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As part of the “beaten track”, Germany did not conform to the Grand Tourist ideals of eighteenth-century British travellers that were influenced by the spirit of the Enlightenment, and, therefore, sought to trace vestiges of the Greco-Roman cultural tradition in their ventures across the continent. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that the German landscape becomes the central theme of British travel discourse, marking the gradual shift of focus from the “saturated” image of classical Greece to the rediscovery of the Old Germanic culture of the sagas. Driven by an antiquarian interest in the German context, British travellers discovered Germany in the wake of the nineteenth century, when the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire not only signalled French expansionism in Protestant Europe, but also stimulated the appetite of the Victorians for the exploration of the German culture in an attempt to define themselves as being of pure Teutonic stock. Given the strenuous struggle of German thinkers to deal with the feelings of humiliation and shame caused by the Napoleonic rule, and, in view of a potential Gallicisation, nineteenth-century Germans mastered the fields of comparative philology and Northern antiquarianism to transform their political weakness into a new cultural paradigm that not only fostered pan-Germanism through the rediscovery of the folk tales and legends of their medieval tradition, but also ascribed to Germany a superior spiritual role, which was later incorporated into the racial discourses of Germany and Britain. This book is concerned with the views of British travel writers, focusing on travel narratives produced from 1794 until 1845. As such, it sheds light on instances which pertain to the representation of Germanness in relation to the British national context.
As part of the â oebeaten trackâ , Germany did not conform to the Grand Tourist ideals of eighteenth-century British travellers that were influenced by the spirit of the Enlightenment, and, therefore, sought to trace vestiges of the Greco-Roman cultural tradition in their ventures across the continent. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that the German landscape becomes the central theme of British travel discourse, marking the gradual shift of focus from the â oesaturatedâ image of classical Greece to the rediscovery of the Old Germanic culture of the sagas. Driven by an antiquarian interest in the German context, British travellers discovered Germany in the wake of the nineteenth century, when the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire not only signalled French expansionism in Protestant Europe, but also stimulated the appetite of the Victorians for the exploration of the German culture in an attempt to define themselves as being of pure Teutonic stock. Given the strenuous struggle of German thinkers to deal with the feelings of humiliation and shame caused by the Napoleonic rule, and, in view of a potential Gallicisation, nineteenth-century Germans mastered the fields of comparative philology and Northern antiquarianism to transform their political weakness into a new cultural paradigm that not only fostered pan-Germanism through the rediscovery of the folk tales and legends of their medieval tradition, but also ascribed to Germany a superior spiritual role, which was later incorporated into the racial discourses of Germany and Britain. This book is concerned with the views of British travel writers, focusing on travel narratives produced from 1794 until 1845. As such, it sheds light on instances which pertain to the representation of Germanness in relation to the British national context.
Situated between Europe and Asia, Russia has systematically challenged the European theories attached to nationhood due to its geopolitical and cultural peculiarities. After the rise of European nationalist movements, imperial Russia posed a threat to the very existence of the Germanic empires of Britain, Germany and Austria, and was frequently evoked to epitomise European barbarism, paganism, despotism and the Orient. In its struggle to acquire a new identity, which would bridge the gap with Western empires, Russia could not conform to the rising Anglo-Saxon movements that sought to glorify Nordic supremacy at the expense of the Oriental Other. Drawing upon this binary opposition between the Orient and the Occident, the Russian Empire concentrated on the development of its own nation-building theories, which managed to incorporate the ascending Pan-Slavic wave into its nationalist agenda. The anti-Western rhetoric that often characterised Russian politics contributed to the subversion of the conventional Western perspective of the Orient and the emergence of Eurasianism as a political theory that exalted the different traits of its imperial system. This book sets the focus on the representations of the Russian Empire from 1792 until 1912 in the field of travel literature. To this end, it selects British and American travel narratives of the aforementioned period to explore all aspects of Russian identity and culture. For this reason, it addresses major issues attached to Russian history and culture that were investigated by Western travellers in their attempt to approach the Russian Empire.
British Images of Germany is the first full-length cultural history of Britain's relationship with Germany in the key period leading up to the First World War. Richard Scully reassesses what is imagined to be a fraught relationship, illuminating the sense of kinship Britons felt for Germany even in times of diplomatic tension.
Travelers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, fascists, artists, tourists, and even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler—one so palpable that the reader will feel, hear, even breathe the atmosphere.These are the accidental eyewitnesses to history. Disturbing, absurd, moving, and ranging from the deeply trivial to the deeply tragic, their tales give a fresh insight into the complexities of the Third Reich, its paradoxes, and its ultimate destruction.
How did Victorian travellers define and challenge the notion of Empire? How did the multiple forms of Victorian travel literature, such as fiction, travel accounts, newspapers, and poetry, shape perceptions of imperial and national spaces, in the British context and beyond? This collection examines how, in the Victorian era, space and empire were shaped around the notion of boundaries, by travel narratives and practices, and from a variety of methodological and critical perspectives. From the travel writings of artists and polymaths such as Carmen Sylva and Richard Burton, to a reassessment of Rudyard Kipling’s, H. G. Wells’s and Julia Pardoe’s cross-cultural and cross-gender travels, this collection assesses a broad range of canonical and lesser-studied Victorian travel texts and genres, and evaluates the representation of empires, nations, and individual identity in travel accounts covering Europe, Asia, Africa and Britain.
In Translating the World, Birgit Tautz provides a new narrative of German literary history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Departing from dominant modes of thought regarding the nexus of literary and national imagination, she examines this intersection through the lens of Germany’s emerging global networks and how they were rendered in two very different German cities: Hamburg and Weimar. German literary history has tended to employ a conceptual framework that emphasizes the nation or idealized citizenry, yet the experiences of readers in eighteenth-century German cities existed within the context of their local environments, in which daily life occurred and writers such as Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe worked. Hamburg, a flourishing literary city in the late eighteenth century, was eventually relegated to the margins of German historiography, while Weimar, then a small town with an insular worldview, would become mythologized for not only its literary history but its centrality in national German culture. By interrogating the histories of and texts associated with these cities, Tautz shows how literary styles and genres are born of local, rather than national, interaction with the world. Her examination of how texts intersect and interact reveals how they shape and transform the urban cultural landscape as they are translated and move throughout the world. A fresh, elegant exploration of literary translation, discursive shifts, and global cultural changes, Translating the World is an exciting new story of eighteenth-century German culture and its relationship to expanding global networks that will especially interest scholars of comparative literature, German studies, and literary history.
Of all the parts of the world to interest the Victorians, Germany was among the most important. Though less well known today, partly in consequence of the events of the twentieth century, German influences in Britain were strong, and their legacy substantial. This book charts the emergence, development and course of the Victorian interest in Germany. Its multidisciplinary approach, which binds together for the first time the latest research conducted in a variety of areas, shows how a discourse developed in Britain regarding Germany and the Germans which spilled over from one area of life to another, and included some of the most prominent figures in Victorian life. It provides a framework for understanding the causes of the Victorian fascination with Germany, and argues forcefully that the roots of this lay in the processes of modernisation taking place in each place respectively. It also points to the deep impact this had upon the course of British history and reveals how it prepared the ground for the future direction of Anglo-German relations.
This volume examines the nineteenth century not only through episodes, institutions, sites and representations concerned with union, concord and bonds of sympathy, but also through moments of secession, separation, discord and disjunction. Its lens extends from the local and regional, through to national and international settings in Britain, Europe and the United States. The contributors come from the fields of cultural history, literary studies, American studies and legal history.
Over the past two hundred years German education policy and practice has attracted interest in England. Policy makers have used the 'German example' both to encourage change and development and to warn against certain courses of action. This monograph provides the first major analysis of the rich material from government reports (including work by Matthew Arnold), the press, travel accounts, memoirs, scholarly publications and the archives to uncover the nature of the English fascination with education in Germany, from 1800 to the end of the twentieth century. David Phillips traces this story and uses recent work in theories of educational policy 'borrowing' to analyze the reception of the German experience and its impact on the development of English education policy.