The great poets of the _Sturm und Drang_ movement were, of course, Goethe and Schiller. Goethe, one of the most universal minds the world has ever known, was able to enter into a situation or a human emotion so intensely that he was an ideal lyric poet. His command over the music of the German language was complete. All Germany was dazzled by the wealth of color and nuance which he found in life and reflected in his poetry. Schiller was in every way his inferior. His inflated rhetoric always stole the lyric quality from his poems, which never pictured truth, either outer or inner. But by the sheer energy of his spirit Schiller was a man of the time. It is worth noting that though Schubert set nearly fifty of his texts, not a single masterpiece resulted. For there is in Schiller, properly considered, little or nothing to inspire a genuinely lyric poet. And, as is often the case in lyric poetry, the minor men do some of the best work. Some of Schubert’s best texts are supplied by Claudius, Schubart, Stollberg, and Hölty, minor members of the fraternity which stirred up all Germany to the expectation of a profound revolution. These men were crying out against the vices of the aristocracy, or praising the simple life of the peasants, as Herder had taught them. Their songs were a glorification of the individual, proclaiming the intensity and beauty of his spontaneous feelings--ideal lyric material. The era of the Napoleonic wars brought a new generation of poets to Germany. It was the period when the vision of great deeds was stirring every one to demonstrate his own power. This side of the movement, represented in Schubert’s songs by the brothers Schlegel, was decidedly morbid. But there was another side. For Napoleonic oppression had aroused a new sense of dignity and national solidarity in German hearts, and there arose a group of poets to sing of it. Most typical is Körner, author of the famous sword song, who volunteered for the army, saying to his father: ‘Germany is rising; my art sighs for her fatherland’--and died in battle. This adoption by art of a new fatherland was signalized by a new return of poetry to all that was popular and traditional in German life and history. It is to this inspiration that we owe poems by Uhland and Müller, which Schubert set to music. The third era was that of disillusionment, when Platen could write ‘... man kann hienieden Nichts Schlech’res als ein Deutscher sein.’ The lyric poetry of the time became either a cynical grasping of selfish interests, as often in Heine, or a renunciation of the outer word, a peace which is to be found in contemplation and humble love, as in Rückert.