Background

Bettina von Arnim was born on April, 4 1785 at Frankfurt am Main, into the large family of an Italian merchant. Her grandmother, Sophie von La Roche, was a novelist, and her brother was Clemens Brentano, the great poet known for his lyric poems, libretti, and Singspiele. He was a mentor and protector to her and inspired her to read the poetry of the time, especially Goethe.

Bettina lived for a while with her grandmother at Offenbach am Main and from 1803 to 1806 with her brother-in-law, Friedrich von Savigny, the famous jurist, at Marburg.

Education

Bettina was educated at a Ursulines convent school in Fritzlar from 1794 to 1797.

Career

Bettina lived for a while with her grandmother from 1803 to 1806.

She formed a friendship with Karoline von Günderrode. The two friends acknowledged only natural impulses, laws, and methods of life, and brooded over the “tyranny” of conventionalities. In 1806, Günderrode committed suicide on account of a passion for the philologist Georg Friedrich Creuzer.

In 1807 at Weimar Bettina made the acquaintance of Goethe, for whom she entertained a significant passion, which the poet did not requite, though he entered into correspondence with her. Their friendship came to an abrupt end in 1811, owing to Bettina's behaviour with Goethe's wife.

During the years of 1806 to 1808, von Arnim helped gather the folk songs that made up Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the collaborative work of her brother and her future husband, Achim von Arnim. Some of the songs were later put to music by a number of composers, among them Gustav Mahler. The collection became a touchstone of the Romantic musical and poetic style. From 1808 to 1809 she studied voice, composition, and piano in Munich under Peter von Winter and Sebastian Bopp. She published her first song under the pseudonym Beans Beor, which she occasionally used later as well. Bettina sang briefly in the Berliner Singakademie and composed settings of Hellenistic poems by Amalie von Helvig.

Though domestic duties connected to her 1811 marriage to von Arnim diminished her productivity, several art songs from the period have been recovered and have been published in Werke und Briefe. Von Arnim was the first composer to set the poet Hölderlin’s work to music.

She was a muse to the progressives of Prussia, linked to the socialist movement and an advocate for the oppressed Jewish community. She published two politically dissident works but evaded chastisement because of her friendship with the King of Prussia.

After the 1831 death of her husband, Bettina continued her dedication to the creative community. She published a collection of seven songs in public support of Prussian music director Gaspare Spontini, under duress at the time.

Bettina maintained an active public life. Her passion for Goethe revived, and in 1835, after lengthy discussions with the writer and landscape gardener Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, she published her book Goethe's Correspondence with a Child (German: Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde), which purported to be a correspondence between herself and the poet. The book is in large part fictitious. Genuine sonnets of Goethe in it were addressed, not to her, but to Minna Herzlieb. As a work of fiction, the book has been praised.

She continued to write, inspire, and publish until 20 January 1859, when she died in Berlin, aged 73, surrounded by her children.

Achievements

• Bettina Brentano was a writer, publisher, composer, singer, visual artist, an illustrator, patron of young talent, and a social activist. She was the archetype of the Romantic era's zeitgeist and the crux of many creative relationships of canonical artistic figures. Best known for the company she kept, she numbered among her closest friends Goethe, Beethoven, and Pückler and tried to foster artistic agreement among them. Many leading composers of the time, including Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johanna Kinkel, and Johannes Brahms, admired her spirit and talents. As a composer, von Arnim's style was unconventional, molding and melding favorite folk melodies and historical themes with innovative harmonies, phrase lengths, and improvisations that became synonymous with the music of the era.
  
  The German-American settlement of Bettina in the state of Texas was founded in 1847 and named by its progressive, idealistic founders after Bettina von Arnim.
  
  Part of von Arnim's design for a colossal statue of Goethe, executed in marble by the sculptor Karl Steinhauser (1813–1878), was displayed in the museum at Weimar in 1911.
  
  From 1991 until 31 December 2001, her portrait was on the German 5-Mark bill.
  
  In 2006, the German government turned Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, the estate of the von Arnim's, into a literary institute. The institute contains a museum devoted to the von Arnim's literary legacy.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Das Leben der Hochgräfin Gritta von Rattenzuhausbeiuns (German Edition)

    (Bettina von Arnim: Das Leben der Hochgräfin Gritta von Ra...)

  • Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde - Vollständige Ausgabe (German Edition)

    (Dieses eBook: "Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde - Vol...)

  • Clemens Brentanos Frühlingskranz: aus Jugendbriefen ihm geflochten, wie er selbst schriftlich verlangte (German Edition)

    ( Nineteenth Century Collections Online: European Literat...)

  • Die Günderode: Briefe (German Edition)

    (Dieses eBook wurde mit einem funktionalen Layout erstellt...)

  • Dies Buch gehört dem König (German Edition)

    ( Bettina von Arnim: Dies Buch gehört dem König Edition ...)

  • Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia. (German Edition)

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

  • Die Leidenschaft ist der Schlu?ssel zur Welt: Briefwechsel 1832-1844 (German Edition)

Connections

In 1811, Bettina married Achim von Arnim, the renowned Romantic poet. The couple settled first at the Wiepersdorf castle, and then in Berlin. They had seven children.

Achim died in 1831, but Bettina maintained an active public life. Her daughter Gisela von Arnim became a prominent writer as well. Her nephews, via her brother Christian, were Franz and Lujo Brentano.

Spouse:

Carl Joachim Friedrich Ludwig von Arnim

(26 January 1781 – 21 January 1831)

Brother:

Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano

(9 September 1778 – 28 July 1842)

grandmother:

Sophie von La Roche

(6 December 1730 – 18 February 1807)

Daughter:

Armgart Catharina

(born March 4, 1821, died 17 January 1880)

Daughter:

Gisela von Arnim

( August 30, 1827, Berlin – April 4, 1889, Florence)

Son:

Siegmund Lucas

born October 2, 1813, February 22, 1890)

Son:

Freimund Johann

( 5 May 1812- 2 March 1863)

Son:

Maximiliane Countess of Oriola

(born October 23, 1818 in Berlin , died December 31, 1894 )

Son:

Kühnemund Waldemar

( 24 March 1817, 24 June 1835)

Son:

Friedmund Anton Nepomuk

(born February 9, 1815, July 24, 1883)

Friend:

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

brother-in-law:

Friedrich von Savigny

(21 February 1779 – 25 October 1861)

References

• Bettina von Arnim: Ihr Leben, ihre Begegnungen, ihre Zeit (German Edition)
• Bettina von Arnim (Sammlung Metzler) (German Edition)
• Bettine Brentano und Achim von Arnim: Lehrjahre einer Liebe (German Edition)