Volume 55, Issue 2

Debates on postcolonial writing, canon formation and Goethe’s notion of world literature can profit from reconsidering the well-known case of James Macpherson’s Works of Ossian. The fictions of translation which it offered to the eighteenthcentury reading public questioned ruling norms while working towards cultural change, thus helping to suggest new views on the positioning of literature in the modern world.

This article discusses the American naturalist novel both as a reflection of and a reaction to the symptoms of cultural crisis around 1900. By the turn of the century, the modernization process had led to a widespread sense of uprootedness and disorientation, often resulting in feelings of displacement, anxiety, and identity diffusion, not least in terms of 'gender trouble: That, in turn, generated a strong need for stabilizing structures of order, control, and power. This need is reflected in the naturalist ecriture, which signifies a massive claim for power and control over the fictional material and over the reader, as well as in terms of plot construction and character conflict. Taking NOTTis's McTeague (1899) as a major example, the article demonstrates how the characters of that novel are motivated by an anxiety-ridden "search for order" (Wiebe t 967) and at the same time involved in a gender conflict constellation that is indicative of the crisis of masculinity that was part of the socio-psychological substratum of the 'strenuous age:

It was only after World War 11 that Germans discovered T.S. Eliot's poeuy, drama and cultural criticism. Eliot's intellectual development seemed to offer a paradigmatic example of how to cope with the predicaments of modernity: The desperation of "The Waste Land" and the iconoclastic tendencies of "Tradition and the Individual Talent" had transmuted into the conciliatory - if often dogmatic - tones of the work produced after his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism. Eliot proffered much-needed spiritual guidance to a country faced with total breakdown - material as well as moral His espousal of tradition as the basis for any kind of new beginning was especially pertinent to the country's search for a new identity. Eliot's Christian teachings, however, met with mixed reactions. Endorsed by many critics and intellectuals, they found little favour with audiences of his play Murder in the Cathedral, which premiered in Germany in 1947. After years of indoctrination, many were tired of messages as such. The controversy about Eliot's Christian doctrines marks the beginning of a debate about Eliot the cultural critic which continued well into the 1970s.

Drawing on a variety of philosophical and ethical views, as well as on African American studies, this paper discusses the way in which Emest J. Gaines's A Lesson before Dying reconsiders the black male character in the context of racial prejudices in the segregated South in the late 1940s. The paper demonstrates that Gaines is one of the authors who had to face the difficult task of transforming the invisible African American presence into the central element of his narrative. From a silent, subjugated figure, from being simply a substitute of the white man, the black protagonist metamorphoses into a polytropic character. The article proposes a close textual and intertextual analysis of Gaines's reconstruction of black male identity. The main argument focuses on the way in which Gaines rewrites the earlier representation of the lonely rebellious African American - (de )constructing the image of the native son and invisible man - by insisting on the importance of the pedagogical role of the community.

Pierre Bourdicu (1930-2002) is one of the most influential sociologists of our time. BUI although his notion of 'cultural capital' has become a household word. many literary scholars still shy av.'3Y from the sheer bulk of his writings. This essay offers a short introduction to his work. focusing on two crucial studies. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste and The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. In the first part. four key terms - capital. field. habitus and social space - are explained with reference to Bourdieu's empirical research in France and Algeria. The second part applies Bourdieu's theory to (I) the interpretation of literary texts. (2) problems of literary history. and (3) aspects of literary theory. It is the aim of this essay to suggest the wealth of Bourdieu's sociological insights - and to show that Bourdieu has an important role to play in literary and cultural studies.