The poetry of Wilhelm Muller, to whom Heine expressed indebtedness for his renewal of the forms of the German Volkslied, had rarely been discussed in depth prior to this volume originally published in 1970. Cottrell's study is an interpretation of Muller's three most successful song-cycles: Die schone Mullerin, Die Winterreise, and Fruhlingskranz. The first two, interpreted in chapters one and two, are famed through Schubert's musical settings. Chapter three offers an interpretation of the Fruhlingskranz. A last chapter considers Muller's poetic imagination. Full texts of the poems discussed are included in the Appendix and are indexed by titles and first lines.

The essays in this collection range from close textual analysis to discussions of larger problems such as Goethe's relation to Christianity as illuminated by the theme of sacrifice in Faust. This work is viewed with particular reference to Goethe's natural scientific epistemology and to the problems confronting Western man in our own times. A study of Faust's blindness and the inner light complete the collection.