetime, the eighteenth century German writer Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder helped inaugurate German Romanticism. His most influential collection of essays, Herzensergiessungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (1796; Confessions from the Heart of an Art-Loving Friar, 1971), praised the emotion of medieval literature and art as a corrective to the rationalism of the Enlightenment.
Wackenroder was born in Berlin in 1773. His father was a judiciary official in the Prussian government and a strong proponent of Enlightenment ideas, who ensured that his son was well educated. Young Wackenroder studied art and music, as well as the theory of aesthetics, at the Friedrichwerdersche Gymnasium, where he met and became lifelong friends with the Romantic poet Ludwig Tieck. After their graduation in 1792, Tieck went to the university while Wackenroder stayed in Berlin and prepared to study law, and the letters they wrote each other during this period are considered a valuable historical document of the period and the nascent Romantic movement.
Wackenroder began to develop his distinct literary style during 1793 and 1794, when he spent a semester at the University of Erlangen and two semesters at the University in Göttingen, traveling to nearby museums and historical sites and studying art and culture, again in the company of Tieck. After accepting a position as a legal clerk in Berlin in 1794, he wrote down his descriptions and experiences, publishing them as Herzensergie�ungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders, in late 1796. During this time, he also collaborated with Tieck on his novel, Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen, probably contributing significantly to the work.
Wackenroder’s early writings reveal tremendous talent, but the author never had time to develop his ideas or produce a body of work sufficient to make a name for himself. He died at the age of twenty-six of Nervenfieber, literally translated as nervous fever, which Tieck attributed to extreme anxiety over upcoming legal examinations. After Wackenroder’s death, Tieck gathered his friend’s papers and completed a second volume of essays, Phantasien über die Kunst, für Freunde der Kunst (1799; Fantasies on Art for Friends of Art, 1971.)
Wackenroder and Tieck were constant companions and regular collaborators. Scholars have worked to distinguish precisely which texts attributed to Wackenroder may have been written by Tieck, and vice versa, largely due to Tieck’s own inconsistent attributions of various texts and his extensive editing of his friend’s writing. Regardless of precise authorship, the conception of art advanced by Wackenroder and Tieck had a great influence on German aesthetics in the nineteenth century. Philosophically sophisticated and grounded in the history of both aesthetic theory and artistic practice, they conceived of art as an essentially religious phenomenon, often divinely inspired and in intimate relationship with the human soul, providing that soul with a path to betterment and transcendence. These ideas marked a distinct break with the contemporary understanding of art, which viewed it at best as amusement and at worst as wasteful idleness. This admiration for art would find proponents in German culture, informing the writing of E. T. A. Hoffmann, the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and the music of Richard Wagner. Variations on their art-as-religion theme also would appear in the writing of Thomas Mann.