R├╝CKERT, Johann Michael Friedrich. (b. Schweinfurth 16 May 1788, d. Neussess, Koburg 31 Jan 1866)
R├╝ckertΓÇÖs poetry now lives mainly because of its setting as lieder by Schumann, Schubert, Brahms and Mahler.
After studying law and classical philology, he visited Vienna in 1818, where he was inspired with a lasting love for oriental poetry. He became professor of oriental languages at Erlangen in 1826 and in Berlin from 1841 to 1848.
His best known collections of poems are Liebesfr├╝hling (1823), Die Weisheit des Brahmanen (1836-9), and Haus- Und Jahrslieder (1838)
The Kindertodenlieder (Songs On The Death Of Children), published in 1872, after his death, were written in memory of his two children who had died of scarlet fever. Between 1902 and 1904 the composer Gustav Mahler set them as a song-cycle of the same name, foreshadowing the death of his own child, Maria, in 1907.
