Johann Ludwig Tieck was born on May 31, 1773, in Berlin as the son of a master rope-maker. Although he wanted to go on the stage, it was decided that he should study theology—the field most readily open to young men who were gifted but not affluent or well-connected. Tieck attended the universities at Halle, Erlangen, and Göttingen from 1792 to 1794, devoting himself more and more to the study of the humanities (literature, philology, history). After returning to Berlin, Tieck wrote in quick succession a horror novel, Abdallah (1795), the three volumes of Geschichte des Herrn William Lovell (1795-1796), and the novel Peter Leberecht (1795). From 1795 to 1798, Tieck contributed substantially to Friedrich Nicolai’s magazine Straussfedern on a freelance basis. Under the pseudonym Peter Leberecht (taken from his own novel), he published three volumes of Volksmärchen (1797), which included the tale of the beautiful Magelone. Johannes Brahms set the poems in it to music as Romanzen aus der “schönen Magelone,” opus 33. In the same year appeared The Outpourings of an Art Loving Friar, which as noted above, Tieck wrote in collaboration with his friend Wackenroder. These aesthetic reflections on art and music are still read and perceived as the epitome of the early Romantic program. The novel Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen also deals with aesthetic concepts; it is a Künstlerroman and has as its protagonist a fictitious pupil of Albrecht Dürer.

In 1798, Tieck married a pastor’s daughter, Amalia Alberti, from Hamburg. In 1799, he went to Jena, joining the Schlegels’ circle (August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling). Increasingly, he turned to the dramatic genre in his writing. Particularly in the Märchendrama (Puss-in-Boots, Ritter Blaubert, Prinz Zerbino, The Life and Death of Little Red Riding Hood, Das Ungeheuer und der verzauberte Wald, and others) he was able to combine innocent humor with biting satire on contemporary political and social topics. Longer plays of a more serious nature include Karl von Berneck, Leben und Tod der heiligen Genoveva, and Fortunat. The latter, although called a fairy tale, is highly didactic.

In 1801, after a brief stay in Berlin, Tieck moved to Dresden, attending to his philological interests (Minnelieder aus dem Schwäbischen Zeitalter, 1803), as well as to writing in various genres and topics (Der Anti-Faust, a satiric comedy; “Der Runenberg,” a short horror story; Kaiser Octavianus, a two-part dramatic fantasy). In 1805-1806, Tieck traveled to Italy with a group of friends, attempting to recover from an illness that befell him in 1804 in Munich, where he had accompanied his divorced sister Sophie Bernhardi. One of the most prominent Romantics, Tieck’s almost obsessive creativity began to suffer because of his continuing health problems, and he turned more and more to editorial work. After his return from Rome, he went to Ziebingen, traveled to Vienna and Munich in 1808, and to the health spa in Baden-Baden in 1810. After visiting Heidelberg, he returned to Ziebingen. The summer of 1813 Tieck spent in Prague together with his family, and he traveled to London in 1817 with his friend Wilhelm von Burgsdorff in order to have rare manuscripts copied for his Shakespearean studies.

In 1819, Tieck settled in Dresden, where he participated in an advisory capacity at the Dresden theater beginning in 1825. Although his own plays lacked public support for successful performances, Tieck had become well-known as cofounder of the early Romantic school, as a universal talent, as a theoretician and critic of the theater, as a master of Romantic irony, and as a reader of his own plays and poetry. In 1841, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia appointed Tieck as his reader, gave him the title of Geheimer Hofrat, and called him as adviser to the Royal Theater in Berlin. Until his death, Tieck lived alternately in Berlin and in Potsdam, where he had been given the use of a villa near the royal residence. His stage productions of Antigone, and especially that of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, created a great sensation. Although the dramatic works of his youth were not theatrically successful and indeed rarely staged, they have survived as Lesedramen because of their exquisite wit, satiric content, and ironic treatment.