ABSTRACT
During Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's lifetime his readers got to know the collection Gott und Welt only in its original arrangement of 1827 in the Ausgabe letzter Hand. Yet, already in 1836, only four years after Goethe's death and nine years after its first publication, the face of the collection suddenly began to change. In Quartausgabe, Goethe's literary executors Eckermann and Riemer decided to place 'Vermächtnis', a poem written in 1829 in the context of the work on Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, at the end of the first group in Gott und Welt, between 'Eins und Alles' and 'Parabase'. In 1890, the editors of the influential Weimarer Ausgabe inserted the poem 'Im ernsten Beinhaus', which Goethe composed in 1826 on the occasion of the exhumation of Schiller's body, at the end of the second group between 'Antepirrhema' and 'Urworte. Orphisch'. The story of the making of Gott und Welt is a demonstration of the power of contexts.
