This study marks a decisive advance in Longfellow studies. Instead of making do with documenting the poet’s literary contacts in a biographical context, as has been the custom in the past, the authors inquire into the uses he made of European works for the English-American literature in the making. Focusing on Longfellow’s widely famous poem, Evangeline, and the internationally most ambitious poet’s anthology, Tales of a Wayside Inn, they demonstrate that the poet-professor’s program and practice of an integrative, transnational American poetry that includes translations adapts the model that the Schlegel Brothers recommended for German literature – a cultural late-comer as was that of the U.S.A. In the process, they identify a number of correlative works so far overlooked.

The Authors: Armin Paul Frank, Professor Emeritus of English Philology, was founding director of Sonderforschungsbereich 309, the Göttingen Center for Advanced Studies in Literary Translation, and also directed cooperative projects on comparative American literary historiography. Christel-Maria Maas, after taking her State Examination in English and German Philology in 1999 and obtaining her Dr. phil. degree in American Studies in 2004, now pursues advanced teacher training (Referendarausbildung) and also teaches in the American Studies Program at the University of Göttingen.