Groethe's literary sources for the Ur-Tasso acquainted him with the legend of Tasso, which had sprung up even before the publication of the first biography of the poet, by Manso, in 1620 (twenty-five years after Tasso's death), and flourisht uncheckt till the appearance, in 1785, in Rome, of the Abbate Serassi's La Vita di Torquato Tasso. One prominent feature of the legend, the love affair between the poet and the Princess Leonora, sister of the Duke of Ferrara, was retained by Goethe, even after he read Serassi's attempts to disprove it, because he was making the love motive in the drama a reflection of his own relation to Frau von Stein. As that Platonic relation had unfolded itself in life its reflection had assumed shape in the drama, till, on the completion of the second act, the poet had realized that there was a crisis ahead, both in life and in the play; and as he did not care to picture it in fancy, the two-act fragment was laid aside, in November, 1781, and was not toucht again till the author went to Italy. This fragment, the Ur-Tasso, was written in “poetischer Prosa.” The finisht drama is in un-rimed iambic pentameters. The revision of the drama was begun in Italy and finisht after the poet's return to Weimar. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss certain features of the history of that revision.