Literary scholars and poets are like intimate strangers. They owe their closeness to literature and their alienation to their different relationship to productivity. This book examines Goethe, Friedrich Schlegel, Lönnrot, Hofmannstahl, and Szondi, among others. It analyzes the reasons for this alienated closeness and describes a tradition that has shaped the relationship between poetic productivity and philological understanding.

Christoph König, University of Osnabrück, Germany.