By the Rivers of Babylon: Heinrich Heine's Late Songs and Reflections. By ROGER F. COOK. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. 1998. 400 pp. $39.99.
Heine's late work, and especially his final collection of verse, Romanzero, has perennially been a great source of frustration for scholars and admirers. Heine's 'late period' is seen to commence with the onset of a debilitating affliction of the nervous system in 1848, which left him basically bedridden until his death in 1856. ...