Job has inspired German literature like no other Old Testament figure. This volume looks at variants of the story of Job, reading the Book of Job as a meta-myth about literature that has symbolized mastery of contingent fate. Each of the Job texts from the 12^th through the 20^th centuries offers us a contemporary answer to the question: how much freedom of action does man have, and how much of his fate is determined by a 'higher power'?

Clemens Heydenreich, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.