Ⅰ．INTRODUCTION

Ⅱ．The MIDDLE AGES

1．Historical Overview:From the Decline of the Roman Empire until the Reign of Charles Ⅴ(300—1520)

2．German Poetry before 1050

3．German Poetry from 1050 to 1300

3.1 Hartmann von Aue:Poor Heinrich

3.2 The“Nibelungenlied”

3.3 The“Minnesang”

3.4 Wahher von der Vogelweide

4．The Bourgeois in the Late Middle Ages(1300—1500)

Ⅲ．RENAISSANCE,HUMANISM,REFORMATION

1．Historical Overview:from the Reign of Charles Vuntil the End of the Thirty Years War(1520—1648)

2．Renaissanee and Humanism (16th Century)

3．Reformation(1515—1680)

Ⅳ．BAROQUE,ENLIGHTMENT,PIETISM,ROCOCO

1．Historical Overview:From the Peace of Westphalia to the End of the Seven Years'War(1648—1756)

2．The Baroque Era(17th Century)

3．The Era of Enlightenment(1700—1775)

4．Pietism and Sentimentalism(18th Century)

5．Rococo(1740—1780)

Ⅴ．THE AGE OF GOETHE

1．Historical Overview:From the Rule of Frederick Ⅱ,King of Prussia,to the end of the Napoleonic Era(1740—1815)

2．The Era of Sturm und Drang(Storm and Stress)(1765—1785)

3．German Classicism(1786—1805)

4．Romanticism(1797—1830)

5．Literature from the Era of the Age of Goethe

5.1 Johann Wolfgang Goethe

5.1.1 Goethe's Poetry

5.1.2 The Erlking

5.2 Friedrich von Schiller

5.2.1 The Glove

5.2.2 Mary Stuart

5.2.2.1 Historical Background

5.2.2.2 A Tragedy in five Acts

5.2.2.3 The Structure of the Drama

5.3 Heinrich von Kleist

5.3.1 The Beggar woman om Locarno

Ⅵ．THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

1．Historical Overview

2．Literary Movements in the 19th Century

3．Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

4．Friedrich Nietzsche

Ⅶ．THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

1．Historical Overview

2．Literature of the 20th Century

2.1 Franz Kafka

2.1.1 The Great Wall of China

2.1.2 The Metamorphosis

2.2 Bertolt Brecht

2.2.1 The Legend of the Origin of the Book of Tao-Tê-Ching on Lao-Ts？'s Road into Exile

2.2.2 The Good Woman of Setzuan

2.2.3 The Caucasian Chalk Circle

2.3 Hermann Hesse