This volume contains most of the contributions to the symposium held at the Humboldt University, Berlin, on the occasion of the four-hundredth anniversary of Gerhardt's birth, some previously unpublished papers from Gerhardt's student days and a bibliography of his life, work and effect. Three papers consider from different points of view perhaps the most intriguing moment in Gerhardt's life, his reaction to the Berlin Symposium (1662/3). Beutel's detailed narrative highlights Gerhardt's personal obstinacy (pp. 159–73); Schilling brilliantly depicts as background the critical search for political stability during Gerhardt's lifetime (pp. 1–13); and Stegmann makes the focus Gerhardt's long-standing adherence to Wittenberg, a focus supported by material from Gerhardt's student days. Five studies assess Gerhardt's poetic genius: Slenzka provides a theological response to the charge of individualisation in Luther and Gerhardt (pp. 141–58); Kühlmann reveals the quality and pastoral aspects of his Latin verse (pp. 91–140); Scheitler convincingly advances possible links between developments in Roman Catholic song and Lutheran song (pp. 117–40); Krummacher weighs against Gerhardt's literary similarity to others of his age its controversial and occasional features (pp. 67–90); Menneke supplements the latter with discussion and texts of War and Peace hymns (pp. 175–205). Crüger's musical role in Gerhardt's saga (Bunners, pp. 207–30) and the alternatives provided by Ebeling (Lieibig, pp. 231–44) are both interesting and informative. Haemig (pp. 245–67) and Henkys (pp. 269–84) take the story into the present. Unusually for a symposium volume, and sadly in this reviewer's view, there is no overall attempt at a summary.