Arnim, Achim von

Arnim, Achim or Joachim von (äkh`ĭm, yōäkh`ĭm, fən är`nĭm), 1781–1831, German writer of the romantic school. He is best remembered for his work with his brother-in-law, Clemens Brentano, on the folk-song collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn [the boy's magic horn] (1806–8). Arnim's novels include Gräfin Dolores (1810) and the unfinished Die Kronenwächter [the guardians of the crown] (1817). He was at his best in his historical novels, notably in Isabella of Egypt (1812, tr. 1927) and Owen Tudor (1809). Arnim had a predilection for the fantastic and the supernatural. Like Herder, he helped to create a popular German literary tradition. His wife,

Bettina von Arnim, 1785–1859, whose maiden name was Elisabeth Brentano, was also a writer. She corresponded with Beethoven and Goethe and published the letters, not as historical documents but in the light of her own highly poetic imagination, as in Goethe's Correspondence with a Child (1835, tr. 1837). She was an ardent literary supporter of liberal Young Germany.