Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué
1777–1843
Biography
Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777–1843) was a German writer and one of the first poets of the Romantic movement in his country. He was born in Brandenburg an der Havel into a family of Huguenot origin; his father was a Prussian army officer, and Friedrich first followed a soldier's path. He left his studies at Halle to join the army, served in the Rhine campaign of 1794, and fought with the Prussian forces again in 1813 against Napoleon. Literature gradually became the centre of his life. The older critic and poet August Wilhelm Schlegel, who brought out Fouqué's first book in 1804, was a strong early influence.
His reputation was made with works that drew on medieval chivalry and northern myth. His Sigurd trilogy, published together in 1810 as Der Held des Nordens, combined the German Nibelung legend with Icelandic sources and helped shape later treatments of the story, including those by Hebbel and Wagner. Undine, which appeared around 1811, is the work by which his name is still remembered. It tells of a water spirit who can win a soul only by marrying a mortal man, and its English versions were reprinted many times.
His popularity peaked between about 1810 and 1815, when he produced romances, plays and epics at great speed. From about 1820 the quality of his work declined, and rival writers mocked him as the Don Quixote of Romanticism. His stories nevertheless kept readers. William Morris admired Sintram and His Companions, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women mentions Undine, and Dvořák's opera Rusalka draws on the story alongside Andersen's Little Mermaid.
Undine is listed on this site under Fouqué's name. It is the story that has kept his memory alive, and it is the best place to meet him for readers who know him only by name.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Undine
by Friedrich Heinrich Karl La Motte-Fouqué
A knight falls in love with a foundling girl who is secretly a water-spirit, and the water makes its claims. Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's 1811 fairy romance, here in Charlotte Yonge's English, a source for later tales of the sea-maiden.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.