Heine. A Biography by Francois Fejto. (Allan Wingate. I8s.) THIS
book, wrapped in a quite exceptionally pretty dust-jacket, is a sincere attempt at popular biography, but the author's motives for writing about Heine are more arresting than their result. An anti- Nazi Hungarian living in France during the late war, Monsieur Fejto found himself reduced to teaching German to French students and chose a clever way out by teaching them to love and respect Heine. His investigations into Heine's work, carried out for their benefit, led him to take on the formidable task of writing a new life of the poet. His method, which is easy-going and conversational, wavers between those of the popular biographer and of the historical novelist. No literary criticism is attempted, dates are infrequent, every third sentence trails off into a line of dots. Little is done to suggest the atmosphere of literary France and Germany in the eighteen-thirties and 'forties and the author labours under a number of unnecessary delusions, e.gl, that Dollinger was a Jesuit, George Sand irresistibly attractive and Lamennais a Breton clown. Many good English translations of Heine's verse are available, from Monckton Milnes and Julian Fane to Lewis Untermeyer. Instead of using any of these, the translator of Monsieur Fejto's book has composed his own doggerel jingles, of which both he and the publishers should be deeply and heartily ashamed.
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