The second edition [of Reason and Energy: Studies in German Literature] contains only one essay that is quite new: a comparative study of Milton and Hölderlin entitled 'The Sublime Art'….

'The Sublime Art' has the merit of dealing with two poets whose likenesses and differences are sufficiently interesting to make a comparative study worth while. And it has the further merit of focussing attention on Samson Agonistes and Empedocles, works which are genuinely comparable. But it is unfortunate that Hamburger should have chosen to base his interpretation on the second version of Empedocles. Few firm conclusions can be drawn from the extant brief fragments of this version….

Hamburger is in general too prone to inaccuracy. A candid critic will pardon some slips in a first edition, but not so easily in a second. And it is indeed difficult to understand how Hamburger could have permitted so many...