Overview

Given Wharton’s broad education in European languages and cultures, the absence of a full-length study of the influence of German thinking and aesthetics on her creative work has long been a considerable gap in the field of Wharton studies. Maria Novella Mercuri offers a close analysis of Wharton's engagement with German literature and philosophy. Each chapter centers on one main novel or theme recurring in a group of works including poetry, plays and short fiction, as well as posthumously published autobiographical work. Wharton’s body of work is analyzed in relation to German authors such as Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich de La Motte Fouqué, Theodor Fontane, Clara Viebig, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Sudermann, and Gottfried Keller. Mercuri also draws attention to the impact on Wharton of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche and to the pervasive influence of Goethe’s thought about history, ethics and aesthetics that is evident in her work.

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9781666926330

Table of Contents

Reviews

Building on Richard H. Lawson’s 1974 study, Edith Wharton and German Literature, Maria Novella Mercuri offers a timely and thoughtful twenty-first century reconsideration of the relationship between Edith Wharton’s work and life and German culture. * Laura Rattray, Reader in American Literature, University of Glasgow, UK * Edith Wharton and German Culture provides a comprehensive and illuminating analysis of Wharton’s affinity for German culture and the influence of German literature and philosophy—specifically that of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche—on her work. Maria Novella Mercuri’s important study will be of great value to Wharton scholars and readers interested in connections between German culture and American literature. * Gary Totten, Professor of English, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA *

Building on Richard H. Lawson’s 1974 study, Edith Wharton and German Literature, Maria Novella Mercuri offers a timely and thoughtful twenty-first century reconsideration of the relationship between Edith Wharton’s work and life and German culture. * Laura Rattray, Reader in American Literature, University of Glasgow, UK *

Building on Richard H. Lawson’s 1974 study, Edith Wharton and German Literature, Maria Novella Mercuri offers a timely and thoughtful twenty-first century reconsideration of the relationship between Edith Wharton’s work and life and German culture. * Laura Rattray, Reader in American Literature, University of Glasgow, UK * Edith Wharton and German Culture provides a comprehensive and illuminating analysis of Wharton’s affinity for German culture and the influence of German literature and philosophy—specifically that of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche—on her work. Maria Novella Mercuri’s important study will be of great value to Wharton scholars and readers interested in connections between German culture and American literature. * Gary Totten, Professor of English, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA * Wherever Edith Wharton is now, she must be deeply satisfied for the attention directed to her career-long engagement with German culture. This is long-overdue and much-needed scholarship on a writer who speaks to us perhaps more than ever in our lifetimes. * Emily J. Orlando, Professor of English, Fairfield University, USA *

Author Information

Maria Novella Mercuri is Lecturer at University College London.

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