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Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse
(1830-1914)
German writer and prominent member of the traditionalist Munich school
who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1910.
Heyse studied classical and Romance languages and traveled for a year
in Italy, supported by a research grant. After completing his studies
he became an independent scholar and was called to Munich by Maximilian
II of Bavaria. There, with the poet Emanuel Geibel, he became the head
of the Munich circle of writers, who sought to preserve traditional
artistic values from the encroachments of political radicalism, materialism,
and realism. He became a master of the carefully wrought short story,
a chief example of which is L'Arrabbiata (1855). He also published novels
(Kinder der Welt, 1873; Children of the World) and many unsuccessful
plays. Among his best works are his translations of the works of Giacomo
Leopardi and other Italian poets. His poems provided the lyrics for
many lieder by the composer Hugo Wolf. Heyse, who was given to idealization
and who refused to portray the dark side of life, became an embittered
opponent of the growing school of Naturalism, and his popularity had
greatly decreased by the time he received the Nobel Prize.
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