Originally published in 1901, PREFACE: The Oriental movement which manifested itself so strikingly in German literature during the nineteenth century is familiar to every student of that literature. Although the general nature of this movement is pretty clearly understood, no systematic investigation of it, so far as I know, has ever been undertaken. In the following pages an attempt is made to trace the influence which the Indo-Iranian East - the Semitic part is not considered - exerted on German Poetry. The work does not claim to be exhaustive in the sense that it gives a list of all the poets that ever came under that influence.It is hoped that the material presented in the case of each poet is sufficient to give a clear idea of the extent to which he was subject to Oriental influence, as well as of the part that he took in the movement under discussion. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly exp