Nikolaus Lenau

Nikolaus Lenau, born Nikolaus Franz Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau (Csatád, Hungary, 1802 – Oberdöbling near Vienna, 1850), is one of the great German-language lyric poets of the Biedermeier era. After unfinished studies in philosophy, law, agronomy and medicine, he arrived in Swabia in 1831, where Gustav Schwab opened the doors of the publisher Cotta for him. There he formed friendships with Uhland, Kerner, Karl Mayer and especially Count Alexander of Wurtemberg, whose salon at Serach, above Esslingen, he frequented. Author of the Gedichte (1832), Faust (1836), Savonarola (1837) and Die Albigenser (1842), he succumbed to mental illness in 1844 and spent his last years in an asylum.