Weiblinger, Wilhelm Friedrich

He spent his childhood and adolescence first in Stuttgart , then in Reutlingen , returned to Stuttgart to study at the gymnasium, and from 1822 he studied at the Tubingen seminary . Holderlin, already mentally ill, lived in Tübingen with a local carpenter. Vaiblinger, like Edward Mörike , visited the old poet, took him out for a walk, and subsequently wrote a book about him “The Life of Hölderlin, His Poetry and Madness” ( German: Friedrich Hölderlin's Leben, Dichtung und Wahnsinn ; 1828). These meetings were also reflected in Waiblinger's first novel, Phaeton, which described the life of a high school student. The visits of Waiblinger and Mörike to Hölderlin became the plot of Hermann Hesse ’s story “In Presselevsky Garden House” (1913).

In 1826, on the initiative of Johann Friedrich Cotta, Waiblinger went to Italy and settled in Rome, married an Italian woman. He described his life in Italy in detail in a later published diary. At the age of 25, Waiblinger died suddenly from pneumonia, a collection of his poems was posthumously published by his friend Mörike (1844).

Among the most notable works in the heritage of Vayblingera - the story "Three days in the underworld" ( it. Drei Tage in der Unterwelt ; 1826) and published only in 1986 the story "Olura", one of the earliest examples of vampire history. As noted in the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron , Waiblinger's books and diaries "testify to great fantasy and poetic talent, but at the same time about unbridled passion and inner discord, which led the poet to dissatisfaction with himself and his life." He died of pneumonia . He was buried in the Roman non-Catholic cemetery .

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