Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Volume 62 Issue 2

Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Volume 62 Issue 2

Contents
Journal Overview

Frontmatter

June 5, 2014 Page range: i-iv

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Free access PDF PDF

Editorial

June 5, 2014 Page range: 93-93

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Articles

“So Unlucky a Perspective”: The Critique of Moral Sentimentalism in The Man of Feeling

Bahadir Eker June 5, 2014 Page range: 95-112

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Abstract

Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling (1771) is commonly described as a typical sentimental novel, yet the work has many aspects that a straightforward sentimentalist interpretation cannot possibly account for. I argue in this paper that The Man of Feeling , far from being a straightforward sentimental novel, encapsulates a profound critique of both moral sentimentalism and the genre of sentimental fiction. This critical stance is established in the first instance, I claim, by the ironic distance to the sentimental material in the novel, which results from the complex, multilevel narrative structure, and is further reinforced by numerous satirical elements in the text. As I demonstrate, reading Mackenzie’s work as an antithesis of the sentimental novel that parodies the sentimentalist moral epistemology underlying this mode of fiction does a much better job at explaining several crucial aspects of the novel than the sentimentalist interpretation.

Philip Larkin, Solitary Man: From Splendid Isolation to Remorse and Fear

Peter Krahé June 5, 2014 Page range: 113-129

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Abstract

This paper analyses the development of the theme of solitude in the work of Philip Larkin, one of the most popular English poets of the post-war era, in his poems and letters covering a period of thirty years. In his lifetime, the “best poet laureate we never had” was often considered as the “Hermit of Hull,” due to his well-known reluctance to socialise. Over the period of his productive life, Larkin weighs the aspects of solitude, togetherness, and gregariousness. His poems reflect how the early wish to be alone as a precondition for his creativity gives way to an unwilling acceptance of conviviality and, finally, the blank fear of isolation and death, as expressed in his last great published poem, “Aubade.” It is shown that as his creativity dwindles away, Larkin grudgingly acknowledges his daily work as a librarian, once described as the ‘toad work,’ as a stabilising force in his life.

“To Make a History From This Kind of Material is Not Easy”: The Narrative Construction of Cultural History in Contemporary Fiction

Miriam Wallraven June 5, 2014 Page range: 131-148

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Abstract

In a postmodern understanding of textuality, fact and fiction can no longer be regarded as opposites; in this context, Hayden White’s studies of fictional techniques in historical texts have initiated an interdisciplinary discussion about the significance of fictional narration as a meaningful cultural technique . The narrative reconstruction of the history of lost civilisations and earlier cultures also plays a central role in contemporary literature in English. The historiographical search for the reality of the lives of earlier oral cultures and the attempt to provide academic interpretations of such cultures in order to explain the past structure novels such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale , Jane Yolen’s Sister Light, Sister Dark , and Doris Lessing’s The Cleft . By analysing the different textual layers and narrative forms of these novels, the difficulties of a historiographical reconstruction of lost cultures in the medium of fiction are highlighted and the ambivalent truth claims of academic discourse become apparent. These novels illustrate how the integration and negotiation of historiography in fictional literature creates a tension-fraught discursive network of different competing voices that sheds light on the complex processes of cultural meaning-making.

“Keep that Fan Mail Coming.” Ceremonial Storytelling and Audience Interaction in a US Soldier’s Milblog

Frank Usbeck June 5, 2014 Page range: 149-163

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Abstract

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq initiated a surge of texts by US soldiers who utilized recent Web 2.0 technology to forge new types of war narratives, such as the so-called “milblogs.” Milblogs merge letter and journal writing with journalistic reporting, and they maintain contact between soldiers and their social environment. They are at once public and private communication. Military psychology since Vietnam has referred to warrior traditions of Native American communities to discuss public narration and ceremonial acknowledgment of a soldier’s war experience as vital elements for veteran readjustment and trauma recovery. This article analyzes an exemplary milblog to argue that the interaction between blogger and audience does similar cultural work and has comparable ceremonial and, therefore, therapeutic functions: Soldiers publicly share their experience, reflect on it with their audience, receive appreciation and support, and thus mutually (re-)negotiate group identity.

Book Reviews

Shakespeare

Angelika Zirker June 5, 2014 Page range: 165-167

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The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Volume Three

Christoph Bode June 5, 2014 Page range: 167-169

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Literature, Journalism, and the Vocabularies of Liberalism: Politics and Letters, 1886–1916

Benjamin Kohlmann June 5, 2014 Page range: 169-172

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The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry since 1945

Philipp Löffler June 5, 2014 Page range: 173-176

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Modern American Poetry. Points of Access

René Dietrich June 5, 2014 Page range: 176-179

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Rethinking the American City. An International Dialogue

Laura Bieger June 5, 2014 Page range: 179-182

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Books Received

June 5, 2014 Page range: 183-184

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About this journal

Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik (ZAA) is a peer-reviewed journal that traditionally reflects the entire spectrum of English and American language, literature and culture. Particular attention will also be paid to the new literatures in English, the development of linguistic varieties outside Britain and North America, the culture of ethnic minorities and the relationship between anglophone and neighbouring cultural areas. The journal also welcomes contributions which examine theoretical and interdisciplinary issues in literary, linguistic and socio-cultural research. Thus, ZAA invites contributions concerning a wide range of research on current issues, survey articles featuring recent developments in the fields of culture, literature and language, research reports as well as proposals concerning new directions within the discipline. For two of the journal’s four annual issues articles may be submitted in the field of literary and cultural studies; the remaining two issues will be reserved for special topics, one in literature and culture, the other in linguistics.