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Updated: June 20, 2025
It is plain that many of the lyric writers leaned on Schreiber, and the librettists could have done the same; or they could have derived their initial suggestion in more attractive form than that offered by Loeben. It seems, however, that Geibel knew Loeben's saga.
Loeben has many supporters, though the external evidence, except for the fact that Heine corresponded with Brockhaus, is wholly lacking, and the internal weakens on careful study. It would seem that the striking similarity in form has misled investigators.
To know Loeben throws light on some of his much greater contemporaries Goethe, Eichendorff, Kleist, Novalis, Arnim, Brentano, Uhland, Görres, Tieck, and possibly Heine.
But there is nothing in Loeben that Heine could not have derived in more inspiring form from Schreiber; and Schreiber contains essentials not in Loeben at all. Indeed, a general study of Schreiber's manuals leads one to believe that the influence of them, as a whole, on Heine would be a most grateful theme: there is not one Germanic legend referred to in Heine that is not contained in Schreiber.
But between the years 1818 and 1847, Heine never published anything in Urania, which was used by so many of his contemporaries. Heine and Loeben never knew each other personally, and between the years 1821 and 1823 they were never regionally close together.
This then is just one of the many things that the German romanticists started; it is just one of their many contributions to the literature that lasts. And for the perpetuation of this one, students of German literature have, it seems, given the obscure Graf von Loeben entirely too much credit. But who will give the oft-scolded Clemens Brentano too little credit?
It would seem that the strong assertions of so many investigators in favor of Brentano and Loeben have made careful study of the matter appear not worth while; the problem was apparently solved. And since Heine never committed himself in this connection, the matter will, in all probability, remain forever conjectural.
Though his individual poems on the Lorelei betray the influence of Heine, and though his drama resembles Brentano's ballad in mood and in unimportant details, it contains the same proper names of persons and places that are found in Loeben.
Lyrics and episodic stories are interpolated, obsolete words and stylistic archaisms occur. In short, the novelette reads like an amalgamation of Novalis without his philosophy, Waekenroder without his suggestiveness, and Tieck without his constructive ability. The story entitled Leda is again typical of Loeben.
He offers no proof except the statements of Strodtmann, Hessel, and Elster to this effect. And again: "Der Name Lorelay findet sich bei Loeben nicht als Eigenname, wenn er auch das Gedicht, 'Der Lurleifels' überschreibt."
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