'From Love to Hate': A Story of Germania and Sam - Annotations to the History of American-German Relations

Abstract

This essay is a modern narrative history that takes its content from the fictional characters of the English poet William Shakespeare. The aim of this story-based analysis is to reconsider configurations, general trends, and collective aspirations in the international and transatlantic relations between two nations of Western culture, Germany as Germania and the United States as Sam. On the basis of seven picturesque characters and episodes selected from his dramas and poems, each representing an image of love and hate in these relations, an interpretation in comparison with the cultural historical and socio-cultural developments in German-American relations is presented: (1) The Birth of Macduff, (2) The Passionate Pilgrim, (3) The Two Noble Kinsmen, (4) Shylock and Aaron the Moor, (5) Macbeths Dream of Power, (6) The Phoenix and the Turtle, and (7) Hamlet’s Reflections and the self-assurance of Fortinbras. This interpretative, comparative analysis involves three different levels of interpretation for each image: On the basis of Shakespeare’s texts a description and paraphrase of some of the important facts in the plot and the main characters are presented. Thereafter, a hypothesis is summarized regarding what we have seen as the main point in the story (at the level of the meaning of the image). Finally, these meanings, the ways of Shakespeare’s reception, and language games (‘Sprachspiele’; in the Wittgenstein sense) are transferred to historical and socio-cultural substantiation.