HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

CHAPTER VI
BARD OF DEMOCRACY
IN 1888 there appeared the first full-length English
biography of Heine which laid main stress
upon his modernism and cosmopolitanism. Its
author was William Sharp, who afterwards established
a considerable reputation as a poet in his own
right under the pseudonym of "Fiona Macleod."
Thirteen years previously, William Stigand had
published a two-volume biography for English
readers, but despite its bulk, it was hardly more
than a compilation of famihar material based upon
Adolf Strodtmann's German book, with the addition
of numerous Heine-quotations. Stigand himself
took no stand on any of the controversial aspects
of his hero's personality. He failed to integrate
the mass of detailed information and, as a
result, there did not emerge any clear, incisive portrait
of the poet and thinker. Sharp, on the other
hand, boldly unravelled the complexities of his subject.
He continued the English tradition established
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