Theodor Mundt

Born Sept. 19, 1808, in Potsdam; died Nov. 30, 1861, in Berlin. German writer and critic.

Educated at the University of Berlin, Mundt was associated with the Junges Deutschland (Young Germany) literary movement. His Madonna: Conversations With a Saint (1835), a work influenced by the Saint-Simonian ideas about the emancipation of the flesh, was subjected to censorship. In the late 1830’s and early 1840’s, Mundt capitulated and became reconciled with the government. His principal works are the historical novels Thomas Münzer (1841), Count Mirabeau (1858; Russian translation, 1899), and Tsar Paul (1861; Russian translation, 1899). Mundt also wrote works on aesthetics and the theory of literature.