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Fairy tales and folksongs served as inspiration for Romanticism.
Nature, love, supernatural phenomena, freedom and genius are
important themes of Romantic literature.
The Schlegel brothers, Ludwig Tieck and Clemens Brentano set
the tone.
Heinrich Heine's (1797 - 1856) rates among the more satirical
and politically minded Romantic poets. Many of his 'Romantic'
poems have been set to music and are now erroneously taken
to be folksongs. His political poetry often sides with working
class people and democratic ideals and finally leads to his
involuntary emigration.
Brothers Grimm (1785 - 1863 and 1786 - 1859) followed the
trend and set about collecting traditional folksongs and fairy
tales. Thanks to their endeavours tales like 'Snow White',
'Rapunzel', 'Hansel and Gretel', 'Cinderella' or 'Rumpelskiltsin'
have been preserved.
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