"Reineke-lis" (1794) - an epic poem, the author's brilliant appeal to the tradition of animal epics, formed in the Middle Ages "Reineke-lis" - satire on feudal society . Under the masks of animals, representatives of all classes are brought out in the poem: large feudal lords in the images of a bear, a wolf, a badger and a small nipple - hares, chickens, roosters, bruises . In the center of the poem is a cunning fox, who always leaves his enemies and opponents in fools. "Reineke-lis" - a wide panorama of the social life of feudal Germany work, imbued with the rejection of the feudal-bourgeois order , They are able to share in the wealth of the people and the wealth of the people. and fierce wolves , and predators of the "new type" , Those who know how to do things without brute force , And the plot and the plot. The arbitrariness of the powerful, the corruption of the clergy, the venality of the judges, the insatiable thirst for the profit of the “strong of this world” these are quite specific signs of both medieval and modern Goethe’s reality, against which the satirical edge of the poem is directed.