Alexis und Dora

Alexis und Dora, a poem in elegiac metre written by Goethe in May 1796 and first published in Schiller's Almanach für das Jahr 1797. Its subject is the onset of love and the pain of parting, compressed into one experience. The Greek youth Alexis, on the point of departure by ship, is seized with love for Dora, whom he must instantly leave. Except for a short introduction and a shorter postlude, the 158-line poem is a monologue spoken on shipboard by Alexis as the shore recedes. It is one of the purest products of Goethe's classicism. Schiller wrote of it, ‘so voll Einfalt ist sie [sc. die Elegie], bei einer unergründlichen Tiefe der Empfindung’.