The recent renewal of the faith-reason debate has focused attention on earlier episodes in its history. One of its memorable highlights occurred during the Enlightenment, with the outbreak of the "Pantheism Controversy" between the eighteenth century Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and the Christian Counter-Enlightenment thinker Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. While Mendelssohn argued that reason confirmed belief in a providential God and in an immortal soul, Jacobi claimed that its consistent application led ineluctably to atheism and fatalism. At present, there are two leading interpretations of Moses Mendelssohn's thought. One casts him as a Jewish traditionalist who draws on German philosophy to support his premodern Jewish beliefs, while the other portrays him as a secret Deist who seeks to encourage his fellow Jews to integrate into German society and so disingenuously defends Judaism to avoid arousing their opposition. By exploring the Pantheism Controversy and Mendelssohn's relation to his two greatest Jewish philosophical predecessors, the medieval Rabbi Moses Maimonides and the seventeenth century heretic Baruch Spinoza, Michah Gottlieb presents a new reading of Mendelssohn arguing that he defends Jewish religious concepts sincerely, but gives them a humanistic interpretation appropriate to life in a free, diverse modern society. Gottlieb argues that the faith-reason debate is best understood not primarily as an argument about metaphysical questions, such as whether or not God exists, but rather as a contest between two competing conceptions of human dignity and freedom. Mendelssohn, Gottlieb contends, gives expression to a humanistic religious perspective worthy of renewed consideration today.

This volume is a register and bibliography to the first 20 volumes of the Lessing Yearbook and its supplements, Humanitaet und Dialog, Lessing in heutiger Sicht, Nation und Gelehrtenrepublik, and Lessing und die Toleranz.

"Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry" is an analysis of the works by Goethe, Hoelderlin, and Lenau on the subject of weltschmerz. Weltschmerz is a term coined by the German author Jean Paul in 1827. It denotes the feeling that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind and stands for an apathetic or pessimistic view of life, depression concerning or discomfort with the human condition or state of the world.

Focusing on particular cases of Anglo-German exchange in the period known as the Sattelzeit (1750-1850), this volume of essays explores how drama and poetry played a central role in the development of British and German literary cultures. With increased numbers of people studying foreign languages, engaging in translation work, and traveling between Britain and Germany, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave rise to unprecedented opportunities for intercultural encounters and transnational dialogues. While most research on Anglo-German exchange has focused on the novel, this volume seeks to reposition drama and poetry within discourses of national identity, intercultural transfer, and World Literature. The essays in the collection cohere in affirming the significance of poetry and drama as literary forms that shaped German and British cultures in the period. The essays also consider the nuanced movement of texts and ideas across genres and cultures, the formation and reception of poetic personae, and the place of illustration in cross-cultural, textual exchange.

Luther is a six volume biography of Martin Luther, German professor of theology and the Church reformer, famous for his Ninety-five Theses of 1517 and recognized as a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. The aim of the work was to present accurate historical and psychological portrait of Luther's personality, which is still a mystery from many points of view. While presenting Luther's psychological picture the author chooses to do so in Luther's own words, analyzing his writings and letters. Analyzing Luther's writings he opts not to write about Luther's teachings and the history of dogma, but reaches deeper in his endeavor to supply an exact portrayal of Luther as a whole, which should emphasize various aspects of his mind and character.