Roger Cook 
A Companion to the Works of Heinrich Heine 

A collection of new essays treating the most important aspects of the work of the most famous late Romantic, Heinrich Heine.


As the most prominent German-Jewish Romantic writer, Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) became a focal point for much of the tension generated by the Jewish assimilation to German culture in a time marked by a growing emphasis on the shared ancestry of the German
Volk. As both an ingenious composer of Romantic verse and the originator of modernist German prose, he defied nationalist-Romantic concepts of creative genius that grounded German greatness in an idealist tradition of
Dichter und Denker. And as a brash, often reckless champion of freedom and social justice, he challenged not only the reactionary ruling powers of Restoration Germany but also the incipient nationalistideology that would have fateful consequences for the new Germany–consequences he often portended with a prophetic vision born of his own experience. Reaching to the heart of the `German question, ‘ the controversies surrounding Heine have been as intense since his death as they were in his own lifetime, often serving as an acid test for important questions of national and social consciousness. This new volume of essays by scholars from Germany, Britain, Canada, and the United States offers new critical insights on key recurring issues in his work: the symbiosis of German and Jewish culture; emerging nationalism among the European peoples; critical views of Romanticism and modern philosophy; European culture on the threshold to modernity; irony, wit, and self-critique as requisite elements of a modern aesthetic; changing views on teleology and the dialectics of history; and final thoughts and reconsiderations from his last, prolonged years in a sickbed. Contributors: Michael Perraudin, Paul Peters, Roger F. Cook, Willi Goetschel, Gerhard Höhn, Paul Reitter, Robert C. Holub, Jeffrey Grossman, Anthony Phelan, Joseph A. Kruse, and George F. Peters.

Roger F. Cook is professor of German at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Table of Content

Introduction – Roger F. Cook

Illusions Lost and Found: The Experiential World of Heine’s
Buch der Lieder – Michael Perraudin

A Walk on the Wild Side: Heine’s Eroticism – Paul Peters

The Riddle of Love: Romantic Poetry and Historical Progress – Roger F. Cook

Nightingales Instead of Owls: Heine’s Joyous Philosophy – Willi Goetschel

Eternal Return or Indiscernable Progress? Heine Conception of History after 1848 – Gerhard Hoehn

Heinrich Heine and the Discourse of Mythology – Paul Reitter

Troubled Apostate: Heine’s Conversion and Its Consequences – Robert C. Holub

Heine and Jewish Culture: The Poetics of Appropriation – Jeffrey A. Grossman

Mathilde’s Interruption: Archetypes of Modernity in Heine’s Later Poetry – Anthony Phelan

Late Thoughts: Reconsiderations from the ‘Matratzengruft’ – Joseph A. Kruse

Heine and Weimar –