"Geh' aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud'"

a ~Go seek, my heart, the joys of lifea (TM) by Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) counts among the best-known German church hymns and is one of the most vivid extant texts from the Age of Baroque. Johann Anselm Steiger presents an historically sensitive interpretation of this masterpiece and decodes the Summer Song consistently from its contexts in the history of piety, lyric poetry and theology. For the first time, adequate account is taken of theology in the Baroque, of the spiritual study of nature and of emblematics. Gerhardt is presented as an exemplar of the poeta doctus who in his poetry met the multi-facetted erudition of his age on equal terms and assimilated it in a congenial manner.