This study is based on the current understanding of parody as an ironic and metaliterary type of intertextuality. The affinity between parody and irony asserted in Early Romantic literary theory validates the application of the term to Goethe's subtle novel. By presenting an intertextual solution to the enigma of the names, the study reveals the secret target of the narrator's parodic wit to be the newly converted Friedrich Schlegel whose recent publications had just carried over previous attacks against Goethe's Classicism from the realm of art into the fields of language theory and literature. The book shows how Goethe appropriated his opponent's polemical language to retaliate with an ironic evocation of his charges and recommendations in the guise of a romantic novel.