This book is currently the standard general introduction to Paul Gerhardt, who is still, four hundred years after his birth, strongly represented in hymnals, not only in the German-speaking world but internationally. The subtitle accurately reflects the structure of the book. The stations of Gerhardt’s life are recounted in a little over 100 pages. Bunners shies away from conjecture and mythologizing and is even-handed in his treatment of Gerhardt’s conflict with the Berlin royal court.
The second section gives a thematic overview of Gerhardt’s song lyrics. I call them this not to suggest they were in any way less than carefully-constructed examples of Baroque poetic expression but to underline that they were created to be sung.
Fascinating is the third section, devoted to Gerhardt’s abiding spiritual and literary influence. Whole chapters are devoted to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Johann Sebastian Bach, which is fitting. Another, “Gerhardt, Buddha, Lao-Tse”, asks whether Gerhardt’s songs can retain their relevance in a pluralistic, interreligious-oriented world and answers in the affirmative. A final chapter sketches the Gerhardt reception by authors of succeeding generations, beginning with Gellert and Claudius, and running through Fontane to twentieth-century writers such as Jochen Klepper and Thomas Mann. Bunners closes with a summary of Das Treffen in Telgte by Günter Grass, a book I wasn’t aware of. It sounds interesting. This is why the more I read, the longer my list of books I want to read grows.
An appendix collects hymnal prefaces by Johann Crüger and Johann Georg Ebeling, two Gerhardt letters from the Berlin controversy, and finally, a letter to his son, written shortly before his death, in which he outlines rules of conduct and expresses his wish that the son follow his footsteps by entering the ministry. Well-meant and misguided, it’s a jarring conclusion to the book. ( )