born March 18, 1813, Wesselburn, Schleswig-Holstein
died Dec. 13, 1863, Vienna, Austria
German poet and dramatist.
After an early life marked by poverty, he became famous with the prose play Judith (1840), based on the biblical story. Among his later tragedies, Maria Magdalene (1843), portraying the lower middle class, and Gyges and His Ring (1856), probably his most mature and subtle work, are realistic psychological tragedies that make use of G.W.F. Hegel 's concepts of history and moral values. The mythological trilogy Die Nibelungen (1862) grandiosely depicts the clash between heathen and Christian.