Marietta Messmer Knihy

The collection features original essays that delve into the written correspondence of a brilliant poet, offering insights into their creative process and personal life. Each essay examines how these letters reflect the poet's thoughts, influences, and relationships, providing a deeper understanding of their work and legacy. Through this exploration, readers gain a unique perspective on the intersection of poetry and correspondence, highlighting the significance of communication in the poet's artistic journey.

The volume is a contribution to the ongoing debate on the internationalization of American Studies. The essays by European, American and Latin American scholars provide critical evaluations of a wide range of concepts, including trans-national and post-national, international, trans-atlantic, trans-pacific, as well as hemispheric, inter-American and comparative American studies. Combining theoretical reflections and actual case studies, the collection proposes a reassessment of current developments at a time when American nations experience the paradoxical simultaneity of both weakened and strengthened national borders alongside multiple challenges to national sovereignty.

The twenty-three essays by American and European scholars collected in this volume were written to honor Professor Roland Hagenbüchle on his 70th birthday. Ranging from America's colonial beginnings to the twenty-first century, they examine America's multifacted national „vistas“ as well as their complex interrelations with European literatures and cultures. While part one focuses on the changing constructions of American literary and cultural identities from Puritanism to Postmodernism, part two examines the negotiations of America's intracultural ethnic diversity and polyvocality, as well as the formative role of its transatlantic dialogic encounters with Europe. The third and final section addresses the enabling contribution of inter- and cross-disciplinary dialogues to past and present concerns in American Studies.