(1765-1770)

Cf. Klopstock ‘Das Rosenband’ (1752)

Õ transitional work = the Sesenheimer Lied
'Mit einem gemalten Band’ (1771)

cf. Term 1, Lecture 2 and Tutorial Week 2

1749: Goethe born in Frankfurt am Main

Oct 1765-Aug 1768: studies in Leipzig

1768: ill health forces Goethe to return to Frankfurt

• searching for his own poetic voice
• Anacreontic (cf. Term 1, Lecture 2)
• decorative (superficial?) style: Witz, esprit, scherzhaft; florid, mild & harmless eroticism
• influence/imitation of seventeenth-century French ‘rococo’ style
  
  
  
  

• NB. later date of ‘Mit einem gemalten Band’ evidence of greater originality