Abstract
It is next to impossible to undertake any examination of British representations of Germany before 1914 without close reference to fiction and literature. Nearly every major work of history on Anglo-German relations in the period before the outbreak of the Great War refers to the literary evidence as a cultural reflection of moves towards outright antagonism between the two powers, around the turn of the twentieth century.2 Literary scholars too have explored the fictional representation of Germany by the British (and Britain by the Germans) using the political and diplomatic events of the period as part of historicist criticism.3 As noted earlier, in my introduction, the most famous such study is undoubtedly Voices Prophesying War, which explores the early twentieth-century representations of Germany in the new ‘invasion’ genre of English fiction.
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F. Nietzsche, Maxim 146, in Beyond Good and Evil, R. J. Hollingdale (trans.), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990, p. 102.
P. E. Firchow, ‘Germany and Germanic Mythology in Howards End’, in Comparative Literature, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1981, pp. 50–68; H. Husemann, ‘When William Came; If Adolf Had Come: English Speculative Novels of the German Conquest of Britain’, in H-J. Diller, S. Kohl, J. Kornelius, E. Otto & G. Stralmann (eds), Images of Germany, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitatsverlag, 1986, pp. 57–80; Firchow: Death of the German Cousin; G. Rohmann, ‘Made In England: Images of Germany in Twentieth Century English Literature’, in Confronto Letterario, Special Edition: ‘L’immagine dell’atro e l’identita nazionale’, Volume 24, 1996, pp. 61–73; Argyle, Germany as Model and Monster, especially pp. 156–79.
Kennedy, ‘Idealists and Realists’, p. 142; Morris, The Scaremongers, pp. 107–9, 135–7, 156–7; A. Morris, Radicalism against War, 1906–1914, Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1972, pp. 45–7. On the problematic nature of the terms, see Rüger, ‘Revisiting the Anglo-German Antagonism’, pp. 586–7.
Morris, The Scaremongers, pp. 107–8, 135; Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, pp. 34–5; E. M Spiers, The Late Victorian Army: 1862–1902, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992, pp. 198, 223; Ferguson, The Pity of War, pp. 1–11, 14; Massie, Dreadnought, pp. 626–39; Strachan, The First World War, Volume I, pp. 106, 145; D. Cruickshank, Invasion: Defending Britain from Attack, London: Boxtree, 2001, pp. 136; R. G. Hughes, ‘“Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans”: Britain and the German Affair in History’, in Twentieth Century British History, Volume 17, Number 2, 2006, p. 261 (note 19).
Argyle, Germany as Model and Monster, p. 170; N. Beauman, E. M. Forster: A Biography, New York: A. A. Knopf, 1994, p. 213.
Mander, Our German Cousins, p. 8; Firchow, The Death of the German Cousin, pp. 31–2; Panayi, The Enemy in Our Midst, pp. 1–6; A. Haverkamp and H. Vollrath (eds), England and Germany in the High Middle Ages, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996; Birke, Deutschland und Großbritannien, pp. 2–8; V. A. Stockley, German Literature as Known in England: 1750–1830, London: George Routledge & Sons, 1929.
T. Carlyle (ed.), German Romance: Specimens of its Chief Authors, Volume I, Edinburgh: William & Charles Tait, 1827, p. 10; Ashton, The German Idea, p. 71.
T. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh, London: Grant Richards, 1903, p. 3; Ashton, The German Idea, p. 99.
G. Eliot, ‘A Word for the Germans’, in Selected Critical Writings, R. Ashton (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 337.
M. Arnold, Preface to the 1882 edition of ‘Higher Schools and Universities on the Continent’, in The Complete Prose Works of Matthew Arnold, R. H. Super (ed.), Volume IV, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964, p. 31.
P. Pulzer, Fog in the Channel: Anglo-German Perspectives in the Nineteenth Century, London: German Historical Institute, 2000, p. 15.
G. A. Sala, The Seven Sons of Mammon, Volume I, London: Tinsley Brothers, 1862, p. 248; C. Kingsley, The Water Babies, Cambridge: Macmillan & Co., 1863, pp. 74–5; R. D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, Volume I, London: Sampson Low, Son & Co., 1869, p. 18.
Argyle, Germany as Model and Monster, pp. 43–5; The Bildungsroman form was championed by Goethe in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre [‘Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship’] and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre [‘Wilhelm Meister’s Travels’] which in part stemmed from autobiographical forms pioneered in the late eighteenth century by Jean-Jacques Rousseau among others.
H. Blamires, The Victorian Age of Literature, Harlow: Longman, 1988, p. 38;
A. E. Lusskey, ‘George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss and Theodor Storm’s Immensee’, in Modern Language Journal, Vol. 10, No. 7, 1926, p. 432; A. Casson, ‘The Mill on the Floss and Keller’s Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe’, in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 75, No. 1, 1960, p. 20.
Argyle, Germany as Model and Monster, p. 68; R. Ashton, Little Germany: Exile and Asylum in Victorian England, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 11.
W. Collins, The Moonstone, Volume I, London: Tinsley Brothers, 1868, pp. 27–9; S. Mews, ‘Sensationalism and Sentimentality – Minor Victorian Prose Writers in Germany’, in Modern Language Notes, Volume 84, October 1969, pp. 776–88.
C. Reade, Hard Cash: A Matter of Fact Romance, Volume III, London: 1863, p. 54.
G. Eliot, ‘A Word for the Germans’, in Essays of George Eliot, T. Pinney (ed.), London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963, p. 389.
E. C. Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1866, p. 266.
W. M. Thackeray, The Adventures of Philip on His Way through the World, Volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1862, p. 128; G. Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Volume III, London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1860, pp. 9–10; Also see Collins, Armadale, II, p.47; Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret, I, p. 8.
A. Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?, Volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, 1864, pp. 225, 288; A. Trollope, The Small House at Allington, Volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1864, p. 162.
C. Kingsley, Hereward the Wake – ‘Last of the English’, Volume I, London: Macmillan & Co., 1866, pp. 206–7; M. I. Ebbutt, Hero Myths & Legends of Britain & Ireland, J. Matthews (ed.), London: Brockhampton Press, 1998, pp. 134–47; E. C. Gaskell, North and South, Second Edition, Volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, 1855, pp. 201–2.
C. Reade, The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages, Volume III, London: Trübner & Co., 1861, pp. 18, 118.
C. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, 1865, p. 56; W. M. Thackeray, Lovel, the Widower, London: Smith, Elder & Son, 1861, p. 200; Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret, II, pp. 71, 219; J. S. Le Fanu, Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Haugh, Volume II, London: Richard Bentley, 1864, p. 130; Reade, Cloister and the Hearth, III, p. 62.
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Scully, R. (2012). Learned, Indefatigable, Deep-Thinking Germany. In: British Images of Germany. Britain and the World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283467_10
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