List of German-language poets
Encyclopedia
This list contains the names of individuals (of any ethnicity or nationality
) who wrote poetry
in the German language
. Most are identified as "German poets," but some are not German
. All, though, wrote poetry in the German language
.
See also: List of German-language philosophers, List of German-language authors, poetry
, German literature
, List of German-language playwrights and German Wikipedia's list.:de:Liste deutschsprachiger Dichter
Nationality
Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....
) who wrote poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
in the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Most are identified as "German poets," but some are not German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
. All, though, wrote poetry in the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
See also: List of German-language philosophers, List of German-language authors, poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, German literature
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
, List of German-language playwrights and German Wikipedia's list.:de:Liste deutschsprachiger Dichter
A
- Dietmar von AistDietmar von AistDietmar von Aist was a Minnesinger from a baronial family of Upper Austria, documented between 1140 and 1171,whose work is representative of the lyric poetry of the Danube region.-Life:...
- Alfred AnderschAlfred AnderschAlfred Hellmuth Andersch was a German writer, publisher, and radio editor. The son of a conservative East Prussian army officer, he was born in Munich, Germany and died in Berzona, Ticino, Switzerland...
- Achim von Arnim
- Bettina von ArnimBettina von ArnimBettina von Arnim , born Elisabeth Catharina Ludovica Magdalena Brentano, was a German writer and novelist....
- Hans Arp
- H. C. ArtmannH. C. ArtmannHans Carl Artmann , also known as Ib Hansen, was an Austria-born poet and writer, most popular for his early poems written in Viennese , which however never after were to be the focus of his oeuvre.-Life and work:Artmann was born in Vienna as the son of shoe...
- Hartmann von AueHartmann von AueHartmann von Aue was a Middle High German poet. He introduced the courtly romance into German literature and, with Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strassburg, was one of the three great epic poets of Middle High German literature...
- Rose AusländerRose AusländerRose Ausländer , maiden name Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer, was a Jewish German- and English language poet. She was born in Bucovina, and lived in U.S.A, Romania, and Germany....
B
- Ingeborg BachmannIngeborg BachmannIngeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
- Hugo BallHugo BallHugo Ball was a German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists.Hugo Ball was born in Pirmasens, Germany and was raised in a middle-class Catholic family. He studied sociology and philosophy at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg...
- Johannes Robert Becher
- Gottfried BennGottfried BennGottfried Benn was a German essayist, novelist, and expressionist poet. A doctor of medicine, he became an early admirer, and later a critic, of the National Socialist revolution...
- Thomas BernhardThomas BernhardThomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...
- Johannes BobrowskiJohannes BobrowskiJohannes Bobrowski was a German lyric poet, narrative writer, adaptor and essayist.-Life:Bobrowski was born in Tilsit in East Prussia. In 1925, he moved first to Rastenburg, then in 1928 on to Königsberg, where he attended the humanist Gymnasium. One of his teachers was Ernst Wiechert. In 1937, he...
- Nicolas BornNicolas BornNicolas Born was a German writer.Nicolas Born was - together with Rolf Dieter Brinkmann - one of the most important and most innovative German poets of his generation...
- Volker BraunVolker BraunVolker Braun is a German writer. His works include Provokation für mich -- a collection of poems written between 1959 and 1964 and published in 1965, a play, Die Kipper , and Das ungezwungne Leben Kasts .-Life:Volker Braun, who worked in...
- Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
- Clemens von Brentano
- Rolf Dieter BrinkmannRolf Dieter BrinkmannRolf Dieter Brinkmann was an important poet of German Pop-Literatur. He also wrote Keiner weiß mehr , a novel of modern family life. His early writing was inspired by Gottfried Benn and the French nouveau roman...
- Hermann BurgerHermann BurgerHermann Burger , was a Swiss poet, novelist and essayist. In his creative works Burger often focused on society's lonely outsiders and, increasingly, the inevitability of death...
- Wilhelm BuschWilhelm BuschWilhelm Busch was an influential German caricaturist, painter, and poet who is famed for his satirical picture stories with rhymed texts....
E
- Albert EhrensteinAlbert EhrensteinAlbert Ehrenstein was an Austrian-born German Expressionist poet. His poetry exemplifies rejection of bourgeois values and fascination with the Orient, particularly with China. He spent most of his life in Berlin, but also travelled widely across Europe, Africa, and the Far East...
- Günter EichGünter EichGünter Eich was a German lyricist, dramatist, and author. He was born in Lebus, on the Oder River, and educated in Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris....
- Joseph von Eichendorff
- Hans Magnus EnzensbergerHans Magnus EnzensbergerHans Magnus Enzensberger , is a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He has also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr. He lives in Munich.- Life :...
- Wolfram von EschenbachWolfram von EschenbachWolfram von Eschenbach was a German knight and poet, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of his time. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.-Life:...
G
- Stefan GeorgeStefan GeorgeStefan Anton George was a German poet, editor, and translator.-Biography:George was born in Bingen in Germany in 1868. He spent time in Paris, where he was among the writers and artists who attended the Tuesday soireés held by the poet Stéphane Mallarmé. He began to publish poetry in the 1890s,...
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
- Yvan GollYvan GollYvan Goll, born Isaac Lange , was a French-German poet who was perfectly bilingual and wrote in both French and German...
- Günter GrassGünter GrassGünter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
- Durs GrünbeinDurs GrünbeinDurs Grünbein is a German poet, living in Berlin since 1985.Grünbein is hailed as the most significant and successful poet to emerge from the former East Germany, and his work has been awarded many major German literary prizes, including the highest, the Georg-Büchner-Preis, which he won in 1995...
- Johann Christian GüntherJohann Christian GüntherJohann Christian Günther was a German poet from Striegau in Lower Silesia. After attending the gymnasium at Schweidnitz, he was sent in 1715 by his father, a country doctor, to study medicine at Wittenberg; but he was idle and dissipated, had no taste for the profession chosen for him, and came to...
H
- Reinmar von HagenauReinmar von HagenauReinmar also known as Reinmar von Hagenau or Reinmar der Alte was the most important Minnesinger before Walther von der Vogelweide....
- Peter HandkePeter HandkePeter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
- Heinrich HeineHeinrich HeineChristian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
- Helmut HeißenbüttelHelmut HeißenbüttelHelmut Heißenbüttel was a German novelist and poet. Among Heißenbüttel's works are Das Textbuch and Marlowe's Ende . He received the important Georg Büchner Prize in 1969...
- Karl Friedrich HenckellKarl Friedrich HenckellKarl Friedrich Henckell was a German author.Henckell studied at the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, Munich, and Zurich...
- Georg HerweghGeorg HerweghGeorg Friedrich Rudolph Theodor Herwegh was a German revolutionary poet.-Biography:He was born in Stuttgart on 31 May 1817, the son of an innkeeper...
- Hermann HesseHermann HesseHermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
- Georg HeymGeorg HeymGeorg Heym was a German writer. He is particularly known for his poetry, representative of early Expressionism.- Life :...
- Paul Heyse
- Michael HofmannMichael HofmannMichael Hofmann is a German-born poet who writes in English and a translator of texts from German.-Biography:...
- Friedrich HölderlinFriedrich HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
- Arno HolzArno HolzArno Holz was a German naturalist poet and dramatist. He is best known for his poetry collection Phantasus .-Life and Works:...
- Gerhart HauptmannGerhart HauptmannGerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...
J
- Ernst JandlErnst JandlErnst Jandl was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator.- Poetry :Influenced by Dada he started to write experimental poetry, first published in the journal "Neue Wege" in 1952....
- Johannes Jansen
- Elfriede JelinekElfriede JelinekElfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."-...
- Ernst JüngerErnst JüngerErnst Jünger was a German writer. In addition to his novels and diaries, he is well known for Storm of Steel, an account of his experience during World War I. Some say he was one of Germany's greatest modern writers and a hero of the conservative revolutionary movement following World War I...
K
- Anna Louisa Karsch
- Erich KästnerErich KästnerEmil Erich Kästner was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known for his humorous, socially astute poetry and children's literature.-Dresden 1899–1919:...
- Marie Luise KaschnitzMarie Luise KaschnitzMarie Luise Kaschnitz was a German short story writer, novelist, essayist and poet. She is considered to be one of the leading post-war German poets...
- Gottfried KellerGottfried KellerGottfried Keller , a Swiss writer of German-language literature, was best known for his novel Green Henry .- Life and work :...
- Hans Peter KellerHans Peter KellerHans-Peter Keller was a German poet who authored several poem collections, e.g. Auch Gold rostet or Panoptikum aus dem Augenwinkel . In the 1960s Hans-Peter Keller was teacher for literature at the vocational school for librarians in Düsseldorf....
- Gottfried KinkelGottfried KinkelJohann Gottfried Kinkel was a German poet also noted for his revolutionary activities and his escape from a Prussian prison in Spandau with the help of his friend Carl Schurz.-Early life:...
- Sarah KirschSarah KirschSarah Kirsch is a German poet.She was born Ingrid Bernstein in Limlingerode, Prussian Saxony. She changed her first name to Sarah in order to protest against her father's anti-semitism. She studied biology in Halle and literature at the Johannes R. Becher Institute for Literature in Leipzig. In...
- Karin KiwusKarin KiwusKarin Kiwus is a German poet from Berlin. After studying journalism, German studies and politology she worked as an editor as well as a university teacher in Austin, Texas. She was the domestic partner of the German film director Frank Beyer until his death in 2006.-Works:*"Von beiden Seiten der...
- Friedrich Gottlieb KlopstockFriedrich Gottlieb KlopstockFriedrich Gottlieb Klopstock was a German poet.-Biography:Klopstock was born at Quedlinburg, the eldest son of a lawyer.Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more attention having been given...
- Thomas KlingThomas Kling- Life :Thomas Kling was born in Bingen am Rhein, grew up in Hilden and went to school in Düsseldorf. He studied Philology in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Vienna and lived in Finland for a certain period. Since 1983 he presented his poems on public performances – first in Vienna, than in the Rhineland...
- Helmut KrausserHelmut KrausserHelmut Krausser is a German author, poet and playwright who was born in Esslingen am Neckar.-Biography:Krausser lives in Munich and Berlin. He married Beatrice Renauer in 1991.In 1993 he received the Toucan Prize....
- Reiner KunzeReiner KunzeReiner Kunze is a German writer and GDR dissident. He studied media and journalism at the University of Leipzig. In 1968, he left the GDR state party SED following the communist Warsaw Pact countries invasion of Czechoslovakia in response to the Prague Spring. He had to publish his work under...
L
- Else Lasker-SchülerElse Lasker-SchülerElse Lasker-Schüler was a Jewish German poet and playwright famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Berlin. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement. Lasker-Schüler fled Nazi Germany and lived out the rest of her life in Jerusalem.-Biography:Schüler was born in...
- Christine LavantChristine LavantChristine Lavant was an Austrian poet and novelist.- Life :...
- Alfred LichtensteinAlfred Lichtenstein (writer)Alfred Lichtenstein was a German expressionist writer.Lichtenstein grew up in Berlin as the son of a manufacturer. He finished a study of law in Erlangen...
- Ulrich von LiechtensteinUlrich von LiechtensteinUlrich von Liechtenstein was a medieval nobleman, knight, politician, and minnesanger. He was born in 1200 in Murau, located in present day Austria. After the usual noble training as a page and a squire to Margrave Heinrich of Istria, he was knighted by Duke Leopold VI of Austria in 1223...
- Till LindemannTill LindemannTill Lindemann is a German musician, actor and poet who is the frontman for the German Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein.-Biography:...
- Iwar von LückenIwar von LückenIwar von Lücken was a German poet and part of the avantgarde art scene in Leipzig and Berlin of the Inter-War period. He was a subject of several paintings by Otto Dix and Oskar Kokoschka, the main reason he is known at all today...
M
- Karl MayKarl MayKarl Friedrich May was a popular German writer, noted mainly for adventure novels set in the American Old West, and similar books set in the Orient and Middle East . In addition, he wrote stories set in his native Germany, in China and in South America...
- Friederike MayröckerFriederike MayröckerFriederike Mayröcker is an Austrian poet.- Life :From 1946 to 1969 Mayröcker was an English teacher at several public schools in Vienna. In 1969 she took a release from working as a teacher and in 1977 she retired early.She started writing as a 15 year old...
- Alfred MombertAlfred MombertAlfred Mombert was a German poet, born in Karlsruhe, and educated at the universities of Heidelberg, Leipzig, Munich, and Berlin. He practiced law for six years and then devoted himself to his literary work...
- Christian MorgensternChristian MorgensternChristian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern was a German author and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on March 7, 1910...
- Heinrich von MorungenHeinrich von MorungenHeinrich von Morungen or Henry of Morungen was a German Minnesinger.-Life:Almost nothing about his life can be deduced from Heinrich's songs. Possibly he is identical with the Hendricus de Morungen who is documented in Thuringia...
- Heiner MüllerHeiner MüllerHeiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
- Inge MüllerInge MüllerInge Müller was an East German poet.-Life:Inge Müller was born in Berlin in 1925. During World War II, she participated in the Reichsarbeitsdienst in different towns in Styria until she would be sent to Berlin as a Luftwaffe aide. Her parents died in an air strike...
- Thomas MannThomas MannThomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
- Heinrich MannHeinrich MannLuiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
S
- Hans SachsHans SachsHans Sachs was a German meistersinger , poet, playwright and shoemaker.-Biography:Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg . His father was a tailor. He attended Latin school in Nuremberg...
- Nelly SachsNelly SachsNelly Sachs was a Jewish German poet and playwright whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews...
- Alexios SchandermaniAlexios SchandermaniAlexios Schandermani is an Iranian German writer.-Early life:Schandermani lived in Tehran, the capital of Iran. In 1953 US Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the Iranian government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and restored Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Schandermani's father was a leftist...
(born 1953) - Johannes Scheffler, named Angelus SilesiusAngelus SilesiusAngelus Silesius was a German Catholic mystic and poet.-Life:Silesius was born in Breslau , Silesia as son of Polish noble and German mother...
- Friedrich SchillerFriedrich SchillerJohann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
- Sibylla SchwarzSibylla SchwarzSibylla Schwarz, also known as Sibylle Schwartz was a German poet of the Baroque era.-Life :Sibylla Schwarz was the daughter of Christian Schwarz, mayor of Greifswald, and Regina Schwarz....
- Kurt SchwittersKurt SchwittersKurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...
- Moriz SeelerMoriz SeelerMoriz Seeler was a German poet, writer, film producer, and man of the theatre. He was also a victim of the Holocaust....
- Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg
- Moritz von Strachwitz
- Gottfried von StrassburgGottfried von StrassburgGottfried von Strassburg is the author of the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan and Isolt, an adaptation of the 12th-century Tristan and Iseult legend. Gottfried's work is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of the great narrative...
- Botho Strauss
- Der Stricker
T
- Ludwig TieckLudwig TieckJohann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...
- Georg TraklGeorg TraklGeorg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.- Life and work :Trakl was born and lived the first 18 years of his life in Salzburg, Austria...
- Hugo von TrimbergHugo von TrimbergHugo von Trimberg was a German Catholic didactic author of the Middle Ages....
- Süßkind von TrimbergSüßkind von Trimbergthumb|230px|right|Süßkind, der Jude von Trimberg , portrait from the Codex Manesse.Süßkind von Trimberg is given as the author of six poems in the Codex Manesse...
- Kurt TucholskyKurt TucholskyKurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel. Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved to Paris in 1924 and then to Sweden in 1930.Tucholsky was one of the most important journalists of...
- Ulrich von TürheimUlrich von TürheimUlrich von Türheim was a German writer from the Augsburg area writing during the first half of the 13th century. Three of his works have survived: a conclusion to the version of the Tristan legend left unfinished by Gottfried von Strassburg; Rennewart, a continuation of Willehalm, left unfinished...
- Heinrich von dem Türlin
V
- Hendrik van Veldeke
- Walther von der VogelweideWalther von der VogelweideWalther von der Vogelweide is the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets.-Life history:For all his fame, Walther's name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of Erla of the Passau diocese:...
- Johann Heinrich Voß
W
- Robert WalserRobert Walser (writer)Robert Walser , was a German-speaking Swiss writer.-1878–1897:...
- Erich WeinertErich WeinertErich Bernhard Gustav Weinert was a German Communist writer and a member of the Communist Party of Germany .-Biography:...
- Oswald von WolkensteinOswald von WolkensteinOswald von Wolkenstein was a poet, composer and diplomat. In the latter capacity, he traveled through much of Europe, even as far as Georgia , and was inducted into the Order of the Dragon...
- Konrad von WürzburgKonrad von WürzburgKonrad von Würzburg was the chief German poet of the second half of the 13th century.As little is known of his life as that of any other epic poet of the age. By birth probably a native of Würzburg, he seems to have spent part of his life in Strassburg and his later years in Basel, where he died...
- Christa Wolff