Prairie promises, lone star limits : depictions of Texas in German travelogues from 1830-1860

  • Written as a valediction for a friend bound to emigrate to Texas, August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben's poems 'Der Stern von Texas' and 'Ein Guadelupelied', both published in the 1846 collection 'Texanische Lieder', poignantly express the popular sentiment of enthusiasm for migration to Texas that had spread widely across German-speaking lands in the mid-1840s. The two songs further capture the two major factors that inspired at least 20,000 Germans to exchange the familiarity of their homes for an unknown future in what was then a remote region in the North American West during the Vor- and Nachmärz eras: the dream of economic opportunities enabling emigrants to escape from poverty and the highly stratified German society, on the one hand, and the desire for civil liberties and political agency that could not be attained in the repressive political climate in their native lands, on the other. Moreover, the two songs exemplify the large body of written texts from the period that articulated the German vision of Texas as a specific version of the North American experience While Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798-1874) never set foot on Texan soil, many texts from this corpus of writing were travelogues based on their writers' actual journeys to and through Texas. In the following, I will analyze three such accounts by German visitors and settlers from the Vor- and Nachmärz periods.

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Metadaten
Author:Astrid Haas
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-520463
Parent Title (German):Jahrbuch / FVF, Forum Vormärz Forschung
Publisher:Aisthesis Verlag
Place of publication:Bielefeld
Document Type:Article
Language:German
Year of Completion:2019
Year of first Publication:2018
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Contributing Corporation:Forum Vormärz Forschung
Release Date:2019/12/20
GND Keyword:Texas <Motiv>; Reiseliteratur; Deutsch
Volume:23.2018
Page Number:19
First Page:235
Last Page:253
HeBIS-PPN:460212818
Dewey Decimal Classification:8 Literatur / 80 Literatur, Rhetorik, Literaturwissenschaft / 800 Literatur und Rhetorik
8 Literatur / 83 Deutsche und verwandte Literaturen / 830 Literaturen germanischer Sprachen; Deutsche Literatur
Sammlungen:Germanistik / GiNDok
CompaRe | Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft / Aisthesis Verlag
BDSL-Klassifikation:15.00.00 19. Jahrhundert / BDSL-Klassifikation: 15.00.00 19. Jahrhundert > 15.14.00 Stoffe. Motive. Themen
15.00.00 19. Jahrhundert / BDSL-Klassifikation: 15.00.00 19. Jahrhundert > 15.13.00 Gattungen und Formen / BDSL-Klassifikation: 15.00.00 19. Jahrhundert > 15.13.00 Gattungen und Formen > 15.13.05 Weitere Formen
Zeitschriften / Jahresberichte:Jahrbuch / FVF, Forum Vormärz Forschung / Jahrbuch / FVF, Forum Vormärz Forschung - 23.2017
:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-520171
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht