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From the generation following Johann Wolfgang von Goethe there is perhaps no writer more controversial than Heinrich Heine. Although best known now for his early lyrics--which have been set to music more often than those of any other poet--during most of his life he was renowned for his witty prose, his political journalism, and his caustic satires. These were the writings which earned him a controversial reputation among his contemporaries and after his death. Frequently censored for his liberal views and his attacks on religion, he was despised by narrow-minded German nationalists for his cosmopolitan feelings and discriminated against by a bigoted German society for his Jewish origins. While his writings became extremely popular among enlightened sectors of the European intelligentsia, in his native land he was often subjected to scorn or ridicule. This prejudice against Heine culminated in the period of National Socialism, when he was retroactively stripped of his German background; during the Third Reich the author of the "Loreley," Heine's most celebrated poem, was listed as "an unknown poet."
This blatant discrimination on the part of fanatical racists is somewhat balanced, however, by Heine's tremendous impact on the most innovative minds of the nineteenth century.
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