Ludwig Uhland in the present age. Poet – politician – academic

For many years, Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862) was considered one of the greatest intellectuals of 19th century. As a poet he was on a par with Schiller and Goethe, as a politician he was a highly regarded member of the German parliament and Paulskirche representative, and as an academic he was honoured as the founder of German language and literature studies. Today, Uhland has been widely forgotten, although some of his poetry is still very much alive, though few know that it was written by Uhland. This lecture aims to remember this once so celebrated and then so marginalized 19th-century celebrity and answer the question as to why he is still relevant today.

Prof. Dr. Helmuth Mojem, born in 1961, is director of the Cotta Archive at the German Literature Archive in Marbach. His academic work focuses on Swabian Romanticism, and he has published numerous publications in this field. He currently lectures at the Deutschen Seminar at the University of Tübingen.