Nine ways to approach German lyric poetry

1) Find words, structures or phrases that are familiar. Compile a list. e.g. "Zauberhaftes Mädchen war"  
2) Find poetic liberties. e.g. "Du hat", "Sie hat Ihr kind" "ich hab' "  
3) Find structures, idioms, words repeated by an author within one poem or between several of his/her poems.  
4) Find new words that are unfamiliar but you recognize the structure. e.g. "geglichen" (perfect participle) or e.g. "strömt und ruht" (present tense 3rd person)  
5) Find words and structures you don't recognize. e.g. "donnernd"  
6) Compile a list of words you would have to look up. Write down as much information as you can about those words. e.g. "der xxxigste" (masc. nom. superlative adjective)  
7) Find examples of strange word order. e.g. "Der bleiben treu wir"  
8) Create 3 novel sentences from assorted new words, structures and elements found in the poems.  
9) Determine what the poem is about.  

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