The Schlegel brothers had translated Shakespeare in the early 1800's, keeping his meter and rhymes intact, even to effectively translating his bawdy Renaissance word play into German. The readers of the time encountered Shakespeare not as an old master, but as a modern writer, and they set off a Shakespeare boom. Schubert's settings of the Schlegel's Shakespeare was intended, he hoped, to be sung also in English to give him a foothold in the English speaking world. He didn't live long enough to get his wish.