admitted[8] that Loeben influenced him as a man and as a poet; it was
he who induced Eichendorff to write some of his earlier works under
the pen-name of "Florens." And Eichendorff in turn credited Goethe
with the remark[9] that "Loeben war der vorzüglichste Dichter jener
Zeit." His influence on Platen[10] is not quite so certain; Loeben was
Platen's senior by ten years, and they resembled each other in their
ability to employ difficult verse and strophe forms, and Platen read
Loeben in 1824. Kleist interested himself in Loeben sufficiently to
publish one of his short stories in his _Abendblätter_, but only after
he had so thoroughly revised it that Reinhold Steig says: "Ich würde
als Herausgeber die Erzählung sogar unter Kleists _Parerga_
aufnehmen."[11] His connection with, and influence upon, the Dresden
group of romanticists, including Tieck, is a matter of record,[12] and
Fouqué looked upon him as a poet of uncommon ability.[13]

But let no one on this account believe that Loeben was a great poet
and that the silence concerning him is therefore grimly unjust.
Goethe, whether he made the foregoing remark or not, at least
received[14] Loeben kindly; but he received others in the same way who
were not poets at all. Eichendorff said: "Loeben. Wunderbar poetische
Natur in stiller Verklärung."[15] But Eichendorff was then only
nineteen years old, and he later took this back. Herder was moved to
tears[16] on reading Loeben's _Maria_, but Herder was easily moved,
and he died soon after; he would in all probability have changed his
mind too. Friedrich Schlegel, on the other hand, was not justified in
calling[17] the pastoral poems in _Arkadien_ "Schafpoesie." Uhland
praised[18] these same poems; but he reminded Loeben in no uncertain
terms, that the chief characteristic of southern poetry was
"Phantasie," while that of the northern poets was "Gemüth," and that
the attempt to revive the spirit of Guarini, Cervantes, and their kind