Friedrich Dedekind exemplifies what might be called, to use Lewis Spitz's expression, “a fourth generation of German humanists.” After studying at the University of Marburg (1543–49), he attended the University of Wittenberg, was drawn into Philip Melanchthon's circle, and learned the humanist skills that Melanchthon cultivated in students. Dedekind mastered above all the art of composing Neo-Latin poetry and produced over the years a large number of poems celebrating marriages, saluting recently deceased friends, recommending others through commending their virtues and talents, and dedicating the literary works of others. However, he studied theology so that he might serve the church of Luther's and Melanchthon's Reformation. He contributed to it in significant ways, in addition to his service as parish pastor in Neustadt am Rübenberge, Lauenstein, and Lüneburg, as a mediating theologian in several Lower Saxon jurisdictions.

Dedekind is of particular interest to students of the Renaissance as the author of the satirical plea for proper moral behavior, Grobianus, published first during Dedekind's student days and revised in 1554 to include admonitions on “the simplicity of morals” for women, under the title Grobianus et Grobiana. Doll notes that Dedekind did not invent a new genre but capitalized on the tradition best illustrated by Sebastian Brandt's Ship of Fools. Doll's helpful bibliography accounts for the published editions and translations of Dedekind's masterpiece, and for influences beyond the translations in the literature of several languages. This study lacks, unfortunately, any analysis of the literary style, skill, content, and method of cultivating morality. The use of satire to do just that has a rich German tradition extending to Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz and beyond. Placing Dedekind's work within that tradition through comparison with other examples of his time and through an assessment of how he used rhetorical skills learned at Marburg and Wittenberg would have enriched this volume, which is already rich in biographical details.

Doll's wide-ranging, meticulous research not only provides readers with details of Dedekind's contexts and activities at every stage of his life but also presents extensive information on the places and people that shaped his life. Doll ardently desires to present Dedekind as a peace-loving, gentle theologian, who is difficult to place in the landscape of controversy as heirs of the Wittenberg Reformation contested rival interpretations of its legacy in the 1550s–1570s. A closer look at precisely where he stood when he took part in commissions that were charged with settling controversy, however, places him in the company of Gnesio-Lutherans, such as Martin Chemnitz and Joachim Mörlin. He did not share the tendency of some of that group to bold confrontation of opposing views. However, his positions on the issues reveal his agreement with them when he came to help decide the proper answers to controverted questions.

Doll's detailed narrative not only contains quotations, some lengthy, from a wide range of correspondence and other documents of the time but also is supplemented by fourteen appendixes. In addition to the genealogy of the Dedekind family and the bibliography of the printings of his original works and translation, Doll presents edited texts of manuscript literary efforts and letters. Furthermore, Britta-Juliane Kruse has edited Dedekind's German dramas, with discussions of their staging. A thorough bibliography of secondary literature on Dedekind and his work further aids scholars. Doll's focus on Dedekind and his context opens up a broader field of research with many facets. Thus, this microstudy of a significant figure in this “fourth generation” of German humanists calls for further study of Dedekind's contemporaries who arose out of the blend of the humanist new learning and the Reformation's new theology as the two movements met and wed in several sixteenth-century universities and other venues.