Johann Heinrich Voß is an indispensable link in the chain of those who brought about a regeneration of German intellectual life in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. He was not a first-rate poet, but his poetic talent combined with his vast knowledge of philology made him a first-rate translator of the literature of antiquity. He established the model for other translators to follow, made Homer a "German" poet, and ushered in a new era of appreciation of Greek Classicism. He remained in constant touch with the poetic life of the Germanies, even when he lived in remote places, because of his twenty-five years as editor of the Göttinger Musenalmanach. Toward the end of his life he became something of an anachronism because he retained the convictions of his youth almost unchanged; he was firmly rooted in the Enlightenment and the humanism of antiquity...