Amalie from Imhoff

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Amalie von Imhoff (1800) - miniature portrait by Johann Lorenz Kreul

Anna Amalie von Imhoff , married . von Helvig (born August 16, 1776 in Weimar ; † December 17, 1831 in Berlin ) was a German writer . She lived for a time at the Weimar Musenhof and was supported in her writing by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller . Alexander von Humboldt adored her, she was a member of Goethe's Wednesday wreath (1801–1803) and from 1801 a lady in waiting for Duchess Luise von Hessen-Darmstadt . After her marriage to a Swedish colonel, she established close contacts with the Heidelberg Romanticism and ran an important salon in Berlin, which was considered the central meeting point for representatives of the Weimar Classic and Romanticism in Berlin. She was also committed to the dissemination of Swedish literature in Germany and in 1826 created the first German translation of Esaias Tegnérs Frithiofs Saga from Swedish, which contemporaries considered exemplary.

Life

childhood

The father Carl von Imhoff
The mother Luise von Imhoff

Amalie von Imhoff was born in Weimar in 1776. Her father Christoph Adam Carl Freiherr von Imhoff (1734–1788), first married to the gardener's daughter from Stuttgart, Anna Maria (called Marian) Apollonia Chapuset (de St. Valentin) (1747–1837), went as a portrait and Miniature painter to England, in 1769 finally to Calcutta in Bengal ( India ), where he supposedly had his wife "bought off" by Warren Hastings , which caused a scandal in his homeland. Carl von Imhoff returned to Germany wealthy and married Luise Franziska Sophie von Schardt (1750–1803), Charlotte von Stein's youngest sister, in 1775 . A year later, Amalie von Imhoff was born as the couple's first child. Her godparents were Karl Ludwig von Knebel and the Duchess of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach Anna Amalie , who also gave her name. Shortly after the birth of their daughter, the family moved to the Mörlach family estate near Hilpoltstein, today the district of Roth in Middle Franconia, where Amalie von Imhoff grew up. She was already considered gifted in childhood and spoke French and English at the age of eight. At that time she had already visited France, England and the Netherlands with her parents.

The family lived in legendary luxury until the fortune was exhausted and the estate had to be sold in 1785. Through the mediation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Luise von Schardt and Carl von Imhoff were brought to Weimar, where Carl von Imhoff received an annual pension of 300 thalers through Carl August. Amalie von Imhoff did not follow her parents, but was sent to a pension in Erlangen. Here she learned of her father's death in 1788 and went back to her mother in Weimar in 1790/1791.

The time in Weimar

In Weimar Amalie von Imhoff received drawing lessons from Johann Heinrich Meyer and practiced copying and portraying at an early age. She frequented her uncle von Stein's house and Friedrich Schiller's Jena house, with whom her mother was friends. Over time she got to know the most important scholars and artists in Weimar. She continued to educate herself through her suggestions and learned among other things Greek in order to be able to read Homer in the original. Friedrich Schiller became aware of her poetic talent through a masked poem Amalie von Imhoffs addressed to the Duchess and, together with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, encouraged her to take a serious look at literature. At the same time, for Goethe and Schiller, she became one of the prime examples of a dilettante whose literary support provided them with practical illustrative material in writing their schemes on dilettantism . Amalie von Imhoff wrote numerous poems for Schiller's Musenalmanach and his Horen , which however appeared anonymously or under the code "A." or "F."

Amalie von Imhoff was popular and adored in Weimar. Karl Gustav Brinckmann raved about her in 1798 and wrote an elegy on her, The Apparition / To Amalia , in which she is sung about as a muse that appears to the poet who is leaving Germany on the Rhine and gives him "German" values ​​such as intimacy and seriousness of feeling. The mathematician Camille Jordan was also one of her admirers.

From 1801 Amalie von Imhoff lived as court lady of the Duchess Louise at the Musenhof in Weimar and was a member of the literary circle of the Dowager Duchess Anna Amalia. From 1801 to 1803 she was a member of Goethe's Wednesday wreath in Weimar. In 1803 Amalie von Imhoff married the Swedish Colonel Karl Gottfried von Helvig , who later became a Prussian general. After the death of her brother and mother in 1803, she followed him to Stockholm .

Stays in Sweden and Heidelberg

Because of health problems and difficulties in her marriage, she returned to Germany with her three children in 1810 and lived in Heidelberg, where she studied German art intensively. In total, Amalie von Imhoff had five children, but three of them died in infancy.

In Heidelberg Amalie von Imhoff was temporarily a member of the Heidelberg Romantic Circle around Sulpiz Boisserée and wrote works in the Romantic style. Her husband visited her in Heidelberg in 1812 and was arrested here on Napoléon's orders, but released again after the intervention of the Grand Duchess Stéphanie de Beauharnais , which was brought about by Amalie von Imhoff's efforts. From 1814 to 1816 Amalie von Imhoff stayed again in Sweden, where she met, among others, Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom and Erik Gustaf Geijer , some of whose poems she translated into German over the next few years. When Pomerania fell to Prussia in the following years, Karl Gottfried von Helvig transferred to Prussian services, so that Amalie von Imhoff, in addition to brief stays in Dresden and Weimar, lived mostly in Berlin from 1816 onwards.

As a salon lady in Berlin

In Berlin, Amalie von Imhoff worked as a salon lady at Behrenstrasse 23. Shortly after her arrival, she always gathered a sociable group around her on Mondays, which was in contact with other salons and became a central meeting point for representatives of the Weimar Classics in Berlin, but was also visited by representatives of the late Romanticism. Soon the Amalie von Imhoffs salon was one of the most important, sophisticated literary salons in Berlin. Amalie von Imhoff's guests included Georg Andreas Reimer , Achim and Bettina von Arnim , Clemens Brentano , Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué , Adelbert von Chamisso , Ernst Moritz Arndt and Ottilie and August von Goethe . Through her husband, the salon was also visited by high officials and Prussian officers such as Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach and Ludwig Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach or August Neidhardt von Gneisenau . Due to her connections to Sweden, guests like the poet Erik Gustav Geijer and the composer Adolf Fredrik Lindblad came to Berlin and visited Amalie von Imhoff's salon.

Like other contemporary salons, Amalie von Imhoffs was primarily a literary salon. As the focus of Weimar Classicism - to which Amalie von Imhoff herself was a member - in Berlin, works by Goethe and Schiller were often presented and discussed. Amalie von Imhoff's salon also joined a large number of literary salons that led to an idolization of Goethe in particular in the Romantic era, even if Amalie von Imhoff was much more critical of the classics . Romantic works were also discussed by guests such as Ludwig Tieck and Clemens Brentano.

In Amalie von Imhoff's salon, music was occasionally made, by Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, among others, and music was discussed theoretically, for example the visit of Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano led to conversations about folk songs. In addition, works by contemporary visual artists were discussed, some of whom took part in the sociable rounds, some of which were organized in the form of "art teas". For example, Peter von Cornelius ' drawings for Goethe's Faust or Wilhelm Hensel's graphics were discussed.

Amalie von Imhoff on her death bed (1831)

At the same time, Amalie von Helvig was a welcome guest in the salons of other salonniers and was among others with Rahel Varnhagen von Ense, Sophie Sander and Elisabeth von Staegemann .

Amalie von Imhoff died on December 17, 1831 in Berlin. She was buried five days later in the family grave of the von Helvig family in the old part of the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin. Her grave was moved to the new part in the 19th century and finally leveled. Today the graves of Heinrich Mann and Johannes R. Becher are on their grave site .

meaning

Publications in the Horen and in Schiller's Musenalmanach

Amalie von Imhoff was a welcome member of the Weimar Court of Muses. She was well educated and had good taste and sang, made music and showed great talent in drawing. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described her as “an excellent talent”, which, however, according to Goethe and Schiller's understanding, was on an amateurish, i.e. exclusively enthusiastic level. Schiller wrote in a letter to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that she did not come to poetry through her heart, but only through her imagination and that her entire life would only play with what, according to Goethe and Schiller, was one of the main characteristics of amateur art practice. Nevertheless, Friedrich Schiller made it possible for the young author to publish her first works in his magazine Die Horen . In 1797, in addition to the smaller poems “The Festival of Hertha” and “The Shadows on a Masked Ball”, “the beautifully successful” poem “Abdallah and Balsora” appeared in six songs.

Amalie von Helvig also published some of her poems in Schiller's Musenalmanach for the years 1798 and 1799 (for example “My dream”, “The joys of the present”). Schiller was satisfied with the result.

“Imhof is developing quite a beautiful poetic talent; she added some of the most dearest things to the almanac. [...] One notices very clearly in their productions the solid insights into another art. "

- Schiller to Meyer, 14./21. July 1797

The sisters of Lesbos

→ Main article: About amateurism

Her epic The Sisters of Lesbos , which was completed in March 1799, attracted Schiller's particular attention, so that he drew Goethe's attention to it. The work, written in hexameters , revolves around the custom on the island of Lesbos, according to which only the first-born daughter is allowed to marry and her sisters have to serve her as maids. In The Sisters of Lesbos , however, the younger sister and the groom of the eldest fall in love, but in the end the younger sister finds the strength to renounce.

Goethe noticed numerous stylistic deficiencies in the epic and decided to examine the extent to which amateurish works could be developed into true art . From May 1799, he was at Amalie von Imhoff's side with suggestions for improvement. When her changes did not go far enough for him, he edited the epic himself, but after several months of work he was not satisfied with the result.

Although Goethe's experiment did not turn out to be what he wanted, the work received praise when it appeared in the Musenalmanach for the year 1800 and saw numerous new editions as a single publication in 1801.

Romance author and translator

During her time in Heidelberg from 1810 onwards, Amalie von Imhoff returned to literary work. Under the influence of Johann Heinrich Voss , works were created that were influenced by antiquity. Soon her works also showed features of early romanticism, such as her work Taschenbuch der Sagen und Legenden , edited together with Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué , which appeared in 1812 and was illustrated by Peter von Cornelius. In the following years she wrote numerous descriptions of old German paintings for Friedrich Schlegel , for which she was inspired primarily by Sulpiz Boisserée's collection of paintings.

During her second stay in Sweden from 1814 to 1816, Amalie von Imhoff came into contact with the Swedish Romantics. From 1816 onwards she worked hard to make Swedish literature known in Germany. In addition to translations of Atterbom's and Geijer's works, the first translation of the Frithjofssage by Esaias Tegnér into German in 1826 was of particular importance. Goethe paid her public recognition for the translation. The transmission was still in its eighth edition in 1879 and was considered a classic work of translation .

Works

  • Poems in the Horen 1797
    • Abdallah and Balsora. A poem in six songs (8th piece, pp. 65-108)
    • The Festival of Hertha (10th piece, pp. 27-40)
  • Poems in the Muses Almanac for the year 1798 (under the abbreviation A. ):
    • Mein Traum (pp. 19–23) - set to music by Carl Friedrich Zelter
    • Sonnet (p. 45)
    • The lost May day (pp. 80–86)
    • The fashion (pp. 194–198)
    • The maiden of the castle. Romance (pp. 242–255)
    • To Daphne (pp. 288–291)
    • The joys of the present (pp. 301–303) - set to music by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg
  • Poems in the Muses Almanac for the year 1799 :
    • The female appearances (pp. 200–201)
    • Die Geister des Sees (pp. 165–169) - set to music by Joseph Wölfl
    • The good bye. The 20th of June 98 (pp. 232–234)
  • Poem in the Muses Almanac for the year 1800 :
    • The sisters of Lesbos. In six songs by Amalie von Hellwig, b. from Imhof. Bruzelius, Stockholm / Uppsala 1818. ( digitized version )
  • Other works:
    • The sisters on Corcyra. A dramatic idyll in two parts. From Amalie von Helvig. Art and Industry Comptoir, Amsterdam / Leipzig 1812. ( digitized )
    • Paperback of sagas and legends. Edited by Amalie v. Hellwvig and Fr. Baron de la Motte Fouqué. - Berlin: Realschulbuchh, 2 volumes, 1812 a. 1817. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
    • The daytime. A cycle of Greek times and customs in four idylls. From Amalie von Helvig. Bruzelius, Stockholm / Uppsala 1812. ( digitized version )
    • Dramatic idylls (1812)
    • The legend of the Wolfsbrunnen. Engelmann, Heidelberg 1814. ( digitized version )
    • Poems for the good of the unfortunate old people, widows and orphans in Greece (1826)
    • Helene von Tournon. Story by Amalie von Helvig, née Freyeinn von Imhoff. Schade, Vienna 1825.

literature

  • Rochus Freiherr von Liliencron:  Amalie von Helvig . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, p. 714 f.
  • Henriette Krohn von Bissing: The life of the poet Amalie von Helvig . Wilhelm Hertz , Berlin 1889.
  • Max Mendheim (Ed.): Poets and epics of the classical period . Part 3. Union, Stuttgart 1890, pp. 107-164.
  • Max F. Hecker: Amalie von Helvig . In: Prussian year books . 107, 1902.
  • Albert Ludwig: A niece of Frau von Stein's . In: ZfdPh . 61, 1936, pp. 309-14.
  • Ruth Schirmer: Our dear little friend: Amalie V. Imhoff, niece of Frau v. Stone . Boss Verlag, Kleve 1952.
  • Adalbert Elschenbroich:  Helvig, Amalie von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 508 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger: The Berlin salons: With historical-literary walks . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2000.
  • Gerhard Koch (Ed.): Imhoff India Driver. A travel report from the 18th century in letters and pictures . Wallstein, Göttingen 2001.
  • Janet Besserer Holmgren: The women writers in Schiller's Horen: patrons, petticoats, and the promotion of Weimar classicism . Univ. of Delaware Press, Newark 2007.
  • New nekrolog der Deutschen, Volume 9, S.1062f

Web links

Wikisource: Amalie von Helvig  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Amalie von Imhoff  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ The background to the English divorce law of the time can be read from Gerhard Koch (Ed.): Imhoff India Driver. A travel report from the 18th century in letters and pictures . Göttingen: Wallstein 2001
  2. ↑ Her siblings were Philipp Ernst Carl (1781–1803) and Katharina Marias Anna Sophia Carolina (1783–?)
  3. ↑ Koch (Ed.), Imhoff India Driver, p. 30.
  4. ^ Gero von Wilpert : Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , p. 507.
  5. ↑ The godparents of her daughter Dorothea, born in 1818, were August Neidhardt von Gneisenau and Princess Marianne von Prussia . See Dollinger, p. 132.
  6. ^ Dollinger, p. 133.
  7. ↑ Dollinger counts Amalie von Imhoff's salon among the twelve most important salons in Berlin after 1800. Cf. Dollinger, p. 128.
  8. ↑ Other salons are for example that of Rahel Varnhagen von Ense or that of Bettina von Arnim.
  9. ↑ See Dollinger, p. 134.
  10. ^ Dollinger, p. 423.
  11. ↑ See Wilpert, p. 460.
  12. ↑ Schiller to Goethe, letter of August 17, 1797. “On the other hand, Amelie Imhof did not come to poetry through her heart but only through her imagination, and will only play with it all her life. But because, according to my concept, the aesthetic is seriousness and play at the same time, whereby seriousness is based on content and play is based on form, the Mereau must always miss the poetic in terms of form, Imhof always misses in terms of content. " In: Schiller, NA 29, p. 199.
  13. ↑ Schiller on her first publications: “I tried not to give you any unworthy company on your first step into the world of writing. […] May I find out what you are doing poetic now? It would be really nice if you could give me another story for the Horen this year. ”Schiller to Amalie von Imhoff, letter of October 4, 1797. In: Schiller, NA 29, pp. 144f.
  14. ↑ “Don't quarrel with me, dear friend, for replying so late to your dear letter and the beautifully successful poem. [...] I was very happy about your poem and besides the beautiful and delicate that it contains in abundance, I also wondered a little about the correctness of the language and the verse. In it you will find at most a few words from me changed. ”Schiller to Amalie von Imhoff, letter of September 22, 1797. In: Schiller, NA 29, p. 138
  15. ↑ What is meant here is painting.
  16. ↑ Wilpert, p. 460
  17. ↑ Schiller paid her 40 Karolin for the publication . See Schiller to Cotta, letter of January 12, 1800. In: Schiller, NA 30, p. 138.
  18. ↑ ADB, p. 715.
personal data
SURNAME Imhoff, Amalie von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Helvig, Amalie von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1776
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 1831
Place of death Berlin