Heidenröslein

About This Book

"Heidenröslein" is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe written in 1771 during his Strasbourg period, inspired by his relationship with Friederike Brion, the daughter of a local parson in Sessenheim with whom he had a brief but intense love affair. The poem was first published as verse in 1789 by Georg Joachim Göschen. It describes a young man who observes a freshly blooming rose sitting upon a heath and decides to pluck it, despite the rose's warning that it will prick him so that he will never be able to forget the flower. The poem has been frequently set to music, most notably by Franz Schubert, but also by Heinrich Werner (1829), whose simple strophic melody became widely disseminated in 19th-century songbooks, and by Franz Lehár (1928), who incorporated a setting of the song into his operetta Friederike.

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