ABSTRACT
No such definite turning-point can be found in the course of the contemporary lyric literature of Germany. The tide was no doubt setting gradually in the same direction; and the growing cultivation of music at the courts told entirely in favour of a more refined and artificial lyric style. But courtly Humanists like Surrey, or Ronsard, did not yet write in German; Conrad Celtis,
perhaps the nearest parallel to Surrey among the German Humanists, was only the first of Latin poets, and Ronsard had nearly a century to wait for the doubtful honour of inspiring Opitz1.
