Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) is undoubtedly Germany's most significant poet of the nineteenth century, second in importance only to Goethe. Heine's poetry appeared in all major European languages
and was immensely popular throughout the nineteenth century, but has been neglected by modern readers. Now the eminent translator Walter W. Arndt has rectified this situation by producing
sparkling new translations of Heine's love poems.
Although many of Heine's poems are deceptively simple on the surface, the multiple allusions, word plays, and shifts and breaks in diction and tone make them almost untranslatable. Arndt not
only renders the meaning of the originals, but preserves the poems' rhyme schemes as well as their moods and multiple cultural resonances. Arndt captures both the simplicity of the Germanic
folk song structure and the Romantic pathos and imagery that Heine both evokes and undermines, revealing the identification with and alienation from German culture expressed so poignantly in
Heine's poetry. This bilingual edition includes an illuminating introduction by Heine scholar Jeffrey L. Sammons.
