Description

In treating Goethe's poetry, I encountered a dilemma. As usual, I strove for absolute accuracy. At the same time, I did not want to express a lot of negative comments when the contents of the poem disagreed with Christian truth.
It is not necessary to treat his deviations from Christian morality. There is plenty of good in his life. And much of his poetry lends itself to positive treatment. I did not treat those that did not. In those cases, I merely mentioned the titles. I also merely mentioned the titles if I was not sure of the interpretation. In addition, I did not treat some poems that repeated themes of poems that I did treat. In all these cases, I merely mentioned the title.
However, I did treat the majority of Goethe poems set by Schubert.