The poetry of Wilhelm Muller, to whom Heine expressed indebtedness for his renewal of the forms of the German Volkslied , had rarely been discussed in depth prior to this volume originally published in 1970. Cottrell's study is an interpretation of Muller's three most successful Die schone Mullerin , Die Winterreise , and Fruhlingskranz . The first two, interpreted in chapters one and two, are famed through Schubert's musical settings. Chapter three offers an interpretation of the Fruhlingskranz . A last chapter considers Muller's poetic imagination. Full texts of the poems discussed are included in the Appendix and are indexed by titles and first lines.