Translation Anthologies: An Invitation to the Curious and a Case Study

Helga Essmann and Armin Paul Frank
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Anthologies (i.e. collections of texts and other printed matter) are a special type of widely distributed books. Like museum curators, anthologists select for exhibition items that are considered of cultural importance and/or sales value; by arranging the exhibits, they project an interpretation and evaluation of a given field and invite readers to make use of the cultural store. Translation anthologies serve essentially the same purposes internationally. The case study traces the fate of Poe (prose and verse) and Whitman in the 600-odd German anthologies containing specimens of American literature (1859-1985) which we have so far surveyed.

Table of contents

All I can do with the theme is tell a story . . . . The story contains argument but is not contentious in itself. It can't prove anything; it can only show something.

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References

A. Corpus

Poe and Whitman: Verse (P = Poe; W = Whitman)

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Poe: Prose

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B. Other Works Cited

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