Heinrich Heine and the German Middle Ages

Heinrich Heine famously identified German Romantic authors with the “resuscitation of the Middle Ages”. This identification has long been read as foundational to Heine’s critique of German Romanticism and what he saw as its political and cultural failings. It has long been assumed that Heine, whose own early poetry was heavily inspired by late Romantic authors such as Ludwig Uhland, rejected the German Middle Ages alongside his rejection of German Romanticism. Through an examination of Heine’s work, from his earliest poetry up to and including his long mock-epic poems Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen and Atta Troll, I argue that Heine’s fascination and interest in the German Middle Ages is enduring and deeply important to his literary project. I argue that, far from rejecting the Middle Ages, Heine attempts to recast the German Middle Ages in such a way that preserves it as a vital source of poetic inspiration. In addition, Heine’s re-evaluation of the German Middle Ages serves a foundational role in his attempts, primarily in De L’Allemagne (his overview of German culture, religion and philosophy), to develop a counter-narrative of the German Middle Ages that exposes pantheism as the core faith of the German peoples, as well as charts a path towards a politically progressive and emancipated Germany.Ph.D