German poetess, born at Lengwethen, a small village in East Prussia, of a peasant family. Her education ceased when she was eleven years of age, after which she was obliged to attend to all the household duties. The father was naturally fond of reading, but was able to indulge in the luxury of but one illustrated weekly journal. The duties of the young poetess enfeebled her strength and she became weakly. But she persisted; and although to her household work was added labor on the threshing-floor and in the stable, yet after dark she found time to exercise her poetic instinct, and set down her inspiration in verse. These came accidentally under the notice of Carl Schrattenthal, who assisted her in bringing out a volume of poems that has been the talk of Continental critics, and has brought the lowly poet fame. When twenty years of age she married a peasant named Voight, a son and daughter being born to them. Notwithstanding the adverse circumstances under which this gifted poetess was born and reared, she seems intuitively to have exercised a broad and humane understanding. Without culture, the muse found a congenial and virgin soil in her mind. She has attained a foremost place among her contemporaries in literature. See also “A Peasant’s Thoughts,” etc.
