The Rhine: National Tensions, Romantic Visions

Of all European landscapes and regions, the Rhine is one of the most heavily overlaid with cultural and political meaning. Cradle of Romanticism, tourism, and the picturesque, bone of contention between the German and French spheres of cultural and geopolitical influence, the Rhine has attracted armies, artists, activists and tourists for centuries and has featured prominently the key writings of Europe’s literary and intellectual history from Byron to Lucien Febvre. This volume brings together eminent literary and cultural historians to present materials and analyses from various of the central nexus of European culture. The volume also contains a unique and comprehensive anthology of key texts (historical, poetical and polemical) related to the Rhineland and its contested position.

Contributors are: Reinhard Baumann, Manfred Beller, Hans-Werner Breunig, Giovanna Cermelli, Joep Leerssen, Elmar Scheuren, Helmut J. Schneider, and Waldemar Zacharasiewicz.

Manfred Beller was Professor of German Language and Literature at the Italian Universities of Pavia, Messina, and Bergamo. He has published widely on German and Comparative Literature in the fields of Thematology and Imagology, including Eingebildete Nationalcharaktere. Vorträge und Aufsätze zur literarischen Imagologie (Göttingen, 2006) and Imagology. The cultural construction and literary representation of national characters. A critical survey, ed. by M. Beller and J. Leerssen (Amsterdam - New York, 2007).

Joep Leerssen is Professor of Modern European Literature at the University of Amsterdam. His work deals with stereotypes of national character (Imagology, ed. w. Manfred Beller, 2007; www.imagologica.eu), romantic historicism, and the transnational history of cultural nationalism (National thought in Europe, 3rd ed., Amsterdam, 2010). He is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe (ernie.uva.nl; book edn. Amsterdam 2018).