HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

CHAPTER IV
HELLENIST AND CULTURAL PESSIMIST
BY 1870 the battle for Heine was won. He had
entered into the English cultural stream. He
had become as much a part of Western literary tradition
as Voltaire or Goethe or Byron. His authority
was frequently quoted in justification of certain
tenets espoused by some Englishmen or in opposition
to certain ideas disliked by others. Thackeray
read him in translation and Emily Dickinson in the
original.^ John Addington Symonds, in 1868, was
amused and wearied by the wisdom, the humor, the
stinging satire, and the exquisite lyricism of the
Travel Sketches.^ Havelock Ellis, in 1876, gained
mastery of German by becoming absorbed in Heine
and, durmg the following decades, he translated
Heine's Florentine Nights and edited Heine's Prose
Writings for English readers.^ Dante Gabriel Rossetti
sought in Heine inspiration for paintings and
his brother, William Michael Rossetti, paid tribute
to the German poet in a sonnet which summed up
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