The significant turning point and epoch shift in the history of German literature does not necessarily occur around 1500, the time when historians typically mark the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern period. If we consider the structures and rules of poetry itself, the major shift is usually placed with Martin Opitz in the early 17th century, at the onset of the Baroque era. Therefore, it is only consistent that Horst Brunner, with this expanded new edition, adds the 16th century to his concise and extraordinarily successful overview of medieval literature, a period in which the lines of poetry continue to be developed according to poetic rules and under social dependencies.