ABSTRACT
Self-consciousness is peculiarly central to lyric poetry: it is more intrinsic than in the novel or drama, and more subtle than in autobiography. The work which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe produced at the end of his life is no less poetry of the subject than his early lyric, though the premises for its exploration of subjectivity are profoundly different. 'Vor die Augen meiner Lieben' and 'Erinnerung' are among Goethe's last poems, and are therefore bound to display features typical of 'very late' style; but the phase begins, in fact, a few years earlier. The 1826 version of the poems represents the end of one phase in Goethe's oeuvre, and the beginning of another. The 1826 version of the poems represents the end of one phase in Goethe's oeuvre. 'An Werther' records an imaginary encounter between the poet and a character of Goethe's own invention.
