Tasting Life’s And Love’s Bliss & Pain

Winthrop H. Root, in his Introduction to: Poems and Letters of Nikolaus Lenau (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1964), 59-60:

Bearing the burden of his tumultuous heart and of his dedicated poethood, Lenau lived life fully; he drank gladly at the “forest pool” of life and love, tasting their bliss as well as their pain, and never hesitated to drink deeply. Although he suffered keenly, he embraced the suffering (and the joy) and with the magic of the creative artist transformed what he suffered (and enjoyed) into melodious verse. In spite of its tendency to focus on the shadows of human existence (to the point, as he himself puts it, of “monotony”) his poetry is not that of a victim of life, crushed by its burden, but that of a strong man who, turning his burden into a source of creativity, achieved his life’s purpose before his tragic breakdown overwhelmed him.