Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld is best known as a champion and defender of the rights of the accused in the witchcraft trials that took place throughout Germany in the seventeenth century; only since the 1980s has his stature as a major poet and writer of the baroque been properly evaluated. Critical editions of his three major works have provided the essential components for this reassessment. He was the subject of major conferences and television documentaries celebrating the 350th anniversary of his death in 1985 and the 400th anniversary of his birth in 1991, and his preeminent position in seventeenth-century literary, moral, theological, and social history has been established. Spee's brilliance in the areas of literary theory--independently of Martin Opitz he espoused the use of natural verse and word accentuation and touted German as a literary language second to none--poetry, moral theology, ethics, and the composition of enduring Kirchenlieder (hymns) attest...