Schumann's Dichterliebe and Early Romantic Poetics

Schumann''s famous song cycle Dichterliebe of 1840 is one of the most enigmatic works in the Western musical repertoire. This book employs Romantic poetics and recent critical thought to help explain the mysterious magnetism of this essentially fragmentary work. A musico-poetic analysis demonstrates the voice of the Other and presents Schumann as the second poet of the poem when setting Heine''s famous Lyrisches Intermezzo. Methodologically the analysis attempts to synthesize philosophical literary-critical music-analytical and psycho-analytical modes of thought.