Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano (also Klemens; pseudonym: Clemens Maria Brentano; German: [bʁɛnˈtaːno]; 9 September 1778 – 28 July 1842) was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz and Lujo Brentano.
Biography
Clemens Brentano was born to Peter Anton Brentano and Maximiliane von La Roche, a wealthy merchant family in Frankfurt on 9 September 1778. His father's family was of Italian descent. His maternal grandmother was Sophie von La Roche. His sister was writer Bettina von Arnim, who, at a young age, lionised and corresponded with Goethe, and, in 1835, published the correspondence as Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (Goethe's correspondence with a child). Clemens Brentano studied in Halle and Jena, afterwards residing at Heidelberg, Vienna and Berlin. He was close to Wieland, Herder, Goethe, Friedrich Schlegel, Fichte and Tieck.
From 1798 to 1800 Brentano lived in Jena, the first center of the romantic movement. In 1801, he moved to Göttingen, and became a friend of Achim von Arnim. He married writer Sophie Mereau on 29 October 1803. In 1804, he moved to Heidelberg and worked with Arnim on Zeitungen für Einsiedler and Des Knaben Wunderhorn. After his wife Sophie died in 1806 he married a second time in 1807 to Auguste Bussmann (whose half-sister, Marie de Flavigny, later by marriage the Countess Marie d'Agoult, would become the companion of pianist and composer Franz Liszt). In the years between 1808 and 1818, Brentano lived mostly in Berlin, and from 1819 to 1824 in Dülmen, Westphalia.
