Publisher's Synopsis
This book seeks to explore the reception of German literature in the United States from 1864 to 1918, a period of great significance for both the U.S. and Germany in terms of sociopolitical developments that exerted their influence upon the production of literature. However, it is not intended to account for the entire scope of the reception of German belles lettres; rather, the book confines itself to exploring the use of those texts that were read in the classrooms of U.S. high schools and, above all, institutions of higher learning. An introductory chapter offers statistical surveys of textbooks published in the U.S., as such statistics are absolutely essential to ascertain both the availability and degree of popularity of certain texts that were exclusively intended for perusal in the classroom. The following chapters present texts dating from the late Middle Ages to the first decades of our century. Apart from establishing which texts were most frequently used, the chapters endeavor to evaluate the respective texts in terms of their intrinsic and extrinsic literary qualities.
