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Since the 19th century national epics have had an important function in the cultural scene of almost every nation, and the same is true for the Central and East European countries that have regained their independence after 1989. The programmatic national epic was brought to life by the German Romanticism, especially by writers such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The contributions in this volume analyse the development, relationship, and reception of European national epics. They rely on a wide concept of epic and offer studies on various texts, such as the Icelandic sagas, the „Nibelungenlied“, the „Poems of Ossian“, the „Kinder- und Hausmärchen“ of the Grimm brothers, Schiller’s „Wilhelm Tell“, Božena Němcová’s „Babička“, Esaias Tegnér’s verse epic „Frit(h)iofs saga“, the Finnish national epic „Kalevala“ and the Estonian national epic „Kalevipoeg“.

Epic literature --- Nationalism and literature --- History and criticism --- Literature and nationalism --- Literature

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Dennis Washburn traces the changing character of Japanese national identity in the works of six major authors: Ueda Akinari, Natsume Sseki, Morigai, Yokomitsu Riichi, oka Shohei, and Mishima Yukio. By focusing on certain interconnected themes, Washburn illuminates the contradictory desires of a nation trapped between emulating the West and preserving the traditions of Asia.Washburn begins with Ueda's Ugetsu monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain) and its preoccupation with the distant past, a sense of loss, and the connection between values and identity. He then considers the use of narrative realism and the metaphor of translation in Soseki's Sanshiro; the relationship between ideology and selfhood in Ogai's Seinen; Yokomitsu Riichi's attempt to synthesize the national and the cosmopolitan; Ooka Shohei's post-World War II representations of the ethical and spiritual crises confronting his age; and Mishima's innovative play with the aesthetics of the inauthentic and the artistry of kitsch. Washburn's brilliant analysis teases out common themes concerning the illustration of moral and aesthetic values, the crucial role of autonomy and authenticity in defining notions of culture, the impact of cultural translation on ideas of nation and subjectivity, the ethics of identity, and the hybrid quality of modern Japanese society. He pinpoints the persistent anxiety that influenced these authors' writings, a struggle to translate rhetorical forms of Western literature while preserving elements of the pre-Meiji tradition. A unique combination of intellectual history and critical literary analysis, Translating Mount Fuji recounts the evolution of a conflict that inspired remarkable literary experimentation and achievement.

Japanese fiction --- National characteristics in literature. --- Nationalism and literature --- Literature and nationalism --- Literature --- History and criticism.

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In Pirate Novels Nina Gerassi-Navarro examines an overlooked genre to reveal how history and fiction blend to address important isuses of nation building in nineteenth-century Spanish America. In the figure of the pirate, bold and heroic to some, cruel and criminal to others, she reveals an almost ideal character that came to embody the spirit of emerging nationhood and the violence associated with the struggle to attain it. Beginning with an overview of the history of piracy, Gerassi-Navarro traces the historical icon of the pirate through colonial-era chronicles before exploring a group of nineteenth-century Mexican, Colombian, and Argentine novels. She argues that the authors of these novels, in their reconstructions of the past, were less interested in accurate representations than in using their narratives to discuss the future of their own countries. In reading these pirate narratives as metaphors for the process of nation building in Spanish America, Gerassi-Navarro exposes the conflicting strains of a complex culture attempting to shape that future. She shows how these pirate stories reflect the on-going debates that marked the consolidation of nationhood, as well as the extent to which the narratives of national identity in Spanish America are structured in relation to European cultures, and the ways in which questions of race and gender were addressed.

Fiction --- Spanish-American literature --- anno 1800-1899 --- Historical fiction, Spanish American --- Nationalism and literature --- Pirates in literature. --- Spanish American fiction --- History and criticism. --- Literature and nationalism --- Literature

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This work tracks the nation/South juxtaposition in US literature from the founding to the turn of the 20th century, through genres including travel writing, gothic and romance novels, geography textbooks, transcendentalist prose, and abolitionist address.

American literature --- National characteristics, American, in literature. --- Nationalism in literature. --- Nationalism and literature --- Literature and nationalism --- Literature --- History and criticism. --- History. --- Southern States --- In literature.

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Has thinking, working and teaching in terms of national literatures become obsolete in today’s globalized world of hyphenated languages, literatures and cultures? Since the rise of modern European national philologies coincided with the emergence of modern European nation-states, does the dissolution of the latter in the European supranational unity imply the suspension of the former? Or we must, on the contrary, consider the fact that today’s Europe is not only postnational but, in its re-nationalized East-Central-European part, post-multinational as well, id est, emerging out of the breakdown of the postimperial state formations such as the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia?

Nationalism and literature --- National characteristics in literature. --- Philology. --- Nationalism and literature. --- Literature and nationalism --- Literature --- Europe. --- Council of Europe countries --- Eastern Hemisphere --- Eurasia