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Friedrich Heinrich Karl de La Motte Fouque

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Baron (1777-1843), German writer of the romantic movement, was born on the 12th of February 1777 at Brandenburg. His grandfather had been one of Frederick the Great's generals and his father was a Prussian officer. Although not originally intended for a military career, Friedrich de la Motte Fouque ultimately gave up his university studies at Halle to join the army, and he took part in the Rhine campaign of 1794. The rest of his life was devoted mainly to literary pursuits. Like so many of the younger romanticists, Fouque owed his introduction to literature to A. W. Schlegel, who published his first book, Dramatische Spiele von Pellegrin in 1804. His next work, Romanzen vom Tal Ronceval (1805), showed more plainly his allegiance to the romantic leaders, and in the Historie vom edlen Ritter Galmy (1806) he versified a 16th-century romance of medieval chivalry. Sigurd der Schlangentoter, ein Heldenspiel (1808), the first modern German dramatization of the Nibelungen saga, attracted attention to him, and influenced considerably subsequent versions of the story, such as Hebbel's Nibelungen and Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen. These early writings indicate the lines which Fouque's subsequent literary activity followed; his interests were divided between medieval chivalry on the one hand and northern mythology on the other. In 1813, the year of the rising against Napoleon, he again fought with the Prussian army, and the new patriotism awakened in the German people left its mark upon his writings.

Between 1810 and 1815 Fouque's popularity was at its height; the many romances and novels, plays and epics, which he turned out with extraordinary rapidity, appealed exactly to the mood of the hour. The earliest of these are the best - Undine, which appeared in 1811, being, indeed, one of the most charming of all German Mdrehen and the only work by which Fouque's memory still lives to-day. A more comprehensive idea of his powers may, however, be obtained from the two romances Der Zauberring (1813) and Die Fahrten Thiodulfs des Islanders (1815). From 1820 onwards the quality of Fouque's work rapidly degenerated, partly owing to the fatal ease with which he wrote, partly to his inability to keep pace with the changes in German taste. He remained the belated romanticist, who, as the reading world turned to new interests, clung the more tenaciously to the paraphernalia of romanticism; but in the cold, sober light of the post-romantic age, these appeared merely flimsy and theatrical. The vitalizing imaginative power of his early years deserted him, and the sobriquet of a "Don Quixote of Romanticism" which his enemies applied to him was not unjustified.

Fouque's first marriage had been unhappy and soon ended in divorce. His second wife, Karoline von Briest (1773-1831) enjoyed some reputation as a novelist in her day. After her death Fouque married a third time. Some consolation for the ebbing tide of popular favour was afforded him by the munificence of Frederick William IV. of Prussia, who granted him a pension which allowed him to spend his later years in comfort. He died in Berlin on the 23rd of January 1843.

Fouque's Ausgewahlte Werke, edited by himself, appeared in 12 vols. (Berlin, 1841); a selection, edited by M. Koch, will be found in Ktirschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vol. 146, part ii. (Stuttgart, 1893); Undine, Sintram, &c., in innumerable reprints. Bibliography in Goedeke's Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (2nd ed., vi. pp. 115 ff., Dresden, 1898). Most of Fouque's works have been translated, and the English versions of Aslauga's Knight (by Carlyle), Sintram and his Companions and Undine, have been frequently republished. For Fouque's life cp. Lebensgeschichte des Baron Friedrich de la Motte Fouque. Aufgezeichnet durch ihn selbst (Halle, 1840), (only to the year 1813), and also the introduction to Koch's selections in the Deutsche Nationalliteratur. (J. G. R.)