German Romantic Poets

A greatest-hits selection from some of the most popular poets of the Romantic movement, including Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel, and Heinrich Heine, in a gorgeously jacketed small hardcover.

Unlike the more earnest English Romantic poets, the followers of the Romantic movement in Germany valued wit and humour along with beauty. Admiration for nature is also prominent in their poetry, and in particular the dramatic forests which still cover large areas of Germany. Love and death crop up repeatedly as themes in such famous works as Goethe’s “Elf King,” Eichendorff’s “Night of Moon,” and Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Characters from myth and folklore abound as well, most famously Lorelei, an enchantress who is associated with the 132-meter rock of the same name on the right bank of the Rhine River and who features in several poems in this volume. Also gathered here are such favorites as Holderlin’s “Bread and Wine,” Schiller’s “The Visit of the Gods,” Eichendorff’s “Nocture,” and Heine’s “The Magic Month of May,” along with works by the most famous women writers of the Romantic era, including Karoline von Gunderrode and Sophie Mereau.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.