Nikolaus Lenau.
1802-1850. Hungarian-Austrian poet.
Lenau’s fame rests mainly upon his shorter poems; even his epics are essentially lyric in quality. His poem “Herbst” expresses the sadness and melancholy he felt after his sojourn in the United States and his strenuous travels across the Atlantic to return to Europe. In it he mourns the loss of youth, the passing of time, and his own sense of futility. The poem is archetypal of Lenau’s style and culminates with the speaker dreaming of death as a final escape from emptiness. He is the greatest modern lyric poet of Austria, and the typical representative in German literature of that pessimistic Weltschmerz which, beginning with Lord Byron, reached its culmination in the poetry of Giacomo Leopardi.
