Publisher's Synopsis
Lovers of Heine will be pleased to see an English version of his Religion and Philosophy in Germany, and all the more as it comes from the thoroughly competent hands of Mr. J. Snodgrass. We say 'thoroughly competent, ' because by his admirable Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos, from the Prose of Heinrich Heine, Mr. Snodgrass has already proved his ability to render Heine's exquisite prose into English, which retains, as far as a translation can, all the delicate flavour and subtle graces of the original. The execution of the present volume is not a whit behind that of the former, and, if anything, will increase the deservedly high reputation of the translator as an interpreter of Heine to the English reader. The translation is made from the German, but as the translator has been careful to note the variations both in the French edition as finally revised by Heine, and in the various German editions, the reader has before him all that Heine wrote on the subject, and is enabled to see all the more important changes through which the text has passed. We trust that the volume will meet with the large success it deserves, and that Mr. Snodgrass will be encouraged to do for other of Heine's works, what he has here done for this.
- The Scottish Review [1882] Whatever Heine wrote is fascinating from his manner of saying things, if not for the things in themselves. He writes with sweetness, brilliancy, and insight; and this slender volume in the "English and Foreign Philosophical Library" is a fair proof of it. Mr. Snodgrass has given an admirable translation, and the work, fragmentary though it is, is a fair sketch, not of religious and philosophical opinions, but of the ways in which the religion and philosophy of Germany, from Luther to Kant and from Kant to Hegel, affected the literary, social, and thoughtful life of the people. Heine saw sides of the subject which a less mercurial writer would have missed, and had no fears of saying exactly what he thought. The personal element enters largely into this delicious bit of writing, also the political element; and perhaps the chief reason why it has literary and philosophical value is that Heine wrote it. He represents phases of the religious and philosophical movement in Germany which have not been touched upon by other writers.
- American Church Review, Volume 38 [1882]
