Gottfried Keller

Keller was Swiss: he was born in Zürich and lived there for most of his life. His writings achieved great popularity in his lifetime: his fame is mainly for his prose works, which include novels (“der grüne Heinrich”) and short stories (“Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe”), but he was a talented poet who made occasional use of classical motifs. He shares with Thomas Hardy origins in a poor family and a poetic talent for vivid and evocative descriptions of nature.