The Image of German Speaking Countries in American
Texts from 1860 to 1930
WS 1998/99

Images of post-unification Germany in Henry James´ travel
sketches “Homburg Reformed” and “Darmstadt”

by

Michaela Tomberger

Date of presentation: Nov.11th, 1998

Table of Contents

I. Introduction 3

1. The Author’s Biography 3

2. Historical Background 6

3. The American Opinion of the German Unification 8

4. Homburg Reformed and Darmstadt 10
4.1 Analyses of Homburg Reformed 11
4.2 Analyses of Darmstadt 18

II. Conclusion 25

III. Bibliography 26

IV. Index 28

I. Introduction

The first chapter of this paper presents a survey of Henry James’ biography. Special emphasis is given to his experiences in Germany. The reader has to take into consideration that especially his early experiences in relation with Germany shaped his attitude and influenced his image of the country throughout his life. The second chapter gives a brief overview of the historical events that lead to the German unification and the political situation of Germany shortly after the unification, the time, when Henry James visited the country. The presentation of the historical background will help the reader to understand the allusions made in Henry James’ travel sketches Homburg Reformed and Darmstadt. The third chapter presents the American opinion of the unification and establishes a connection between Henry James’ view and the public opinion, as Henry James’ opinion in that matter generally corresponded to the public opinion in America. The fourth chapter explains the background of the two travel sketches followed by a detailed analysis of the texts. The analysis focuses on Henry James’ image of Germany and his allusions on the unification. Statements of his letters and his autobiography and comparisons to contemporary travel literature constituted further points of reference for the analysis.

1. The Author’s Biography 

Henry James was born in New York City in 1843. Aged only 6 months he travelled for the first time to Europe with his parents. 12 years later, in 1855, the father took his family to Europe again, because he claimed that American schooling failed to provide ‘sensuous education’ (Autobiography, 353) for his children. This stay lasted, with a brief interruption, until 1860 and the children had a number of tutors and governesses in Geneva, London, Paris and Boulogne-sur-Mer. In 1860 Henry and two of his brothers spent the summer in Bonn, where they should improve their German. On their trip to Bonn the family stopped a couple of days at Wiesbaden to experience what then most tourists came for, as Henry James mentions in one of his letters: they ‘drank of course of the hot waters, and witnessed the gambling for which it is famous’ (Letters I, 25). Years later, when he returned to that region, Henry could only experience the hot water cures, the gambling would have been prohibited by then. In Bonn Henry was put into the pension of a German professor, where he was subjected to rigourous language study and literature readings. Later he evaluated this time as his imaginative and intellectual awakening, where he felt himself come alive (‘...I didn’t at all know how much I was living and meanwhile quite supposed I was considerably learning’, Autobiography, 255). In this first acquaintance with Germany Henry, however, did not develop any kind of attachment. Unlike his brother William he did not really have an access to the German spirit and was very happy to leave. A polarity developed between the two brothers in their opinion about Germany, which was to remain throughout their lives.¹ Concerning this stay he expresses a not very positive opinion about Germany in a letter to a friend:

This is an opportunity for me to see something of German life, in what would be called, I suppose the middle classes. I naturally compare it with the corresponding life at home, and think it truly inferior. (Letters I, 25)

Henry was seventeen years old when he came back to America. His family settled in Newport, Rhode Island. He entered Harvard Law school but soon withdrew from law studies to try writing. He started making contributions to the North American Review, the Atlantic Monthly and the Nation, it was the latter who first published in 1873 the travel reports Homburg Reformed and Darmstadt. In 1869/70 Henry James went on a “Grand Tour” of Europe, which was a fashionable thing to do for Americans after the Civil War. His trip included England, France, Switzerland and Italy, but not Germany. In 1872 he returned to Germay for 10 days while escorting his sister and his aunt. His comment about this stay is also not especially positive: 

To me this hasty and most partial glimpse of Germany has been most satisfactory: it has cleared from my mind the last mists of uncertainty and assured me that I can never hope to become an unworthiest adoptive grandchild of the fatherland. It is well to listen to the voice of the spirit, to cease hair-splitting and treat oneself to a good square antipathy – when it is so very sympathetic! I may ‘cultivate’ mine  away, but it has given me a week’s wholesome nourishment. (Henry James quoted in Pelham, 18)

[...]   

1  Perosa gives a description of their opposed points of view: ‘William saw Germany as the place of the mind, of intellectual stability and pursuit. Whereas Henry was seeking for style, artistic beauty and historical values through the sensens, visual impressions and a vibrant consciousness, William favored the qualities of intellectual application, learning and cultural strain that he associated with Germany.’ (120)