NASSR 2004: Romantic Cosmopolitanism
In Search of Cosmopolitan Germany
This panel invites papers on the exploration and interest in German culture
and intellectualism by British Romantics. Despite the popularity of
English translations of German literary works during the 1790s, such as
Bürger’s “Leonora,” knowledge of German language and culture was virtually
non-existent. In fact, it was not until the English publication of Mme. de
Staël’s De l'Allemagne in 1816 that a critical understanding of German
literary movements, such as the Sturm und Drang, started to emerge.
Prior to this emergence of a mass-informed awareness of German culture and
literature in England during the 1820s, interest in German culture,
language, and literature, remained a private cosmopolitan pursuit. Some
Romantics, including Coleridge, Wordsworth, Ann Radcliffe, the Shelleys,
and M. G. Lewis, to name but a few, had directly sought out a
cross-cultural interchange with German culture. This cosmopolitan search
for German culture was facilitated either by traveling directly to Germany,
and/or throughthe importation and reading of German print-media in England.
This panel aims to explore the types of “cosmopolitan encounters” with
German culture, literature, and intellectualism that were experienced by
British Romantics either via traveling to Germany, and/or the reading of
German print-media in England. For the Romantic traveler, how did the
experience of Germany support or differ from the initial expectations for
traveling to Germany? How were cosmopolitan experiences with German
culture mediated, as well as distorted, by literary productions, or
importation of texts, by the British traveler? And, in what ways did
these cosmopolitan encounters become re-disseminated in the travel writer’s
work?
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
· The translation and importation of German texts in England
· English students at German Universities
· British Romantics in Weimar
· Traveling the Rhine
· Thomas Beddoes and Germany
· Travel accounts by Hester Piozzi, Ann Radcliffe, the Wordsworths, the
Shelleys
Please send 500-word proposals by January 15, 2004, to:
Rebecca Potter <rebecca.potter@notes.udayton.edu>
English Dept.
University of Dayton
Dayton, OH 45469-1520
USA
Maximiliaan van Woudenberg
<maximiliaan.van.woudenberg@acadiau.ca>
Department of English, Acadia University
Beveridge Arts Centre, 10 Highland Avenue, Rm. 428
Wolfville, Nova Scotia B4P 2R6 Canada
Email submissions are welcomed.
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From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
CFP@english.upenn.edu
Full Information at
http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
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