SOURCE: Heinrich Heine, Twayne Publishers, 1982, 173 p.

In the following excerpt, Spencer explores the popular lyric poems of Heine's Buch der Lieder.

The collection through which Heine's poems have achieved this world renown, entitled simply and appropriately Buch der Lieder[Book of Songs], was published by Hoffmann und Campe in Hamburg in 1827. The book contains poems Heine wrote beginning at age sixteen, although the majority originated between 1821 and 1824, that is, two to five years after he had left Hamburg and his muse. It is divided in chronological order into sections entitled "Junge Leiden" [Young Sorrows], "Lyrisches Intermezzo" [Lyric Intermezzo], "Heimkehr" [Homecoming], "Aus der Harzreise" [Songs from the Harz-Journey], and two sections called "Nordsee" [North Sea].

The book first attracted only moderate attention, but from 1837 onward its popularity soared. In its thirteenth edition at the time of the author's death, Buch der Lieder became the most widely read book of...