Armin Paul Frank

Rolf Lohse

This collection of essays is part of a project that surveys American literatures in terms of the writers' responses to international literature. Among English American novelists, 1860s to 1990s, James and Howells contributed significantly to the programmatic - Great American Novel by broadening the internationality they engaged with to include French and Russian books among the works to which they related their own. Faulkner is a key figure of a later phase when a number of American authors, while drawing upon a similar breadth of internationality, in turn became exemplary abroad in various countries. Morrison, interpreted as contributing to intra-American internationality, and the French Canadian writer Hebert, discussed in a summarizing essay, represent responses to Faulkner."

Henry James, William Dean Howells, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison

Internationality in American Fiction

Roland Alexander Ißler

Ludger Scherer

Der Dialog literarischer Traditionen bildet komplexe Konstellationen der Anverwandlung und Überschreibung, Zurückweisung und Innovation aus. Angesichts der Infragestellung kultureller Zugehörigkeiten und sozialer Identitäten wird das Wissen um diese Zusammenhänge zu einem bedeutenden Anliegen der europäischen Kulturen und Literaturen. Insbesondere dem Verständnis von Gründungserzählungen und den sich daran anknüpfenden Kanonisierungsprozessen gelten die Forschungen des Bonner Literaturwissenschaftlers und Mediävisten Michael Bernsen. Seine impulsgebenden Arbeiten zum Ägypten-Mythos, zum Petrarkismus sowie zu zentralen Gründungsmythen Europas im Mittelalter, der Romantik und Moderne finden in den Beiträgen dieses Bandes ein vielstimmiges internationales Echo. The dialogue of literary traditions produces complex constellations of assimilation and reformulation, refutation and innovation. Given the current challenges of cultural affiliations and of social identities, the knowledge of the addressed correlations, especially of founding myths, comes to be one of the central concerns of the European Literatures. These founding narratives have attracted the special attention of Michael Bernsen, who has been doing considerable research on the processes of literary canonization in the European literatures, on the Myth of Egypt, on Petrarchism, and in the field of important founding myths stemming from the Middle Ages to Romanticism and Modernity. The 39 contributions of international outstanding scholars attest the productive reception of the achievements of this researcher’s career.

Rolf Lohse

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