Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
| Annette von Droste-Hülshoff | |
|---|---|
portrait by Johann Joseph Sprick
|
|
| Born |
10 January 1797 Havixbeck, Holy Roman Empire |
| Died | 24 May 1848 (aged 51) Meersburg, Grand Duchy of Baden |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | German |
| Period | 19th century |
| Genre | Poetry, novella |
Anna Elisabeth Franziska Adolphine Wilhelmine Louise Maria, Freiin von Droste zu Hülshoff, known as Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (German: [aˈnɛtə fɔn ˈdʁɔstəˈhʏlshɔf]; 10 or 12 January 1797 – 24 May 1848), was a 19th-century German writer and composer. She was one of the most important German poets and author of the novella Die Judenbuche.
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff was born at the castle of Burg Hülshoff (now a part of Havixbeck) in the Prince-Bishopric of Münster. Her family, the Barons Droste zu Hülshoff belongs to the old Catholic aristocracy of Westphalia. Her father Clemens August von Droste zu Hülshoff (1760-1826) was a learned man who was interested in ancient history and languages, ornithology, botany, music and the supernatural. Her mother Therese Luise (1772-1853) came from another aristocratic Westphalian family, the Barons von Haxthausen. Annette was the second of four children: she had an elder sister Maria Anna (nicknamed "Jenny", 1795-1859) and two younger brothers, Werner Konstantin (1798-1867) and Ferdinand (1800-1829). Annette was born one month prematurely and only saved by the intervention of a nurse. She suffered from problems with her health throughout her life, including headaches and eye troubles.
Droste was educated by private tutors in ancient languages, French, natural history, mathematics and music (she inherited considerable musical talent from her father). She began to write as a child; 50 poems written between 1804 and 1814 have been preserved. Droste's maternal grandfather Werner Adolf von Haxthausen had remarried after the death of his first wife (Annette's grandmother) in 1772 and built himself a new castle, Schloss Bökerhof, in the village of Bökendorf, Paderborn. Here his sons from his second marriage, Werner and August, had formed an intellectual circle. They were in contact with such celebrated cultural figures as the Brothers Grimm, Clemens Brentano, Friedrich Schlegel, Adele and Johanna Schopenhauer. Droste visited the castle frequently and made the acquaintance of Wilhelm Grimm. She and her sister contributed folk tales from Westphalia to the Grimms' famous collection of fairy stories. However, neither Grimm nor her step-uncles gave any encouragement to the young girl's literary ambitions. The only literary figure to recognise Droste's precocious talent was Anton Matthias Sprickmann (1749-1833), whom she first met in 1812. Sprickmann was the founder of the theatre in Münster and had known important 18th-century poets such as Matthias Claudius and . Droste trusted Sprickmann's judgement and showed him many of her early works, including the unfinished tragedy Berta oder die Alpen ("Berta, or The Alps", 1813). Other examples of her juvenilia are the tale in verse Walter (1818) and a novel Ledwina (begun in 1819 but never completed).
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