Wolfgang Menzel , German poet, critic and literary historian, was born at Waldenburg in Silesia. He studied at Breslau, Jena and Bonn, and after living for some time in Aarau and Heidelberg finally settled in Stuttgart, where, from 1830 to 1838, he had a seat in the Württemberg Diet. His first work, a clever and original volume of poems, entitled Streckverse , was followed in 1824-1825 by a popular Geschichte der Deutschen in three volumes and in 1829 and 1830 by Rubezahl and Narcissus, the dramatized fairy-stories upon which his reputation as a poet chiefly rests. In 1851 he published... the romance of Furore, a lively picture of the period of the Thirty Years War; his other writings include Geschichte Europas, 1789-1815 , and histories of the German War of 1866 and of the Franco-German War of 1870-71. From 1826 to 1848 Menzel edited a Literaturblatt in connection with the Morgenblatt; in the latter year he transferred his allegiance from the Liberal to the Conservative party, and in 1852 his Literaturblatt was revived in that interest.
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| Birthdate: | June 26, 1798 |
| Birthplace: | Wałbrzych |
| Date of death: | April 23, 1873 |