Eichendorff created an open form with epic and lyrical elements, incorporating several poems and songs in the text.

Back at the palace, several mysteries about identities are revealed, and he can marry his beloved Aurelie, who is not a noble woman but an orphan.

The story has fairy-tale elements in its simple and intentionally naive language, unexpected events, and images of romantic landscapes.

The young man's "Wanderlust" is motivated externally by his father and internally by his desire for the "weite Welt" ("big, wide world"), fleeing sedentary life.

[4] The novella was freely translated to English as Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing, first by Charles Godfrey Leland, published in New York in 1866 by Leypohlt & Holt.

[9] Good-for-Nothing [de] is a 1978 coproduction with television, directed by Bernhard Sinkel with Jacques Breuer in the title role and music by Hans Werner Henze.