Background
His name was originally Louis Charles AdélaïdeAdelaide de Chamisso. His parents, who were of noble birth, fled from France to Berlin in 1790 to escape the Revolution, and Chamisso served in the Prussian army from 1798 to 1807. Although he became fairly well versed in the German language and in German thought, he felt himself a political orphan throughout his life.
Chamisso, an occasional editor of the Deutscher Musenal manach, and a member of the Berlin Romantic group, exhibited two characteristic Romantic traits: a vague yearning for the exotic, and an extensive use of the folk song form.
From 1815 to 1818 Chamisso made a trip around the world with Otto von Kotzebue, which resulted in his becoming custodian of the Royal Botanical Collections in Berlin. His published account of this expedition furnished Germans with a model for subsequent travel literature.
