Troubled, romantic, genius even though he doesn't think he is one..he is a poet and a composer..tried to kill himself in 1854 but couldn't succeed and then he is hospitalised and left the world behind in 1856..
Schumann admired Schubert and wrote letter even but was too timid to sent it. ”there was a time, when ı spoke unwillingly of Schubert, who could only be spoken of at night in the midst of the forests and stars..” early in dec 1828, when he learned of Schubert’s death, Schumann noted in his diary: “Schubert is dead —dismay and confusion.” and Schumann wept all night. p.13
“what I truly am,” he wrote in his diary on 24 January 1827, “is not all clear to me. ı believe ı possess imagination..ı am not a deep thinker…whether ı am a poet — one can never become one —posterity shall determine.” p.14
“ı’m lucky that ı don’t live alone. ı could easily become melancholy.” letter to his mother on 31 aug 1828
Schumann criticise himself in third person: “ı would not reckon him among ordinary men..his temperament is melancholy, more sentimental than contemplative, more subjective than objective..a powerful imagination..needing external stimulus..discernment, wit, reflective thought —not strong. more emotional than intellectual —leaning towards the artistic rather than speculative. distinguished in music and literature. not a musical genius. his talent as a musician and poet are on an equal level.” around late 1829
1828 diary: “tones are words, but on a higher level..music is the higher power of poetry; angels must speak in tones, spirits in words of poetry…every composer is a poet, only at a higher level.”
“god!, ı want to change myself, ı swear it to you. give me just one person — only one — on whom ı can lay my heart— a sweetheart, a beloved, give me a feminine heart — a feminine heart! ı can then become reconciled to myself, to everything!” and clara become his feminine heart that he was seeking desperately..he wrote to her on 11 january 1832, “ı often think of you, not as a brother thinks of a sister, nor as a boyfriend thinks of a girlfriend, but as a pilgrim before a distant shrine.”
25 nov 1831: “je ne suit qu’un songe (ı am but a dream)”..letters becoming sounds, sounds becoming words..
8 feb 1838: “my path is, ı know, a fairly lonely one — with not hurrahs from the crowds to stimulate my work.”
~Book: Schumann by Eric Frederick Jensen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NfwmVCSQuQ
~ myrthen, op.25: no.3 der nussbaum
"they whisper of a maiden who
dreamed
for nights
and days of, alas, she knew not what.
they whisper—who can understand
so soft
a song?
whisper of a bridegroom and next year.
the maiden listens, the tree rustles;
yearning,
musing
she drifts smiling into sleep and dreams."