Bartscherer,C.:Heinrich Heines rel.Rev.

Heine instigated a religious revolt in his writings between 1825 and 1848, which already anticipated Nietzsche's general attack on Christianity in its fundamentals. He not only attempts to overthrow the Jewish-Christian concept of God but also to proclaim a new 'Dionysian' age of self-deification. However, this intellectual elevation of humanity to God was cruelly thwarted by Heine's physical condition. In his final years, Heine transforms from a pagan god of man to a poor, sick Jew, from a god-murderer to a supplicant. Despite this radical reversal, Heine's rebellious nature remains fundamentally unbroken. He now affirms God as the ultimate meaning of human existence, but he connects this affirmation with the biting question of theodicy.