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The American Indian in German Novels Up To The 1850s
Author(s) -
Kriegleder Wynfrid
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0483.00181
Subject(s) - german , order (exchange) , history , state (computer science) , ethnology , religious studies , art history , humanities , art , philosophy , archaeology , finance , algorithm , computer science , economics
A close look at a number of early German novels about the USA (e.g. Sophie von La Roche, Erscheinungen am See Oneida , 1798: Henriette Frölich, Virginia oder Die Kolonie von Kentucky , 1820; Charles Sealsfield, Der Legitime und die Repunlikaner , 1833; Jogann Christoph Biernatzki, Der braune Knabe , 1839) reveals that they hardly ever portray Indians as noble savages in an enviable state of nature ‐ the image prevailing in many late nineteenth‐century novels (e.g. by Karl May) that tend to sympathise with the Indians’ lot and even suggest a peculiar affinity between them and the Germans. On the contrary, the earlier novels wholeheartedly embrace the notion that the bast continent of Northern America is there to be civilised ‐ which is to say: Europeanised. The Indians are considered as representatives of a lower social and cultural order that will either voluntarily join the new, European order of things or else disappear.