Introduction; Part I: Context; Organicism; Lyric cycles; Self-reflexivity, fragments, and Hoffmann's Kater Murr; Textual coherence in the song-cycle canon; Key sequence; Key characteristics and other alternative approaches to tonal sequence; Part II: Conception to publication; Before composing: texts and notebooks; From conception to arrangement: 'Heine cycles'; Ordering for publication; Titles and title pages; Flower imagery; Part III: Arrangement; Plot archetypes: sorrow to comfort; Narrative; Op. 32 as narrative; Op. 57 as narrative; Narrative elements in other bouquets; Self-reflexivity; Alternatives to narrative: juxtaposition and resonance; Tempo, closure, and cyclic patterning; 'Wie Melodien'; Part IV: Performance; Performance contexts; Criteria in assembling a recital programme; Gender and dramatic characterisation; Identification between singer and narrator; Tessitura, range, and performance by several singers; Transposition; Performance and coherence in the Ophelia-Lieder; Part V: Reception; Reviews; Responses of Brahms's acquaintances; Identification of composer with narrator; Dedicatory cycles and the composer's voice; The graphic cycles of Max Klinger; Part VI: Cyclic Intent.