SOURCE: "Wilhelm Müller's Poetry of the Sea," Modern Language Review 18, 1923, pp. 323-34.

In the following essay, Richardson examines the originality of Müller's Muscheln von der Insel Rügen and Lieder aus dem Meerbusen von Salerno as contributions to poetry about the sea.

The development of sea-poetry in Germany prior to the appearance of Müller's Muscheln von der Insel Rügen (1826) and Heine's Nordsee (1826-7) has not been adequately investigated. The lists only include the most obvious names; P. S. Allen, for instance, mentions Brockes, F. L. Stolberg, Boie, Goethe, Tieck and Heine; and to these A. Pache adds E. von Kleist and S. Gessner¹. Gessner, Kleist, Brockes and Boie may be excluded at once, for their poetry shows no true appreciation of the sea; indeed, one doubts whether three at least of them had ever seen it. Tieck's contribution to sea-poetry is one beautiful poem...