solation and loneliness conveyed by the poems. It is sometimes claimed that his personal circumstances were solely responsible for the mood of the Winterreise. The biographical note is surely inescapable. Yet, as Hutchings (among others) has pointed out, between the composition of the cycle and his death Schubert also wrote such works as "the rapturous spring song Das lied im Grnnen, the Wallenstein drinking song, [and] the barcarolle To be sung on the Water"--none of which shows signs of despair (174). Thus, in addition to the weight of his own illness, it is necessary to view the appeal of Mnller's poems as deriving, at least in part, from the view of the isolation of the artist that Schubert drew from them. Whatever the reason these poems touched Schubert so deeply the resulting songs had a unique power.
The Winterreise has far less plot than Mnller's earlier cycle. Here a wealthier suitor has stolen the singer's place in a girl's affections and he sings about his loss. But the mere sadness of the earlier cycle is replaced with despair. For this disappointed youth is also "disillusioned with life [and] sees only death as the ultimate end of his wintry journey" (Einstein 304). The Romantic ideals of "the wandering youth, the isolated artist and the unrequited lover" are not just evoked in the Winterreise, they are raised to "cosmic significance" and to the highest pitch of hopelessness (Brown
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