No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Sealsfield-scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic has always been dominated by Germanistik. The fact that this Austro-American author wrote predominantly (though not always ) in German, made his works almost naturally part of the spectrum of Austrian and German literature of the Vormarz/Biedermeier period. The political attitudes emerging from the works seemed more or less in line with the mainstream progressive liberalism of a number of authors belonging to the group known as ]unges Deutschland and thus reinforced this classification.^ As a conse quence, Sealsfield was uncritically placed in the tradition of German Natiomlliteratur without consideration for his American roots. This is even true for an article as recent as Doerry's "Three Versions of America: Sealsfield, Gerstacker, and M ay" (1981). WhUe Doerry is quite willing to investigate Sealsfield's version of America, he does not consider Sealsfield as an American author Sealsfield's actual connection with the United States, as a great number of studies seem to imply, is mostly of interest to the biographer, and only peripherally to the literary historian or critic. Even an Ameri can student of Sealsfield's work such as Dallmann, who set out to locate the "Spirit of America" in Sealsfield's fiction, uses surprisingly few American sources in order to verify the authenticity of this American "sp irit." Where he does turn to an American source his method is questionable, since he compares "id e a s" derived from Sealsfield s fictional works with nonfictional American sources, without regard for specific narrative situations involved. Dallmann's study, along with a number of similar works, reduces Sealsfield's fiction to the role of a (naturally poor) textbook on American sociolo^.T he more appropriate method of interpreting Sealsfield's works in light of the American literature of the period has rarely been employed. If so, it confined itself mostly to Sealsfield's links with James Fenimore

No abstract