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A Reflection for the Third Sunday of Easter
Like many before and since, the German Romantic poet Heinrich Heine had great difficulty accepting the death of his father Samson. As a child, Heine had greatly admired, even adored, his father, but his career as a writer had led him far from home. It was weeks after his father’s death when Heinrich could finally return.
In his biography
Heinrich Heine: Writing the Revolution (2020) part of the tremendous Jewish Lives Series from Yale University Press George Prochnik links the strong sorrow the poet experienced to his neglect of his father’s twilight years: “Though Samson had been fading for years and Heine’s visits home were rare, the news struck him a body blow. Decades later he told a friend that he simply couldn’t absorb the loss.”