More individual than Rueckert is Adalbert von Chamisso (1781-1838).
Though he was born in the Champagne in France, and was therefore a
fellow-countryman of Joinville and La Fontaine, he became a German
by education and preference, and his name is inseparably linked with
German scholarship and letters. It is remarkable that Chamisso began
to write German only after 1801 and is reported never to have spoken
it perfectly; yet his verse ranks with the best products of Germany in
fluency and in form. Much of it, especially that with woman's love as
its theme, is extremely German in thought and feeling, though perhaps
French in its keenness of analysis. So German is Chamisso felt to be
that at his best he is ranked with Goethe and Heine.
When the boy Chamisso was nine years old, the family was driven from
France but was later allowed to return, though Adalbert never went
back permanently. Thus it was that during the years 1806-13, the young
expatriate led a life of the greatest mental torment; France no longer
meant anything to him, and in Germany he felt himself a stranger and
an outcast. Always awkward personally, and of a nervous temperament,
he found it difficult to adjust himself to surrounding conditions.
His scholarly zeal, however, and his ability to sit for hours in close
study, show how completely his mentality was adjustable to the German
manner. In Berlin he was accepted by the younger Romantic group and
was a member of the famous North Star Club with Arnim and his set.
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