INTRODUCTION

TO A COURSE OF

GERMAN LITERATURE.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.

INTRODUCTION

TO A COURSE OF

GERMAN LITERATURE;

IN

LECTURES

TO THE

STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON,

BY

LUDWIG VON MÜHLENFELS, LL.D.

B

PROFESSOR OF THE GERMAN AND NORTHERN
LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE.·

OTHER

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR JOHN TAYLOR,
BOOKSELLER AND PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY,
30, UPPER GOWER STREET.

1830

654.

Soll ich dir die Gegend zeigen,

Mufst du erst das Bach besteigen.

GOETHE.

PREFACE.

THE following Introductory Lectures are submitted to the test of public judgment in that unaltered form in which they were delivered last session at the University of London, in order to enable the public to appreciate the spirit in which the lecturer, when opening his Course of Lectures on German Literature for the present session, is likely to treat his subject, and the views from which he proceeds in contemplating an important branch of the literary history of Germany.

Although this Introduction does not claim the merit of exclusive novelty in historical views, and in those notions on matters of taste, which sometimes are termed " aesthetical," nor that of a perfect and adequate develop