im vorliegenden Text die beiden Versionen nacheinander angeordnet. Altdeutsche Gedichte mit längeren Verszeilen werden im Buch auf der oberen, die modernen Versionen dagegen auf der unteren Halbseite abwechselnd dargestellt. Im vorliegenden Text werden auch hier die beiden Fassungen jeweils zusammengeführt und nacheinander angeordnet. Zur eindeutigen Kenntlichmachung wurden die neuhochdeutschen Texte in kursivem Schriftschnitt gesetzt. Viele Gedichte enthalten Zäsuren, die im Original durch einen besonders großen Wortabstand dargestellt wurden; in diesem Text wird hierfür ein senkrechter Doppelstrich (‖) verwendet. Groß- und Kleinschreibung wurde der Zeichensetzung entsprechend angepasst, sofern es sich um Texte in modernem Deutsch handelt. Um besondere Schriftschnitte zu kennzeichnen, wurden die folgenden Zeichen verwendet: kursiv: _Unterstriche_ fett: =Gleichheitszeichen= gesperrt: +Pluszeichen+ Kapitälchen wurden in GROSSBUCHSTABEN umgewandelt. ######################################################################## In 2 vols. 8vo., buckram, price 21s. Clarendon Press Series A HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE BY W. SCHERER _TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION_ BY MRS. F. C. CONYBEARE EDITED BY F. MAX MÜLLER Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS LONDON: HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C. 1886 THE GERMAN CLASSICS FROM THE FOURTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY _F. MAX MÜLLER_ London HENRY FROWDE [Illustration] OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C. THE GERMAN CLASSICS FROM THE FOURTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY _WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, TRANSLATIONS INTO MODERN GERMAN, AND NOTES_ BY F. MAX MÜLLER, M.A. CORPUS PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD A New Edition Revised, Enlarged, and Adapted to WILHELM SCHERER’S ‘HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE’ BY F. LICHTENSTEIN VOL. I. Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1886. [_All rights reserved_] To the Memory of MY DAUGHTER MARY THE TRANSLATOR OF SCHERER‘S “HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE.” _Born 21 February 1862_, _Died 3 September 1886_. TRUTHFUL, CONSCIENTIOUS, EARNEST, TENDER. PREFACE. When the Clarendon Press undertook to publish a translation of Professor W. Scherer’s History of German Literature, it was suggested that an Historical Reading-Book, containing extracts from the principal writers of prose and poetry treated in that History, would form a useful companion volume. My ‘German Classics from the Fourth to the Nineteenth Century,’ published in 1858, had long been out of print, and I had no time to undertake a new edition. Professor Scherer, whom I consulted on the subject, suggested Professor Franz Lichtenstein of Breslau as fully qualified to revise and rearrange my volume, so as to adapt it to the new purpose for which it was intended, namely, to supply the _pièces justificatives_ for the new History of German Literature. Professor Lichtenstein devoted himself most zealously to this arduous task, and, with the assistance of Professor Scherer himself, his part of the work was nearly finished, when a sudden death,--he was drowned while bathing in the Baltic,--put an end to the bright career of this most conscientious and hard-working scholar. Professor Scherer, who had himself taken an active part in the selection of new extracts, now commissioned Dr. Joseph to superintend the printing of this Historical Reading-Book, to whom therefore all the credit for the correctness both of the texts and the translations is due. On the whole the Reading-Book follows Scherer’s History step by step, though in order to keep extracts from the same author together, or to gain some other small advantages, certain deviations became necessary. The Headings are intended to recall the periods as established in Scherer’s History. Only Herder, Goethe, and Schiller have been treated separately as Classics, in the highest sense of the word, and some of their contemporaries, whose works, though of smaller value, had to be discussed in conjunction with them in the eleventh and twelfth chapters of the History, have shared the same honour. The principles of selection...