BRENTANO, Clemens, German dramatist and novelist, was born at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in 1777. His sister Elizabeth was the well-known Bettina von Arnim, Goethe’s correspondent. He studied at Jena, and afterwards resided in Heidelberg, Vienna, and Berlin, leading a somewhat restless and unsettled life. In 1818 his disgust with all mundane affairs reached such a height that he withdrew from ordinary life and lived in the strictest seclusion at Dülmen. This continued for six years; the latter part of his life he spent in Ratisbon, Frankfort, and Munich. He died at Aschaffenburg 28th July 1842. Brentano belongs to the romantic school of German poetry, and his works, like all others of that class, are marked by excess of fantastic imagery and by abrupt, bizarre modes of expression, His first published writings consisted of satires and poetical dramas {Satiren und Poetische Spiele, 1800); of his later dramas the best are Ponce de Leon, 1804, and Victoria, 1817; of his poems the best is Die Gründung Prags, 1816. On the whole his finest work is the short tale, or novelette, Geschichte vom braven Kaspar und dem schönen Annerl, a very perfect little piece, which has been translated into English. Brentano also assisted Ludwig Achim von Arnim, his brother-in-law, in the collection of the tales and poems forming Des Knaben Wunderhorn, 1800-8. The collected works appeared at Frankfort in 1852.