Originally published in 1988, this book provides a comprehensive anthology in English of the major texts of German literary and aesthetic theory between Lessing and Hegel. It represents a one-volume compendium of the three-volume set of German Aesthetic and Literary Criticism published by Cambridge University Press in 1984 and 1985. The texts contained in this volume are crucial to an understanding not only of the Romantic period itself, but also of the foundational concepts and arguments of literary theory. An exceptional resource, this book will be indispensable to literary theorists, philosophers, political scientists, and anyone else interested in the contributions of Romantic aesthetics to nineteenth-century and later theories of social organisation.