The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Fastenrath, Johannes

FASTENRATH, Johannes, yō-hän'-nĕs fäs'ten-rat, German poet and story writer: b. Remscheid, 3 May 1839; d. 1908. A brief sojourn in Spain (1864) filled him with a permanent enthusiasm for its land and literature which inspired nearly all his life-work. He translated Juan Diana's comedy ‘Receipt Against Mothers-in-Law’; and compiled a series of volumes which are less translations than transcriptions in the spirit of the originals—‘A Wreath of Spanish Romances’; ‘Hesperian Blooms’; ‘The Book of My Spanish Friends’; ‘Voices of Christmas.’ He also published several works on the history of Spanish literature; and in Spanish, ‘Passion-Books of a German-Spaniard,’ a description of the Oberammergau Passion Play; and ‘Walhalla and the Glories of Germany.’ A volume of war songs dedicated ‘To the German Heroes of 1870’ is likewise his.