ABSTRACT
The Musen-Almanach fur das Jahr 1802, edited by Ludwig Tieck and August Wilhelm Schlegel, included two poetic cycles that both presented the natural world through its constituent parts, the macrocosm through the microcosm. The cycle Lebens-Elemente, by Tieck himself, began with poems representing the ancient concept of the four elements, along with a fifth 'subterranean' element that reflected Romantic fascinations with the mineral world. Friedrich Schlegel's cycle Abendrote, also printed in the Musen-Almanach fur das Jahr 1802, partitions nature differently. As the subjective personae of his poems, he uses an assorted collection of landscape features, plants, animals, humans, and heavenly bodies, rather than the sweeping elemental concepts Tieck chooses. Abendrote does not represent itself as the thoughts and perceptions of one individual about birds, stars, and flowers, but rather as the utterances of the birds, stars, and flowers themselves.
