Instead of appealing to theory-formation and abstract classification, this study consciously uses close text analysis to examine secular German baroque poetry from a specifically problem-oriented viewpoint. Sensuality as a problem: the literature of antiquity agonized over the impact of eros in a way that was hardly any less soul-searching than that of later Christianity. Authors like Opitz, Fleming, Zesen, Stieler, and above all Hoffmannswaldau take their bearings from this tradition, essaying in their erotic texts a discourse on sensuality that goes beyond the musa iocosa to adumbrate positions represented in the early Enlightenment.

The festschrift for Helmut Koopmann assembles contributions from renowned friends and colleagues reflecting the wide range of interests pursued by its dedicatee. The volume opens with a homage in the narrower sense, in the form of literary texts by present-day authors. There then follow articles centering on six of Koopmann's major interests in the field of literary studies: the theory and practice of scholarly editing, Classicism, Romanticism, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, exile and inner emigration, and 20th century poetics. This broad spectrum of epochs and authors, topics and methodologies is an in nuce reflection of some of the central present-day concerns in the field of (German) literary studies. The volume closes with a bibliography of Helmut Koopmann's publications.