Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Uhland, Johann Ludwig

UHLAND, Johann Ludwig (1787-1862), German poet, was born at Tubingen, on April 26, 1787. He studied at the university of his native place, taking jurisprudence as his special subject, but also devoting much time to literature. Having graduated as a doctor of laws in 1810, he went for some months to Paris; and from 1812 to 1814 he worked at his profession in Stuttgart, in the bureau of the minister of justice. He had begun his career as a poet in 1807 and 1808 by contributing ballads and lyrics to Seckendorf's Musenalmanach; and in 1812 and 1813 he wrote poems for the Poetischer Almanack and for the Deutscher Dichterwald. In 1815 he collected his poems in a volume entitled Gedickte, which almost immediately secured a wide circle of readers, and gives him his place in German literature. To every new edition he added some fresh poems; and the sixtieth edition, published in 1875, included a number of pieces found among his papers. He wrote two dramatic works Ernst, Herzog von Schwaben and Ludwiy der Baier the former published in 1817, the latter in 1819. These, however, are unimportant in comparison with his Gedickte. In some respects Uhland must be classed with the writers of the romantic school, for, like them, he found in the Middle Ages the subjects which appealed most strongly to his imagination. But his style has a precision, suppleness, and grace which sharply