Abstract
Amerika, du hast es besser/ Als unser Kontinent, das alte,/ Hast keine verfallene SchlOsser/ Und keine Basalte./ Dich stOrt nicht im Innern/ Zu lebendiger Zeit/ Unntitzes Erinnern/ Und vergeblicher Streit. Goethe's poem of 1827 and some of his other works expressed the utopian hopes of a time when the United States became the embodiment of the future to all liberal and progressive Europeans. They fervently believed in the American dream laid down in the Declaration of Independence all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the twentieth century many writers have used the American dream of individual freedom as a general metaphor for the human condition, the problems and possibilities of man in society. This is the central insight of Richard Ruland's work, America in Modern European Literature: From Image to Metaphor,' which offers a large kaleidoscope of visions ranging from Kafka's grotesque satire of the utopian dream to Brecht's lurid scenes of alienation, from Mayakovsky's futurist images of political struggle and technological progress to Saint-John Perse's poetic quest for personal rebirth and cultural renewal in the vastnesses of the American continent.
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