Lenau, Nikolaus

Related Category: German Literature: Biographies

(nē´kōlous lā´nou), pseud. of Nikolaus Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau(nēmpsh ād´lər fən shtrā´lənou), 1802–50, Austrian romantic poet, b. Hungary. He is considered Austria's chief lyric poet. Pessimism and melancholy dominate his work, which includes three volumes of vivid poems of peasant life (1832, 1838, 1840); the epics Savonarola (1837) and Die Albigenser (1842); and the long lyric poem Faust (1836). Lenau's mind failed in 1844, and he spent his last years in an asylum.

See study by H. Schmidt (1971).