Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine wrote poetry that could break your heart in one stanza and make you laugh in the next. This collection spans his career, from the tender romantic verses of his youth to the savage political satire of his exile. Heine was a Jewish writer in 19th-century Germany, and that outsider perspective gave his work a sharp edge that still cuts today. His famous 'Loreley' ballad has been set to music more times than any other German poem, yet Heine himself mocked the sentimentality others found in his work. He called his book of political poems 'Deutschland. A Winter's Tale' and used fairy tale logic to skewer the petty tyrants of his age. What makes Heine enduring is his tone: he can sound tender and treacherous in the same breath, writing love poems that are also quietly about betrayal. This is Romanticism with its guard down, sometimes aching, sometimes sneering, always unmistakably alive.