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In his recent monograph on German novelists of America, Jeffrey L. Sammons describes his strong disinclination to include a discussion of Karl May:
On the one hand, the contour of my subject seemed to require his inclusion; on the other, I remained unproductively baffled that an author whom I found silly and tedious should be, by a gigantic margin, the best-selling fiction writer in his homeland and not only a favorite of children, as one might expect, but an object of veneration and solemn contemplation by many adults and even scholars. Few features of the German culture that is supposed to be my life's work have contributed so much to my sense of strangeness from it than the phenomenon of Karl May.
Sammons's ambivalent attitude toward May results in a relatively brief investigation of the author's reception in the United States. He shows that May's work has generally received scant attention there, suggesting that the personal puzzlement of the literary critic regarding May's success in Germany is quite in line with the reaction of his fellow Americans. As Sammons argues convincingly, May fails to portray North America in ways that could generate a significant interest among larger sections of that society. Most Americans simply cannot identify with May's novels, for even though May drew heavily on James Fenimore Cooper and other sources popular in the United States, he used this material in ways that must alienate American readers. A generally anti-American current pervades most of May's novels staged in North America. But, as Sammons argues, even more than the presence of this bias in May's writings, the novels’ lack of appeal can be explained in terms of the author's inability to represent “what makes America significant in the course of human affairs: the great experiment in creating a democracy, in balancing the often conflicting claims of liberty, equality, and justice. . . .” This ignorance of issues central to Americans’ self-image convincingly explains the absence of May from the U.S. popular-culture canon, much more than the stylistic deficiencies on which Sammons elaborates, quite amusingly, with loathing and bewilderment.
However, May's success elsewhere is a fact, in spite of or (however unfortunate it may be to some) even because of the aesthetic dimensions of the texts.
This volume of new essays by leading scholars treats a representative sampling of German realist prose from the period 1848 to 1900, the period of its dominance of the German literary landscape. It includes essays on familiar, canonical authors -- Stifter, Freytag, Raabe, Fontane, Thomas Mann -- and canonical texts, but also considers writers frequently omitted from traditional literary histories, such as Luise Mühlbach, Friedrich Spielhagen, Louise von François, Karl May, and Eugenie Marlitt. The introduction situates German realism in the context of both German literary history and of developments in other European literatures, and surveys the most prominent critical studies of ninteenth-century realism. The essays treat the following topics: Stifter's Brigitta and the lesson of realism; Mühlbach, Ranke, and the truth of historical fiction; regional histories as national history in Freytag's Die Ahnen; gender and nation in Louise von François's historical fiction; theory, reputation, and the career of Friedrich Spielhagen; Wilhelm Raabe and the German colonial experience; the poetics of work in Freytag, Stifter, and Raabe; Jewish identity in Berthold Auerbach's novels; Eugenie Marlitt's narratives of virtuous desire; the appeal of Karl May in the Wilhelmine Empire; Thomas Mann's portrayal of male-male desire in his early short fiction; and Fontane's Effi Briest and the end of realism. Contributors: Robert C. Holub, Brent O. Petersen, Lynne Tatlock, Thomas C. Fox, Jeffrey L. Sammons, John Pizer, Hans J. Rindisbacher, Irene S. Di Maio, Kirsten Belgum, Nina Berman, Robert Tobin, Russell A. Berman. Todd Kontje is professor of German at the University of California, San Diego.
This volume brings together some of the leading scholars of German realism working today and testifies to the vitality of the field. It includes essays on familiar authors — Stifter, Freytag, Raabe, Fontane, Thomas Mann — and canonical texts but also considers writers frequently omitted from traditional literary histories, including Luise Mühlbach, Friedrich Spielhagen, Louise von François, Karl May, and Eugenie Marlitt. Although the book does not attempt to cover every author or aspect of the period — which would, in any case, be impossible — an effort has been made to include a representative sampling of German realist prose in the second half of the nineteenth century. While the contributors vary in their choice of topic and approach, they all situate the literary works in their historical context and also suggest reasons why these texts remain of interest today. Thus, the contributors focus on questions of national identity during the period of Germany's first political unification; examine representations of Germans abroad and foreigners at home at a time of mass emigration and colonial expansion; consider attitudes toward work in a period of rapid industrialization; and reflect on questions of sexual identity and gender roles in works by both men and women in the era of the family journal, the first organized women's movements, and the earliest advocates for homosexual rights. Each essay refers to relevant literature on the particular author or topic discussed, and the volume concludes with a complete list of works cited. The book should, therefore, be of interest primarily to students and scholars of German literature but also to those concerned with the topic of realism in literature and questions of subject-formation, national identity, and cultural memory in an era of rapid historical change.
I would like to thank the contributors for their willingness to collaborate on this project, their patience with my demands, their respect for deadlines, and, above all, the quality of their work.