The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany

Arthur F. J. Remy traces how writing from India and Persia entered German poetry through scholarship, translation and imitation. This study of literary history begins with medieval Europe's fragmentary knowledge of the two regions, then follows the growth of language studies and the nineteenth-century interest in their literature. Chapters on Herder, Goethe, the Schlegels, Platen, Rückert and Heine examine individual responses to the material.

Close comparisons give the argument its substance. In the discussion of Östliche Rosen, Remy places German poems beside passages from Hafiz, tracing shared themes and images: the soul as a bird, a cypress beside a brook and a glowing rose. He distinguishes freer adaptations from passages that follow their sources closely. Readers interested in translation or the movement of poetic forms across languages can follow these concrete examples while considering how German writers reshaped what they read.