Introduction

Biography

Son of a pas­tor, Em­ma­nu­el in­tend­ed to fol­low in his fa­ther’s foot­steps, and stu­died in Bonn and Ber­lin. How­ev­er, his real in­ter­ests lay not in theo­lo­gy, but in clas­sic­al and ro­mance phi­lo­lo­gy.

In 1838 he ac­cept­ed a tu­tor­ship in the house­hold of the Rus­sian am­bass­ador in Ath­ens, Prince Ka­ta­ka­zi, where he stayed un­til 1840. The same year he and his friend Ernst Cur­ti­us pub­lished a vol­ume of trans­la­tions from Greek.

In 1842 he en­tered the ser­vice of Fried­rich Wil­helm IV of Pruss­ia, with an an­nu­al st­ipend of 300 thal­ers.

In 1851, Maxi­mil­ian II of Ba­va­ria in­vit­ed Gei­bel to Mun­ich as an hon­or­ary pro­fess­or at the uni­ver­si­ty, and he re­linq­uished his Prus­sian sti­pend.

While in Mun­ich, Gei­bel was at the cen­ter of the li­ter­ary cir­cle called Die Kro­ko­dile (the Cro­co­dile So­ci­ety), which was con­cerned with tra­di­tion­al forms.

In 1852 he mar­ried Aman­da Trum­mer, and the next year they had a daugh­ter, Ada Ma­rie Car­ol­ine.

Beginning as a mem­ber of the group of po­li­ti­cal po­ets who her­ald­ed the re­vo­lu­tion of 1848, Gei­bel was al­so the chief po­et to wel­come the es­tab­lish­ment of the Em­pire in 1871.

Geibel left Mun­ich in 1869 and re­turned to Lü­beck, where he stayed un­til his death.

Works

• Zeit­stim­men, 1841
• Kö­nig Rod­er­ich, 1843
• Kö­nig Sig­urds Braut­fahrt, 1846
• Ju­ni­us­lie­der, 1848
• Ne­ue Ge­dich­te, 1857
• Brun­hild, 1858
• Spät­herbst­blät­ter, 1877
• So­phon­is­be, 1869
• Span­isch­es Lie­der­buch, 1852