Clemens Brentano is not only a decisive figure in the history of German Romanticism but also a force with which to be reckoned on the modern German literary scene. Brentano began as a writer of catholic purview and became a Catholic writer with a somewhat narrow, parochial perspective. Before his much-heralded reversion in 1817 to the faith of his ancestors he wrote novellas, fairy tales, an innovative novel, comedies, tragedies, festival plays, the first third of a monumental dramatic trilogy chronicling Czech history in mythic-symbolic form, a host of dramatic fragments, and a long, fragmentary verse romance (in the mold of the Divine Comedy but with Faustian overtones) dealing with the redemption of a family from a hereditary curse originating in biblical times. But it is primarily as a craftsman of lyric verse--of lilting, hauntingly musical quality during his early years and a more complex, hermetic character later in...