Description
Book SynopsisTraces the career of the widely read cultural historian Johannes Scherr and his development of a new kind of historical writing for the increasingly globalized 19th-century world. The German nineteenth century saw a boom in publishing and reading that created opportunities not only for Dichter, creators of great literature, but also for Schriftsteller, authors of the second rank. Among the latter were cultural mediators who helped readers negotiate the ever-expanding galaxy of print. Few achieved greater prominence than Johannes Scherr, whose remarkable career as a critic, anthologist, and historian of German and world literature began in the turbulent Vormärz era and continued during years of exile in the unlikely setting of the Zurich Polytechnic. He wrote from the vantage point of Switzerland, but his books were published in Germany, where his polemical style found favor. Andrew Cusack's study traces the process of Scherr's literary socialization as mediator in the "contact zone" formed by the Kingdom of Württemberg and Switzerland, whose liberal project of Volksbildung inspired him. It considers how his liminal position between nations and between the humanities and the sciences led him to develop a form of historical authorship for the increasingly globalized nineteenth century. The book considers Scherr's engagement with the totalizing paradigms of cultural history and world literature and sets his pessimistic worldview in the context of the materialism and violent political agitation that threatened democratic values in Switzerland and elsewhere.
Trade ReviewThis is a convincing study that - without any transfiguration - treats Scherr's accomplishments and weaknesses and also asks about his relevance for the present. It reads the cultural historian Scherr in terms of cultural history, for Cusack rejects a literary and scholarly writing that only follows the high crest of canonical authors and concepts and thereby passes over one-time bestselling authors like Scherr. It represents therefore, commendably, a scholarly-political concern, and positions itself against scholarship, as a form of high culture, itself only dealing with what was and is defined by it as high culture. -- Olaf Briese * ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR GERMANISTIK *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Note on Translations and the Use of German Texts Introduction: The Success and Failure of Johannes Scherr Scherr's Liminality: Between Nations and Academic Cultures The Cultural Historian as Mediator Worlding German Literature Weltschmerz and Pessimism-Scherr's Old-Age Style Conclusion: Where Next for Scherr? Appendix: Overview of Essays in the Menschliche Tragikomödie Bibliography
