With its specific references to the research interests of Christoph Perels, for many years the director of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift, this festschrift in his honour reflects a range of concerns extending from the age of Goethe to the present, with emphasis on the interpretation of poetry. An additional section is dedicated to the history of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift and its collections, supplemented by publication firsts from other archives, and articles of an interdisciplinary nature relating to the history of literature and art in the age of Goethe.