HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Bard of Democracy
Russian novehst Ivan Turgenev, even tried her own
skill at setting Heine to music. English audiences,
generally unfamiliar with German, divined the
quality of the lyricist through these musical interpretations.
Besides, though none of the translations
of Heine's complete works was wholly adequate,
there were so many different English versions of
individual songs and ballads that a careful sifting
of the vast number could bring together a moderately
satisfactory reproduction of Heine, the
lyricist. Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker, the daughter of
the exiled German political poet Ferdinand Freiligrath,
undertook such a task in 1887- For her
Heine-edition, she selected from the many versions
at her disposal the one rendering that in each
case seemed, in her opinion, most successful. A
proper choice was not always easy. The magic
touch of Heine eluded most of his imitators. How
many of these there were becomes evident from
the list of those translators who survived her sifting
and whose products were included in her volume.
Besides herself, she included Theodore Martin,
Charles Godfrey Leland, J. E. Wallis, Alma
Strettell, Francis Hueffer, George MacDonald, A.
Rogers, Ernest Radford, W. H. Fumess, Emma
Lazarus, John Todhunter, H. S. Jarrett, who wrote
[147]