The verse of the young Goethe has generally been taken as paradigmatic for the poetry of the Sturm und Drang period. This has led to almost total neglect of the remarkable poetry by Lavater and Herder, Lenz and Stolberg, Karschin and Voss, Schubart's religious verse, and the poetical works of the young Schiller. The present volumes cast a new light on these poets by aligning and confronting them with the theoreticians of the Sturm und Drang, the poets of the Göttinger Hain, and Bürger and Claudius. In so doing it can fairly lay claim to be the first genuinely comprehensive historical review of the poetry of this avant-garde movement in terms of the common problems posed by the period in which it was penned.