The book contains a lively new appraisal of Andreas Gryphius, the great Baroque poet and dramatist, as a decisive European value for the Anglo-American critical vision stemming from T.S. Eliot's "Dissociation of Sensibility" and the Cambridge school with Dr F.R. Leavis. Gryphius, a Hapsburg Silesian, was close to the Stuart court in the Caroline tradition. A large selection of Gryphius's opus with new translations supports an innovative presentation of Eliot's "dissociation" introduced by Pierre Janet, the trauma therapist. Eliot illuminates Gryphius as Gryphius illuminates Eliot. Both suffered the cataclysm of civil war and despair. Gryphius reached out for harmony. The interest in Dissociation is alive in the US, India, and China, as Dr Joyce demonstrates, and in Europe. The broader issues of trauma and individual and social response are worldwide.
