Like no other literary genre, poetry thrives on nuances - on subtle differences, gradations, fine transitions, and shades of meaning. In its linguistic concentration and brevity, poetry remains the genre in which feelings and thoughts are expressed most directly. Gunter E. Grimm presents individual historical milestones that are representative of the development of German poetry: all centuries of modern poetry history are represented, from the Baroque period through the Enlightenment, Classicism, Romanticism, the 19th century, Fin de Siècle, to the 20th century, without aiming for a comprehensive historical overview. The author explains questions of content and form through epoch-specific and cross-epoch themes and poet portraits. The numerous poems and verse quotations interspersed throughout the text encourage the reader to engage specifically with certain poems.