ABSTRACT
The shift in literary values that divides Romanticism from the Sturm und Drang and Joseph von Eichendorff from Burger is as decisive as the shift that divided Burger from Martin Opitz, though very different in kind. This chapter attempts to assemble the details of Eichendorff's art, or, to use Novalis' term, his 'Hieroglyphistik'. It relates his statements on the art of poetry as rare reflected aspects of his own technique, and compares them with his practice. The chapter also compares examples of Eichendorff's lyric and political poetry with his own poetics, with that of near contemporaries and with some main strands of rhetorical prescription. It reconstructs two aspects of his practice which share the essentially romantic concept of hieroglyphs. The chapter increases the understanding of Eichendorif's many-faceted literary character, and illustrates a romantic relationship between natura and ars. Eichendorff condemns rhetoric in no uncertain terms.
