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Introduction: The Idea of Europe

Introduction: The Idea of Europe When I first proposed the subject of this special issue of Comparative Literature to George Rowe a few years ago, I had no particular definition of “the idea of Europe” in view. The novels of Henry James, with their endless fascination for the encounter between American naiveté and the wiles as well as the charms of “old” Europe, must have been somewhere in my mind, as was, no doubt, Thomas Mann’s Dr. Faustus, which I had first read around the same time as Portrait of a Lady. What could be thought of as mere social commentary (albeit a profound one) by James, the quintessential American gentleman abroad, became an anguished meditation when treated by Mann, an exiled German observing Europe from America after the devastation of World War II: both writers saw that European culture, for all its weight and beauty, harbored in its heart appalling depths of cruelty and evil. In an essay titled “The Idea of Europe (One More Elegy),” delivered at a conference in Berlin just one year before the fall of the Wall, Susan Sontag reflected on what “the idea of Europe” meant to her as an American writer. “The diversity, seriousness, fastidiousness, density http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Literature Duke University Press

Introduction: The Idea of Europe

SULEIMAN, SUSAN RUBIN
Comparative Literature , Volume 58 (4) – Jan 1, 2006
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2006 by University of Oregon
ISSN
0010-4124
eISSN
1945-8517
DOI
10.1215/-58-4-267
Publisher site
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Abstract

When I first proposed the subject of this special issue of Comparative Literature to George Rowe a few years ago, I had no particular definition of “the idea of Europe” in view. The novels of Henry James, with their endless fascination for the encounter between American naiveté and the wiles as well as the charms of “old” Europe, must have been somewhere in my mind, as was, no doubt, Thomas Mann’s Dr. Faustus, which I had first read around the same time as Portrait of a Lady. What could be thought of as mere social commentary (albeit a profound one) by James, the quintessential American gentleman abroad, became an anguished meditation when treated by Mann, an exiled German observing Europe from America after the devastation of World War II: both writers saw that European culture, for all its weight and beauty, harbored in its heart appalling depths of cruelty and evil. In an essay titled “The Idea of Europe (One More Elegy),” delivered at a conference in Berlin just one year before the fall of the Wall, Susan Sontag reflected on what “the idea of Europe” meant to her as an American writer. “The diversity, seriousness, fastidiousness, density

Journal

Comparative Literature – Duke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2006

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