The book offers an interpretation of a posthumously published poem by Edwin Muir (1887-1959), beginning "The heart could never speak / But that the Word was spoken." The poem is read as summing up Muir's lifelong struggle with fundamental questions about the meaning of existence, questions often developed in dialogue with such figures as Nietzsche, Holderlin, and Kafka. These references allow us to bring Muir into conversation with modern existentialist...