Читать книгу Literature and the Cult of Personality - Gregory Maertz - Страница 4

“Besuch im Goethehaus . . . . Der Kustos fordert uns zur Eintragung ins Fremdenbuch auf . . . . Wie ich hinzutrete, finde ich beim Blättern meinen Namen schon mit grosser ungefüger Kinderschrift verzeichnet.”

Walter Benjamin[1]

My research and writing on Goethe and his critics was aided by the following grants and fellowships for which I am grateful: a John D. and Rose H. Jackson Fellowship at the Beinecke Library; a NEMLA Summer Fellowship at the Houghton Library; an ACLS Travel Grant to the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and to the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv in Weimar; a Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society; Membership at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; an NEH Fellowship for University Teachers; a Stipendium from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung; a National Humanities Center NEH Fellowship; an ACLS Senior Fellowship; a Visiting Research Professorship in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature at Duke University; and research leave awarded by St. John’s University, my home institution.

Matthew Feldman took a special interest in seeing that this book was published. For his generous encouragement, I could not be more thankful. I am also indebted to Bella Muccari for her expert proofreading and for so much more. In addition, I wish to express my thanks for the assistance of Valerie Lange and Florian Bölter at ibidem as well as that of Lana Umali and Antonio Fontana at St. John’s. My work on this book has been fortunate to enjoy the support of colleagues in the English Department and elsewhere at St. John’s, such as C. Scott Combs, Jeffrey Fagen, Amy Gansell, Amy King, John Lowney, Kathleen Lubey, Steve Mentz, and Stephen Sicari. Other names are reference points for the journeys and conversations that propelled the writing of this book: James G. Basker, George Bridge, Frederick Burwick, Caroline H. Cooney, Kevin L. Cope, William C. Donahue, Florence Dore, Kata Gellen, Gerald Gillespie, Ruth V. Gross, Sabine Hake, Geoffrey Harpham, Robin Hemley, Martyn and Jessie Imrie, Martin Kagel, Wynfrid Kriegleder, Timothy Lenoir, Michael McKeon, Elizabeth Mansfield, Jakob Norberg, Thomas Pfau, Barry V. Qualls, Ruben D. Quintero, Jeffrey Sammons, Jane Sharp, Erik Tonning, Kevin Van Anglen, Heinrich von Staden, and Frederick Wegener. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations in the text and notes are my own.

The publication of this book commemorates the mentorship of Erich Heller and Lilian R. Furst during my student days at Northwestern and Harvard. As refugees from Hitler’s Europe, they converted me to the understanding that the life of the mind was first and foremost a German-speaking territory. This book also pays homage to my teachers at Harvard—Walter Jackson Bate, Jerome H. Buckley, James Engell, and David Perkins—whose generosity of spirit, if not their superior learning, I have tried to emulate in my own career.

Highgales, Gravir, The Isle of Lewis