NUR DEINE LIEBE LASS ERSTRAHLEN LEBEN UND WERK VON KASPAR MAYR (German Edition)

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The English edition was revised in , and this version was reprinted many times, even as late as On the other hand, he wants to show just how German America really is. First, what is or what is called German? An element, however, can also be a quality or a typical characteristic. Faust does not settle on either of these answers, he maneuvers, he meanders — but he does not clarify the fundamental question of how to conceptualize the German element probably for reasons of political correctness avant la lettre in this complicated dual patriotic endeavor.

Faust occasionally does borrow from the imagery of chemical-physical terminology — as had his Goethean namesake. While he seems to promote a concept of amalgamation over long periods, in the summary of the second volume he views the German not so much as part of an amalgamation but as a catalyst for the American.

This sudden substitution of the catalyst theory for an implicit theory of amalgamation can be understood as a reaction to the problems Faust encountered and processed throughout the text while arguing for amalgamation. By replacing this model with a new one which, at any rate, he fails to explicate in any detail and which suddenly and almost magically appears in the final pages of The German Element in the United States , he does not evade all of its difficulties, yet he avoids the difficulty of explaining how the German element can still be recognized as German after having blended with American culture.

The catalyst theory, however, does not solve the following problem either. But let me return to the problem of distinguishing the Dutch from the German element. If Dutch is not separable from German, how, then, can it be excluded from the study? And does not Faust reproduce precisely the mistake he criticizes: DB, 1 [The population of the United States can be compared to a great ocean.

Streams from all countries flowed into it, some of which carried a rich sediment of minerals, others salt, a rare few gold. On one continent it improves life; on the other it alone renders life possible in northern latitudes. If it were not for this stream, glaciers would cover entire countries, in which vigorous nations now cultivate fertile soil. Yet we all know that the Europeans who emigrated to the United States were those who were not sufficiently fed by European soil — the Irish, for instance. The Gulf Stream did not protect mid-nineteenth-century Ireland from the potato blight.

What exactly, according to Faust, does the German part of the stream, flowing into the ocean of the American nation, contribute to that nation? This, however, is not the case — for one simple reason: The German stereotypes that Faust draws on are by no means entirely positive: Among these characteristics are simplicitas simplicity and libertas love of freedom as well as pigritia laziness and ira aggressiveness , which form the behavior, the customs, and as a result, the lifestyle and the social system of the Teutons.

The enormous impact of Germania, fashioned into a cult of Germanhood by the humanist Ulrich von Hutten — , has never fully disappeared. Faust undertakes such a revision. He agrees with all of the positive traits Tacitus attributes to the Teutons, and he provides ample evidence for them.

At the same time, he tries to disprove or re-write the negative attributions — this, of course, is an action that involves the reiteration of the claims he is refuting, at least implicitly. Before mentioning Tacitus several times, Faust brings up a second source of German stereotypes, which he critically labels a caricature. According to this old tradition the German is inseparable from lager beer, Limburger cheese, Sauerkraut, and a string of sausages. These attributes, with a red nose, a tipsy gait, and a fund of good nature, allowing others to make of him the butt of their jokes, convey to the American who has not traveled the impression of the German.

Striving for justice in his idiosyncratic way justice being an exclusively positive picture of the Germans , Faust now takes on Tacitus. The political refugees of the revolutionary period of far more frequently entered the professional careers and lived in the large cities. Many of them, however, were conspicuous as exceptions to the general rule. America abounds with Germans, who having received in their youth a classical education, have passed through varied adventures and often present the most startling paradoxes of thought and personal appearance.

I have seen a man bearing a keg, a porter, who could speak Latin fluently; I have been in a beer-shop kept by a man who was distinguished in the Frankfurt Parliament. I have found a graduate of the University of Munich in a Negro minstrel troupe. But the German knows not only the Latin language, he knows its canonical texts, too — including one of primary importance to Germans: You are welcomed by a figure in a blue flannel shirt and pendant beard, quoting Tacitus; Madonnas on log walls; coffee in tin cups upon Dresden saucers; barrels for seats to hear a Beethoven symphony on the grand piano;.

Apart from the cultivation, however, there have to be residues of wildness and autochthonicity: Benjamin Rush, the noted Philadelphia physician, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He noticed that the prosperity of Pennsylvania was largely due to the Pennsylvania Germans, and began to examine the causes of their success. He seems consciously to have imitated the example of the historian, Tacitus, who described the virtues and vices of the ancient Germans, perhaps with a view of holding them up as an example for his own people.

Scholars of today have generally abandoned the theory that Tacitus had an ethical, satirical, or political purpose in the Germania. This, however, does not affect Dr. Tacitus wrote on a subject which was a burning question of the day. His view was pessimistic as to many phases of Roman life, and he welcomed an opportunity to emphasize what he considered in the Germans superior traits. One of the characteristics Tacitus attributes to the ancient Germans, which Faust takes up, is simplicitas. For Faust, simplicitas goes hand in hand with economy and guarantees extraordinary success: Economy was the rule of his life.

And Faust sums up: The relation to Tacitus is also apparent in the mythically stylized connection Faust draws between Germans and trees. In like manner Faust writes, The German farmer has always shown more regard for the trees than the Anglo-Saxon. It is recorded of the Pennsylvania-Germans that they were economical in the use of wood, even where it was abundant.

They did not wantonly cut down forests or burn them, and when using wood as fuel, they built stoves, in which there was less waste than in the open fireplaces. The German of the nineteenth century likewise proved himself a friend of the trees. Germans, according to Faust, even though not political by nature a characteristic distinguishing them from the English and the French have always been vehemently opposed to slavery: Faust asserts further, The Germans did not enter politics for a livelihood. They came as farmers, tradesmen, mechanics, merchants, or professional men, and applied themselves diligently to their particular trades with a determination to succeed in them.

Their strongly developed practical sense showed them that the professional politician, immediately ousted from office when his party was defeated, was engaged in a very unsafe and unprofitable business. Selfish office holders and aggressive political manipulators do not control the settlement of great political questions, nor do they advance government or civil service toward a higher ideal. Pigritia, too, the laziness that Tacitus attributes to the Teutons, Faust turns into its opposite. All the bravest of the warriors, committing the care of the house, the family affairs, and the lands, to the women, old men, and weaker part of the domestics, stupefy themselves in inaction: Faust tries to revise this picture by presenting the image of the industrious German: Just as Tacitus rewrites Teutonic laziness as filthiness, Faust rewrites that filthiness as cleanliness and discipline.

With all his idealism the German takes good care of his physical welfare. Outdoor sports came with periods when the leisure class had grown in numbers, and they were mostly brought from England. Indoor gymnastics, however, were introduced by Germans. In Germany gymnastic exercises Turnerei were introduced in the first quarter of the nineteenth century by the patriot Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.

His ideal was to recreate in Prussia the gigantic statures of the ancient Germans, as Tacitus had described them. In body and mind he wished to see men vigorous and independent. Teutonic aggressiveness ira as described by Tacitus, Faust transforms into a harmless predilection for hearty festivities: Furthermore, he writes, Amusing are the accounts of occasional clashes between the German and the Irish element on festival days.

Brawls and broken heads frequently resulted, but the number of the wounded is of very little importance to the historian, in comparison with the fundamental fact, that there existed a kinship between the Teuton and Celt in America in so far as they both possessed an unsubdued disposition to merrymaking, offsetting Puritanic and Calvinistic abstinence. In taking pleasure after toil, in relaxing after tension, the German has furnished an example to the busy American, who takes even his pleasures strenuously.

The German in his own country gives himself a good amount of leisure and healthful pleasure, and this trait enables him to keep his mind and body fresh, to safeguard against over-exertion, and to do better work for a longer time. He then adds in a footnote: Rush that the Pennsylvania-Germans were not addicted to drinking. At all events they did not surpass their Irish, Scottish or English contemporaries. Germans do not drink a lot.

And if they do, there are always members of other nations who drink even more this seems to be the only rhetorical strategy Faust can think of in order to solve the problem. Faust characterizes the German in cultural linguistic and ethical terms — the blood he at times speaks of functions merely metaphorically. Faust organizes his analyses of cultural transfer and integration according to a model that has influenced American debates on acculturation to this day: On closer examination, however, this theory raises further questions, which only defer the problem diachronically: Is there a point in time — at least on principle — in which the German ceases to exist, in which it is hybridized to such an extent that it cannot be isolated from the other components any longer?

This is an interesting question with respect to twentieth-century America. All subsequent citations are to the following revised edition, which is virtually identical with the original edition from with the addition of an appendix that presents new lines of research up to The Steuben Society of America, Subsequent references to this work are cited in the text using the abbreviation GE 1 or GE 2, respectively, and page number.

References to the appendix are cited as GE A and page number. The text was translated into English by Katrin Oltmann. Subsequent references to this work are cited in the text using the abbreviation DB and page number.

A History of Poetics: German Scholarly Aesthetics and Poetics in International Context, 1770-1960

All translations of quotations from this work are my own. Subsequent references to this work are cited in the text using the abbreviation DE and page number. In the following these markers will be dropped, wherever possible, for the sake of readability. The reader, however, is asked to keep the precarious status of these concepts in mind. Any of the substances numbering more than a hundred that cannot be resolved by chemical means into simpler substances. Since the earliest days of settlement and to the present day it has been incessantly flowing into the American nation.

The treasure of courage and vigor, value and knowledge that this warm, life-giving German stream brings along with it from its origins, is inexhaustible. It turns forests into fertile fields, deserts into blossoming gardens, isolated spots into cheerful work places. Like the Gulf Stream, the German element remains unaffected by others in its beginnings, that is, in its first generation. And just as the Gulf Stream radiates, expands like a fan, incorporating other currents, so the German element spreads out by mixing its blood with the other ethnic groups, until the current is fully dissolved into the whole and comes to rest, the particular characteristics disappear, as does the excess of warmth, which, however, has not been lost but has dispersed throughout the entire great ocean.

This is how the German element merges with the population of the United States. Still, Faust offers a diachronically differentiated theory of amalgamation here: Subsequent references to this work are cited in the text using the abbreviation TG and section number. Faust consulted the edition of Mason Brothers, , Gordon, in Voyages and Travels: Personal filth is inconsistent with the daily practice of bathing mentioned c. Louis C to define and to conceptualize. Personal and social values, forms of economic production, legal systems, religious convictions, political ideas or movements are, moreover, seldom agreed upon within one nation.

The collective and individual identity segments of a national culture go through processes of constant construction and deconstruction, and these developments need to be analyzed in their synchronic and diachronic dimensions. Often, political or religious movements in one country have already formed a profile of their own but, in their struggle for influence, seek support from like-minded groups in another state or even several other countries.

Louis, or simply The St.

They aimed to enable extraordinary educational experiences, were designed to be a sort of international university for a limited period of time, a market place of the grandest dimensions, a model city, an entertainment park of unseen proportions, in other words: Biographies of individuals as well as the relations between countries were influenced; information about technology and science was acquired by scholars and entrepreneurs; business deals were struck on local, national, and global levels; academics gleaned ideas and attempted to produce an impact with their own findings; and — as is the case with all fairs — entertainment loomed large.

Furthermore, the Fair as a space and a building complex, as a model city was, for its visitors, an aesthetic experience with innumerable audio-visual attractions. And finally, it was a media event of the first order. In that respect the St. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition was a meeting ground of constant cultural exchanges and transfers. And it was an extraordinarily large meeting ground.

The organizers of the fair wanted to outdo the fabulous achievements of the Columbia Exposition in Chicago. The good citizens of St. Louis — with David R. The exposition ground encompassing the western half of Forest Park and the new campus of Washington University as well as a part of what is now the city of Clayton was — with its acres — twice as large as the fair ground during the Chicago exhibit.

The grandness of the fair ground, the majesty of the pavilions, the beauty of the landscaping, the number of countries contributing sixty nations were represented , the quantity and quality of the many congresses the Congress of Arts and Science alone attracted some scholars from all over the world , the size of the amusement park the so-called Pike , the originality of the exhibits: More than twenty million visitors were counted in Chicago, and St.

Louis came close to that figure. In the end St. Louis attracted more visitors from out of town: Chicago had a population three times as large as that of St. Louis some , people lived in the city of St. Louis at the time , which explains the slightly higher number of visitors at the Columbia Exposition. After the First World War international exhibits became more specialized, more differentiated.

Louis one had, basically for the last time, everything still under one roof: At that time they conveyed knowledge about the most recent advancements in essentially all fields of human culture. These times have passed. With the explosion of knowledge and the new media that developed during the twentieth century, the fairs have lost their vanguard positions in mediating the very latest developments in technology, scholarship, and entertainment.

Many visitors of the St. Louis fair were stunned and overwhelmed by this massive wave of information and by the beauty of the buildings and parks. The infirmary of the fair was constantly filled with people suffering from a sort of culture shock. The German as well as the German-American participation in the St.

Here one can observe a triangular relationship of institutions. Three different cultural segments from Germany, the United States, and the German-American community entered into communication with each other. In their interactions it became obvious that there existed a certain overlap of interests but that common ground was limited in scope. During the exchanges, a cultural dialogue or rather, trialogue was set in motion on many different levels. At first, the government of Imperial Germany was not inclined to contribute to the Fair. Louis every fourth citizen was of German descent , he personally pulled the strings necessary to make the German participation a success.

He appointed a ministerial official, Theodor Lewald, as the Commissioner who would oversee and organize the German contribution to the Fair. While he left most of the organizational details to Lewald, Wilhelm made sure he had a say in the plans for the German national pavilion, and he insisted on sending paintings of his choice to the art exhibit. Juliane, you have studied the history and the symbolic meaning of the German Pavilion.

What is so remarkable about it? First of all, one has to realize that the German House Deutsches Haus was the only national pavilion that was part of the main venue of the Fair. Lewald had fought for this special location. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

The German House at the St. Reprinted by permission of the St. The emperor had insisted that it be a copy of his beloved Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin. Louis Art Museum , it was a temporary construction. During the fair the German House was used for representational purposes, mainly for receptions. Its interior consisted of exact copies of a number of rooms both from Charlottenburg Palace and from the Berlin City Palace. With this re-creation of Charlottenburg Palace Wilhelm aimed to establish a link between the German Pavilion and baroque grandeur, the Prussian monarchy, and the Hohenzollern dynasty.

The grandeur of the fair pavilion was diminished, though, due to the fact that the huge wings of the original castle were missing. Inasmuch as Wilhelm II stood for the neo-absolutism of the newly united German Reich, it is obvious why he chose the baroque style for the German Pavilion. Baroque is the architectural style of absolutism; it was used to represent a hierarchical political and religious system with the monarch at its center. His wish to inspire admiration and awe in fairgoers, was, however, undermined by developments in turn-of-the-century architecture and by the architectural surroundings at the fair.

First, the German House, as an example of historicism in architecture, represented a prevailing normative attitude toward art and architecture in the late nineteenth century in both the United States and Europe and in no respect stood out. The German House merely represented Germany as a conservative country that was focused on a glorified past.

Furthermore, other countries like Great Britain, France, and China constructed copies of famous palaces as their national pavilions as well. In this context the fake Charlottenburg castle was probably received in a pop-cultural manner avant la lettre: Above and beyond the architecture of the German House, Wilhelm II also had a say in the selection of paintings for the art exhibit.

The emperor saw the art exhibit in St. Louis as an opportunity to offer a conservative German alternative to French modernism, a movement he detested. He demanded that only official academic art, represented by his friend and admirer Anton von Werner, be accepted for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Werner was an influential member of the Berlin Art Academy and president of the Kunstgenossenschaft, an association of traditionalist artists.

Wilhelm II had made sure that flattering marble busts of him and his wife were in the German House and in the German sections of the exhibition palaces. Many of the paintings sent to St. Louis showed him as the grand and ambitious emperor of a grand and ambitious Germany. None of the younger painters of the school of social criticism or of any secession movement had been accepted. A large hall in the Palace of Art was reserved for the paintings of Anton von Werner.

It was a government-financed art for the purpose of glorifying the monarchy and lacked the new feeling of individualism evident in more progressive works, just as it failed to reflect recent discoveries in psychology and sociology. It represented everything the secessionist movements opposed. It reads as follows. Satirical Representation of the German contribution to the St.

Illustrierte Wochenschrift 8, no. Go West, treacly German art and splendor! Go West and greet everybody Who does not spit in your presence. Greet all who love you. Lofty, most high lords, and Do not return, stay over there! Fair well, trashy spectacle! Yes, the established conservative art was clearly predominant at the Fair. Many of the selected painters and sculptors were members of the Berlin Art Academy and had, in one way or the other, worked for the Imperial Court.

He mounted a splendid exhibit in the Palace of Varied Industries. Joseph Olbrich was from Vienna, but at the time was working in Darmstadt. What about the Viennese and Austrian contributions to the arts during the Fair? Greg, can you tell us something about this? In contrast to Wilhelm II, the Austrian emperor, Franz Joseph, did not interfere directly in the exhibition affairs of his country.

The Jugendstil architect Ludwig Baumann developed an interesting design for the Austrian Pavilion, a building that stood out from the rest and certainly caught the attention of the visitors. Unlike the German contribution, the whole range of Austrian — or rather Viennese — art was represented, from old-fashioned realism to the cautious modernism of the Hagenbund Hagen League and the avant-garde works of the Secession.

Like the Germans, the Austrians obtained a large amount of space in the Art Palace for their paintings. Hungary ran its own national exhibits in several exhibition halls, including the Art Palace. There was one project on which the local St. Louis German-American community worked together with both German and Austrian officials: The Tyrolean Village at the St. The project was financed by Adolphus Busch and other entrepreneurs. It had an enormous restaurant — used for a number of official occasions — and Bavarian and Tyrolean folk dances drew large numbers of visitors.

The whole area of the Tyrolean Village was surrounded by murals depicting Alpine landscapes from Bavaria and the Tyrol. It included a town hall and a church. The buildings — later imitated in Walt Disney entertainment parks — were so popular that they were not demolished immediately at the end of the Fair; they remained standing until Popular culture was an important part of the Fair, and Austria had, so to speak, its fair share of it.

The goal was to exhibit the works of the avant-garde in all represented fields, be it in the arts, in industry, technology, science, or the humanities. This goal was not reached by the German art exhibit, but it was realized in several areas of science and scholarship. Sandra, you have dealt with this part of the German involvement in the Fair. What about the competition between Germany and the U. The goal of the St. Germany presented itself as a nation that stressed both basic research and advances in the applied sciences.

Strong showings were made in the areas of chemistry and medicine and in the field of scientific instruments. These were the areas where Germany was an international leader. Although Germany had played a leading role in the field of electricity for some time, the St. Competition should not be underestimated as an integral part of cultural transfer. Scientists and entrepreneurs were watching the international contributions carefully. After all, it stimulated a competition that would have to integrate the existing vanguard position in order to outdo it.

What about German participation in the Congress of Arts and Science? This Congress probably was the largest and most comprehensive convention of its kind. But here a heroic effort was made to demonstrate that the sciences, medicine, the humanities, and the social sciences adhered to the same principle the search for truth , were involved in the same project the progress of scholarship , and had the same values and goals the improvement of human living conditions.

The President and the Vice-Presidents of the Congress traveled all over Europe to invite the best minds at leading universities. About ten percent of the lectures given during the Congress of Arts and Science were presented by German professors. What did they try to convey and what did they learn? Lecturing at the Fair was an opportunity for Weber to embark on a three-month journey to the United States.

While he knew little about the United States, he was studying its religious and economic makeup, particularly for the second volume of his standard work Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Before arriving in St. Louis, the Webers went on to journey to Oklahoma and the southern states while Troeltsch returned to Germany. Weber was fascinated by the vitality of American life. He stayed in St. Louis only for the duration of the Congress. The group of colleagues who listened to his deliberations was very small.

During his visit to the United States, Weber found more material that would substantiate his pet thesis regarding the close connection between the Protestant ethic and the success of capitalism in the western world. Cultural transfer in this context was somewhat limited due to the fact that Weber had formed preconceptions about this topic long before he came to St. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine that he could have written with such certainty about life and conditions in the United States had he not traveled in the States for a couple of months.

His later positive, lively, and broad scholarly reception in the United States might very well be due to the fact that conditions in America play such an important role in his major work. Ernst Troeltsch, a prominent philosopher of religion, also contributed to the Congress of Arts and Science. Louis papers did not report on it. Troeltsch made no effort to adjust to the different, more pragmatic and historically oriented approach to religious studies in the United States, where questions about the conditions of the possibility of doing research were not central.

Toward the end of his lecture he offered a kind gesture, expressing the wish for a fruitful combination of German and American methods in religious studies, but his own presentation during the Congress was not an overture to this endeavor. As was mentioned above, cultural transfer between nations is a complex matter. Louis lecture was another variation on topics he had already discussed in this major work.

As a result of its positive reception, his address to the Congress was published in in the American Journal of Sociology. Capitalism is defined by Sombart as the embodiment of rationalistic, utilitarian, profit-oriented, and individualistic thinking; its most explicit expression, as Sombart later GCNC-CH An era of optimism and belief in progress was coming to an end in Europe, an era that still informed the organization of the St.

By the year , Bellamy imagined, cooperation would have replaced competition in the United States, and every citizen would benefit from the wealth produced by the country. But Sombart himself did not believe in these dreams. He insisted on his thesis that ruthless American competition, unlimited individualism, and the pressure to be successful regardless of the consequences would make the development of a culture impossible.

Sombart criticized the American way of life in a way that had an impact on the spectrum of German anti-American attitudes, including that of the Frankfurt school as formulated by Adorno in Minima Moralia. Germany was less prominently represented during the Olympic Games. This type of international sports event had been reinvented and reintroduced by the French diplomat and entrepreneur Pierre de Coubertin. Suzuko, you have had a close look at the Olympic Games in St. Were they as successful as was the fair in general? The most western part of the new Washington University campus was chosen as the site.

These Olympic Games were a white American male affair. No women competed in official events, in contrast to the Olympic Games in Paris, but for the first time a black athlete participated and, moreover, won a medal: George Poage in the meter hurdles. In Paris there had been over a thousand active participants, and twenty nations were represented; in St. Louis not even half that number of athletes showed up; only eleven countries even sent a team. Except for fencing, where most medals went to the Cuban team, the Americans won in nearly all the competitions.

They even introduced the Olympic discipline of barreljumping, where they could be certain that no other country would compete with them. Pierre de Coubertin was so disgusted with the national egotism of the United States Olympic Committee that he refused to pay a visit to St. Instead, the Olympic Games became international meetings where countries strove to demonstrate their national superiority. But what about the unofficial reports, and what about the articles in German newspapers and magazines? Leslie and Bettina, you have consulted the archives at the St. What is your impression? The Louisiana Purchase Exposition represented a culmination of international exchange and competition.

Anderson posits the emergence of the newspaper as a mass medium as pivotal in the rise of nationalism. The United States, on the other hand, is not yet seen as much of a threat to a perceived German superiority. When one looks at personal observations in diary entries, reports, and recollections, one finds the reception and evaluation of the Fair to be both similar and different from the official reports.

He is convinced that the Fair profited from the unique contributions of the Germans, especially from those in the Palace of Education. He also praises the St. The German-American Edward Schneiderhahn — an active member of the local Catholic German-American community — is somewhat of a bipolar figure, rooted in two cultures. Like him, he was opposed to the avantgarde. Due to his profession, the American Philibert was particularly interested in arts and crafts.

For this reason, he visited the German section in the Palace of Varied Industries as well as the Austrian Pavilion; in both instances he was duly impressed. In the case of Philibert one can at least see a learning process in action, but in the other two cases it is obvious that existing preconceptions were not altered. German Day was part of the official exposition program. Each participating country could arrange a national program with festivities, speeches, receptions, and dinners.

The German-Americans chose 6 October because German-American communities all over the country had traditionally celebrated that day: The Germanic Congress took place during the Fair but was not part of its official program. How did the German-American community present itself during these two events? German Day was divided into several segments. It started at 2: Program cover for German Day at the St. After this demonstration of American patriotism, they started their gymnastics, which lasted for an hour.

The organization of German Day lay in the hands of the St. Louis German community, with active members like Emil Preetorius, editor of the St. Louis Schillerverein Schiller Society. They went out of their way to demonstrate that the German-Americans had a hybrid identity and a dual loyalty. Harmony seems to have been the motto of the day, giving the impression that the German-Americans had forgotten why they had left their home country in the first place, that is, for reasons of political persecution or miserable living conditions. During German Day none of the differences between the democratic revolutionaries of and the representatives of German neo-absolutism was mentioned.

Carl Schurz, a former forty-eighter, did not address any of the old antagonisms. Unification had been one of the goals of the forty-eighters, although they certainly had not wished for a neo-absolutist government as part of the deal. After unification, many forty-eighters mellowed, probably due to the fact that the German Reich under the Hohenzollerns had become an internationally respected and even admired nation. An optimistic view of the situation in Germany was rather common among the younger generations. Harmony was also celebrated when the relations between the United States and the German Reich were addressed.

Carl Schurz was an experienced politician. As long as German Day lasted, the illusion of a perfect harmony among the three parties involved prevailed. But the deep divisions not only among but also within the three camps meant that there was something forced and artificial about this feigned harmony. During German Day, the St. Louis Schiller Society participated in the aforementioned production of harmony. One of some hundred different German-American clubs in St. Louis at the turn of the twentieth century, the Schiller Society of St.

Assimilation was a fact of life, and from the s on, the urban German-American communities found themselves in a defensive position. It was not that they were giving in to pressure from the so-called nativists, an aggressive group of anti-minority ideologists. The new generation of German-Americans, born in the United States, did not wish to be isolated in German-speaking ghettos. They wanted to connect with the mainstream American culture of the majority.

With a membership that fluctuated between one hundred and two hundred, it was a small club, but an influential one, since its members were educated people of the upper middle class. Due to his poetic insistence on political freedom, Friedrich Schiller was the cultural hero of the generation of , both in Germany and the United States.

When the Schiller Society unveiled its statue of Schiller in , some 30, people participated in the ceremony. It was understood that the Schiller Society was a major player, both during German Day and during the Germanic Congress. Otto Heller gave one of the three keynote addresses during the Germanic Congress. The Congress was held during a period of great tension in the German-American community. Pulled between the Fatherland and their new home, German-Americans were put on the defensive by fear of assimilation and of impending prohibition laws.

The majority of beer brewers were of German origin like the Busch family in St. Louis , and the German-American power base would be dealt a potentially fatal blow if American breweries were forced to close. It was in this environment that the DANB took shape. Founded in by C. Hexamer, it developed into an umbrella organization that united smaller existing groups. Introductory speeches were given by C. Learned was, in fact, not a German-American, and he focused on what it meant to be an American. Unlike the other speakers, he stressed the process of Americanization, but at the same time — a proto-multiculturalist — he recognized the importance of fostering the co-existence of different cultures in the United States.

The other speakers over twenty of them, including Heller stressed instead the superiority of German values. The DANB pursued a policy that was counterproductive in the end. It developed a drum-beating rhetoric that did not help the GermanAmerican cause. Louisans and then German-Americans. The editors remained stalwart in their expression of loyalty to their adopted homeland, and the paper itself still bore the stamp of the generation.

The report about German Day on 7 October fills more than fifty pages. It is preceded by an elaborate drawing showing the allegorical figures of Germania and Columbia representing Imperial Germany and the United States on equal footing: On the left one sees Germania with a spear, the German flag, and the shield with the German eagle; on the right Columbia with a spear, the star-spangled banner, and the American eagle.

The illustration embodies the strategy of forced harmony that was typical for German Day. The editors of the Westliche Post promoted accord between the German-American community and the German Reich since they believed that this move would slow the loss of readers to English-language assimilation and thereby further their own German-American civic ideal. A decade later everything had changed: And with it, the illusions of harmony were gone. From what all of you have contributed one can learn that there is quite a difference between the intended and the real cultural transfer that occurred during the St.

Wilhelm II wanted to impress the Americans with his replica of the Charlottenburg castle and with his conservative art exhibition. But in this case the German contributions simply blended into the general historicist architectural and art historical trends that dominated the outer appearance of the fair.

What caught the attention of the visitors was the art and craft movement in Germany and Austria, and it was typical that Austria received a gold medal for its display in this particular field. In the area of electrical engineering, chemistry and related fields the exhibitors from Germany and the United States watched each other carefully, and the competition contributed to further advancements in these areas of research. The German press coverage of the fair underlined the competitive aspects of the German contributions in these particular fields.

Westliche Post, 7 October A good number of American educators and city government administrators studied the German pedagogical systems in detail and were inspired by them to develop their own school reforms.

The German participation in the Olympic Games offers an example of mere competition without cultural transfer. These games were in the hands of American athletic clubs, and the few foreign countries that were able to participate despite the obstacles created by the Americans had no chance to win in any substantial manner. That was different in the case of the scholarly competition during the legendary Congress of Arts and Science.

Ten percent of all the professors delivering papers were from Germany. And in both cases one could recognize thereafter an increased impact of their ideas in American university circles. The fair was highly significant for the German-American community in St. Louis and in the United States in general. The national and international audience gave them a chance to present themselves as an intercultural force that stood both for German and American cultural values, as a group and a movement that had been active in the area of cultural transfer in both directions for more than two hundred years.

The German and Tyrolean Village — the most attractive and best attended location of the Pike — is unthinkable without the GermanAmerican community in St. Louis and without the power that Adolphus Busch represented at the time. Above and beyond the entertainment and social level, the community became heavily involved in organizing German Day which was the most powerful and — at the time — most convincing demonstration of a dual German-American identity and loyalty.

Carl Schurz seemed to be the living example of a successful German-American symbiosis, and he gave German Day his blessing. The Schiller Society stood somewhere between these two camps of the German-American community, but all in all its activities were more defensive than truly intercultural. In other words, the St. In the seminar that led to the writing of this essay, we had the chance to practice transdisciplinary studies in an area that was very much under researched. The fact that to date nobody had looked closely at the German and German-American contribution to the St.

When we teach a Kleist or Goethe seminar, such original work cannot be done by our graduate students. Louis fair in particular, with German-American relations, and with the history of the GermanAmerican community. I had to find out about the resources available in the St. Louis archives and libraries.

A History of Poetics: German Scholarly Aesthetics and Poetics in International Context, 1770-1960

Once this was done, I could map out the work for the students. We visited the archives together, and after that they were able to research the specific aspects they had chosen. When the students had handed in their seminar papers I asked them to include an abstract that I could use for the article. The contributions of the students in this paper are based on these abstracts. Although I had to rework the abstracts to make them fit the format of the article, they reflect the findings of the students, and in each case they vetted the final formulations.

The composition of the class was ideal for this endeavor: There was a EuropeanAmerican cultural dynamics at work in the seminar itself due to the fact that nine of the students were Americans working towards a doctorate in German, one was a lecturer from Sweden, and five students were participants in one-year exchanges we maintain in our department with universities and foundations in Germany. This was not a routine seminar, and it would hardly be possible to teach a course like this every year. In my own career it was one of the most exciting and most satisfying seminars I have taught.

Notes 1 This article is the result of a graduate seminar that I taught at Washington University in St. Louis during the Fall Semester of In the text, for which we used the form of a conversation, the following abbreviations are used: Suzuko Mousel Knott; Ca. Studien zum Kultur- und Wissenschaftstransfer in Europa, ed.

Niemeyer, , 20— Von der Romantik bis zur Gegenwart, 2d ed. Fox and Diane R. Sneddeker, From the Palaces to the Pike: A Compilation of Articles St. Louis, Missouri Boulder, CO: The Junior League of St.

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Louis, , 61—94; George R. Campus, , — Harvard UP, , — Louisiana Purchase Exposition Co. Universal Exposition Publishing Co. Erstattet vom Reichskommissar [Theodor Lewald] Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, , 72—77; Alfred G. Exhibition of the German Empire, ed. Georg Stilke, [] , —13; Rudolf G. Architecture in Europe —, ed. Rizzoli, , 88— Oehmigke, , Cinema Audiences, Visual Culture and the St. Four of them were of a particularly prominent nature: Mention of some of the better known paintings will give an idea of the nature of the exhibition: Imperial German Commission, ].

The Lousiana Purchase Exposition Co. Described by the Order of the Imp. Royal Ministry of Commerce [St. Missouri Historical Society in association with Francis Press, , — Louis German Educational Exhibition Berlin: Houghton Mifflin, , 1: Mohr, , —4. Ferdinand Hirt, , — Enke, , — See also Werner Sombart, Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung im Origins, Evidence, Contexts, ed. Hartmut Lehmann and Guenther Roth Cambridge: Cambridge UP, , — Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism London: Verso, , 83— See also Kirsten Belgum, Popularizing the Nation: U of Nebraska P, Schneiderhahn, Schneiderhahn Diaries, vols.

Missouri Historical Society Archives. Detjen, The Germans in Missouri, — U of Missouri P, Oktober auf der Weltausstellung, St. Co-operative Printing House, []. Rowohlt, , 10— Co-operative Printing House, , Alexander Duncker, , — For information about Otto Heller, see Ralph E. Morrow, Washington University in St.

Missouri Historical Society Press, , — See also Das Buch der Deutschen in Amerika, ed. This was an official publication of the National German-American Alliance. U of Kentucky P, The Germans in Missouri see note 46 , — William Torrey Harris was later to become the most famous of the three core members of the group now known as the St. As legend has it, the group came into being one winter night in , after a meeting of the St. Harris, who had come to St.

Louis in with the intention of teaching shorthand, was approached and befriended by Henry Conrad Brokmeyer, a rough-hewn Prussian emigrant and self-taught proponent of German Idealism. Although the translation was never published, the book itself played a key role in the self-definition of the group, and of GCNC-CH Louis after the war, he and Harris founded the St.

Louis Philosophical Society, which served as the organizational home of the movement until Harris left to participate in the Concord Summer School of Philosophy in In the mids they were also joined by Denton Snider, the third prominent member of an inner circle of committed Hegelians. Louis, Harris, Brokmeyer, and Snider were without a doubt the most influential popularizers and disseminators of Hegelian philosophy in nineteenth-century America. He served as the intellectual inspiration behind the entire movement, but he published only a few essays, and the manuscript of his monumental translation still gathers dust in the Missouri Historical Society archives.

Snider and Harris, however, published hundreds of books and articles on philosophical, cultural, and political topics, many of which deal directly with Hegel or at least bear the stamp of his influence. Louis schools — and then teaching at the Concord Summer School — , was appointed in to the position of United States Commissioner of Education. Founded and edited by Harris and generally acknowledged to be the first serious philosophical periodical published in the United States, the journal appeared regularly from through It devoted considerable space to both the presentation and interpretation of Hegelian philosophy and of German idealism more generally.

It also served as something of a springboard for a new generation of American philosophers, including Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, and John Dewey. For those cultural and intellectual historians who have taken an interest in this group of amateur philosophers, the question as to why Hegel exerted such a pull in late nineteenth-century St.

Louis has been a frequent topic of discussion. The dialectic allowed the Hegelians to reframe even historical catastrophes as necessary stages in a progression toward an ultimate reconciliation, and it continued to inform the writings of the members of the Society long after they went their separate ways. Louis and the Middle West as a site of mediation between the values of the North and South.

Much of the commentary on Harris and company has tended to present their use of the dialectic as simplistic, as a mere reconciliation of opposites. Louis, an event that would allow St. Louis to re-establish its supremacy. Recognizing the importance of self-consciousness in these early texts, moreover, opens up a new perspective on the appeal of Hegel and the concerns of the Hegelians.

Snider and Harris not only used Hegel to make sense of the chaotic situation in America following the war, but also to provide an explanation for what they saw as a crucial flaw in the American character, one that arguably gave rise to the chaos in the first place. Louis periodical The Western in the preceding few years. At the time, Snider was teaching high school philosophy and had just emerged from a six-year immersion in the works of Hegel. In The Philosophy of History Hegel interprets world history as the progressive actualization of the principle of free self-determination, a principle that first appears on the world-historical stage in ancient Greece.

Genuine freedom only exists when the members of that society are also consciously aware that this principle constitutes the foundation of their social order. His initial description, however, suggests that the evolution of the American republic mirrors the history of spirit in its entirety. Lamotte Litany Lk Ariosto Medieval antiphon medieval hymn Medieval Latin poem, str. Michael Kongehl, 7 str. Nicolaus Boie Olof Rudbeck d. Dalin on Joh 2: Salve Regina Original text in print: P Gerhardt P Gerhardt: Quinault paraphrase of Jubilus Bernhardi?

Paraphrase on ps 60 Paraphrasing Jes Christian Weselovius Ps Rist, Himmlische Lieder, Ps 50 Ps Ps 96 Ps Metamorphoses Racine Responsory Rev Johannes Flitner Rom 8: Odae Sveticae no 7,; no 6, Sequence, Pentecost Sirach Stabat Mater Swedish Koralbok , nr. Swedish Koralbok , nr. Swenska Psalm Boken, , ps. Corneille and Fontenelle T. Corneille and Fontenelle, after Hesiod: S A T B; 2vl 2vla fag 2cnto 4trb bc: S fag S A T B 2vl 2vla bc; rip:

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