Moving Scenes: The Aesthetics of German Travel Writing on England 1783-1820

This book focuses on a variety of travellers, men and women, to chart the fascinating variety of styles and approaches which mark the German travel writing. It examines some of the rhetorical practices deployed in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century travel writing on England.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Theatre and Orality in Karl Philipp Moritz's Reisen eines Deutschen in England im Jahr 1782 2. Female Enquiry and the Ordering of Knowledge: Sophie von La Roche and the Problem of Sensibility 3. Die Feder soll unser Sprachrohr seyn': Esther Gad's Briefe während meines Aufenthalts in England und Portugal 4. Light and Landscape in Carl Gottlieb Horstig's Reise nach Frankreich, England und Holland zu Anfange des Jahres 1803 5. Sympathy and Spectacle: Visual Representation in Johanna Schopenhauer's Reise durch England und Schottland 6. August Hermann Niemeyer: 'Die bodenlose Tiefe der menschlichen Seele' 7. Conclusions

About the Author :
Alison E Martin is Assistant Professor of English Literature at the Martin-Luther-Universitot Halle-Wittenberg.

Review :
...richly researched and engagingly written...' -- Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol 43, No 2 Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol 43, No 2 A valuable and thoughtful study of aesthetic strategies in a genre in which their role is all too frequently overlooked... Martin is to be praised for the clarity of her exposition. She displays a thorough grasp of the key points at issue in the aesthetic debate of the period both in Germany and England (with occasional glances across to France), and gives due emphasis to the process of cross-fertilisation between the two countries through translation and travel. -- German Quarterly German Quarterly Textnah und detailreich untersucht A. E. Martin Strategien wirkungsasthetischer und rhetorischer Modellierungen in Englandreisen aus funf Jahrzehnten. -- Germanistik Germanistik In this fascinating new book, Alison Martin picks out six travelogues on England and makes the case that they deserve to be treated as 'serious' literature... The case studies are meticulously researched, and she places each text in context with reference to an impressive array of sources, from contemporary letters and reviews (English as well as German) to modern scholarly studies on art, political history, and even geology. Her close analyses of the texts themselves are lively and sophisticated... In the end, the book puts forward convincing arguments for the complexity and seriousness of this writing, and serves to remind us that the boundaries between genres are much more fluid than often supposed. As such, it should be of interest not only to scholars of travel writing but of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and culture more generally. -- Modern Language Review Modern Language Review The six case studies presented in this volume have been meticulously researched and contextualised, and some of the research - especially that concerning Esther Gad and Carl Gottlieb Horstig - is highly original. -- Archiv fuer das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen Archiv fuer das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen Martin is able to cover an impressive amount of ground, encompassing visual, oral and literary elements, as well as addressing key gender and socio-critical questions... The volume also constitutes a plea for the literary value of such travel narratives... It is this aspect in particular which makes this excellent volume stand out as an important and innovative contribution to European travel writing scholarship. -- Angermion (Yearbook for Anglo-German Literary Criticism, Intellectual History and Cultural Transfers) Angermion (Yearbook for Anglo-German Literary Criticism, Intellectual History and Cultural Transfers)