ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two songs: Die junge Nonne (The Young Nun) Jakob Nikolaus Craigher de Jache-lutta, and Nacht und Traume (Night and Dreams) Matthaus von Collin. Collin was also a leading figure in Romantic circles. John Reed suggested he was the link between the Schubert circle and a group of writers and thinkers who acknowledged August and Friedrich von Schlegel as leaders. He points out that the five Collin poems Schubert set all belong to the years 1822-23 when Schubert was closest to Romantic ideas. Of these, none reflects the spirit of Romanticism more effectively than Nacht und Traume. Jakob Nikolaus Craigher's poem begins by observing that the night is as dark as the grave. But when the storm subsides and, as the bride of Christ, the young nun awaits her groom, it becomes 'holy night'. In other words Die junge Nonne involves a transition which leads directly into the first words of Collm's poem.
