SOURCE: "National Subjects in the Works of Achim von Arnim," in German Life and Letters, Vol. 24, No. 4, July, 1971, pp. 316-27.

In the excerpt below, Mornin examines the use of old German stories in the pieces in Der Wintergarten and in the novella Isabella von Ägypten. The critic argues that Arnim used these materials in order to "purify and morally regenerate the Germans" through his works.

Achim von Arnim's political activities in the years 1806-13, his publication of German folk-songs in Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1806-8), and his literary exploitation of German historical subjects and of old German traditions, legends and literature have caused him to be regarded as a typical representative of the patriotic and national trend discernible in German Romanticism in the early years of the nineteenth century. Despite this, little attention has been paid to fundamental aspects of the relationship between the national subject matter of his...