Klaus Martens ed. 15 Jahre / 15 Years CCAC 1994 - 2009. Saarbrücken: Centre for Canadian and Anglo-American Cultures/Amarant Presse, 2009. 127 p. ISBN: 978-3-00-027097-0. Euro 20,95.

Dieses kleine Buch erscheint zur Feier von fünfzehn Jahren Kanada- und Amerikastudien an der Universität des Saarlandes. Es stellt die Forschungsschwerpunkte des Zentrums vor und lässt in Bild und Wort die bisherigen akademischen und kulturellen Aktivitäten Revue passieren.

This small book celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the Canadian and American Studies Centre at the Universität des Saarlandes. Concise texts and many pictures retell the development of the CCAC’s research interests, its close cooperation with national and international partners, and its role as mediator of Anglo-American culture for the Saarland community.

Klaus Martens, Paul Morris, eds. American and Canadian Literature and Culture: Across a Latitudinal Line. Saarbrücken: Centre for Canadian and Anglo-American Cultures/Amarant Presse, 2008. 231 p. ISBN 978-3-00-024566-4. Eur 18,95.

This volume presents selected papers given at three conferences. The first was presented by members of the CCAC and hosted by the Canadian Comparative Literature Association at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg (1 June 2004). The following conference was hosted by the CCAC at the Universität des Saarlandes (28-30 October 2004). The CCAC then hosted a small international symposium devoted to “Emerging Modernisms in Canada and the United States 1914-1941: A Comparative Approach” at the Universität des Saarlandes, which concluded the series (23 February 2006).

The subject of the three mediation conferences included here, was a cluster of themes related to the complex topic of modernism as a cultural period and a literary movement in Canada and the United States. Modernism in Canada and the United States was framed not only by different historical parameters but also assumed different cultural shapes in response to the separate social and literary forces at play in the two countries. The modernism of the United States, as exemplified by such epochal international events as the Armory Show of 1913, for example, signals a form of participation within an international movement which was slower to develop in Canada. The subsequent emergence in the United States of writers, critics and artists supportive of the broad cultural goals of modernism in poetry, fiction, drama and the visual arts attests to the success of the movement.

In Canada, although the innovations of the Group of Seven may be compared to the earlier modernizing thrust of the Armory Show in painting, the success of modernism in launching itself as a broader based cultural trend was slower and more restricted than in the United States. In Canada the establishment of a literary institution, gaining strength in the 1920s by the efforts of such writers as Frederick Philip Grove, A.L. Phelps and Watson Kirkconnell, among others, was closely related to the development of a national identity. They had tackled a vast cultural project which seems to have taken priority over the more closely defined aesthetic goals of modernism as a literary movement. Regions, populations, religions, national historical events, economic products and the means of production had not yet been wholly explored in their Canadian contexts and meanings. It is perhaps for this reason as well that in Canada the tradition of modernist writing extended longer than in the United States, in fact, it was continued well into the post-WW II period, a time when American critics, writers, and literary institutions were forging an aesthetic and period concept of postmodernism.

While papers from the two earlier conferences (2004) address particular authors and works, essays from the third (2006), also collected here, add the complex field of interlocking cultural and literary issues. It was intended to foster an international exchange of research and critical opinion involving issues of literary history, gender studies, intermediality, transculturality, translation studies, poetry, and editing problems centred on, though not limited to, the crucial period between the wars. The papers collected treat issues related to the study of primary texts, but also to critical texts and related theoretical approaches dealing with the subject of modernism, as well as the inter-relations between the social and artistic forces, including music and painting, which fostered or hindered the development of modernism.

Klaus Martens, ed., Over Canadian Trails.  F. P. Grove in New Letters and Documents.  Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007.  666 p. / 609 illustrations.  Euro 56.00.

Often pushed aside in recent compilations of Canadian literary history, Frederick Philip Grove, as the first Canadian writer of intercultural significance, needs now to be re-introduced as an intriguing avant-garde author and as a figure central to the inception of modern Canadian literature after the Great War.

In support of this claim, Over Canadian Trails presents many previously unpublished letters and documents by Grove and his most important Canadian and European correspondents. In addition, a wealth of other papers, contemporaneous documentation, and many photos and other illustrations
cast new light on his life and career and provide as fully rounded a picture of the man and author as possible. This documentary approach has been tested in my previous Grove publications, Felix Paul Greves Karriere: Frederick Philip Grove in Deutschland (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 1997), "Je vous écris, en hâte et fiévreusement:" Felix Paul Greve-André Gide. Korrespondenz und Dokumentation (mit Jutta Ernst, St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 1999), F.P. Grove in Europe and Canada: Translated Lives (Edmonton: U of Alberta P, 2001), and most recently expanded on in A Dirge for My Daughter. Poems (Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 2006). My analysis and commentary are supplemented by passages from work by Grove and some of his contemporaries, writers and critics alike.

Over Canadian Trails tells three interlocking stories: First, in a nut-shell, the story of Grove’s personal struggles and accomplished literary past in Europe. Second, the odyssey of the teacher through the small towns and the lonely villages of pioneer Manitoba and his struggles as a Canadian writer and dedicated family man. Third, the story of Canada’s literary and cultural development in the 1920s to 1940s told, for the first time, in the form of lively epistolary exchanges between the principals involved. An epilogue includes a short evaluation of Grove’s place in Canadian letters and a review of recent criticism.

Now spanning Grove’s career as a Canadian writer almost from the beginning, the new correspondence and other texts included in Over Canadian Trails add an important, often warmly personal and humorous, surprisingly new dimension to the story of the making of Grove as a Canadian writer and the making of a Canadian national literature.

Reviews

"A very readable 600-page compilation of never-before-published Grove documents and letters."
Bill Redekop, Winnipeg Free Press

Over Canadian Trails was a pleasure to read. The research behind the writing was a monumental task. The volume, while literary analysis, is also historical, geographical, and sociological. Telling someone's story through letters, interviews and a host of other documents from financial ledgers, official registries to newspaper articles and literary announcements must have been daunting and is most certainly the result of many years of research. Klaus Martens certainly succeeded. At 662 pages, much of Grove's adult life can now be examined in one volume. Martens frames the travels, trials and tribulations of F. P. Grove in six periods, roughly based on his geographic locations. The first chapter is devoted to Grove's life prior to arriving in North America. While one of the shortest chapters, 72 pages to cover 30 years, Chapter 1 does the job of setting up the context of Grove as a writer, immigrant, and victim of friendship gone bad. The first he pursued throughout his adult life. The latter was an experience that carried on with his concerns over the publishing industry in Canada.

Chapters Two to Six trace Grove's life and travels, as a resident and speaker, across Canada. What must be incredibly rewarding to Martens is that he was able to collect and assemble 300 pages of documents and commentary to describe only eight years of Grove's life from 1922 to 1929 (Chapters Three and Four). Grove and his family struggled financially, as they did with Grove's ill-health, during most of their lives in Canada.As noted by Martens at several points, Grove was trying to establish himself during troubled times (two world wars and the Great Depression) and when Canadian literature was still in its infancy.

One of the greatest strengths of Over Canadian Trails is that the correspondence is two-way. That is, Grove's life is not documented only by letters received by Grove. The importance in this is not only providing a more complete story but also allows the reader the opportunity to be part of Grove's life. In particular, the correspondence between Grove and Phelps is noteworthy. At times the tone between them was terse, but each always expressed interest and concern for the other and their families. This correspondence also illustrates that Grove was not alone in struggling as a Canadian writer during this period. Also important are the letters between Grove and his wife during his lecture series across Canada after the death of their daughter. The letters are very matter of fact with Grove mostly signing off with "bye bye."

Any criticisms of Over Canadian Trails are small. In reading some passages, the reader is unclear of the source and importance of the reference. In particular, there seems to be an unwritten assumption that the reader has read many of Grove's works - and in particular In Search of Myself. While this would be a reasonable assumption, more commentary on the importance of the passages cited would have provided more of a story. However, at 662 pages, it is understandable why such commentary was kept to a minimum (perhaps like Grove's experience, Martens faced page limits with his publisher!).

Another criticism is that some photos and other graphics do not seem to be placed where they are relevant to the text. This could have been resolved by labelling each as a Plate or Figure. Having said this, such actions could have detracted from its flow - and the story that Martens was telling. In fact, whether intentional or not, as presented the reader must be fully engaged in cross-referencing Martens' commentary and analysis, the reproduced letterss, and the other visual representations to understand Grove's experiences. I found myself going back and forth for my own interest and in doing so uncovered gaps in letters, from or to Grove, such as between 1909 and 1917 (pp. 71 -110). For readers wanting more, In Search of Myself by Grove is a must read. For those whose passions lie with the loss of Grove's daughter, Phyllis May, A Dirge for My Daughter: Poems (selected and edited by Klaus Martens, Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann GmbH, 2006) is a must read.

Taken together, Martens has assembled an eclectic, if not close to complete, volume of letters, passages, documents, and photographs. It will be interesting to see if its publication results in the emergence of "new" letters that families have stored away in attics across Canada. As a resident of Brandon, Manitoba whose hometown is Simcoe, Ontario, I will continue to follow the developments of Grove's life in Canada. Perhaps, Over Canadian Trails will create a new wave of interest in Grove's work. I hope that it does.

Doug Ramsey, Manitoba History (February 2008)

Klaus Martens , ed. A Dirge for My Daughter.  Poems by F.P. Grove. Selected and edited with a Preface by Klaus Martens.  Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2006. 92 pages, 28 photos and facsimiles. EUR 12.80.-

Reviews

Martens has, admittedly, done a beautiful job of editing and constructing the text from Grove’s archival material: there are Grove’s prose introductions-cum-musings as well as photographs and facsimiles of handwritten material. The poetry is classic Grove (“Oh, that my voice were like a battle call / To wake the sleepers from their lethargy”), and in most places it is upstaged by Grove’s unencumbered stream-of-consciousness writing (“Why, when there are thousands of children who live in squalor and towards misery, unloved by their parents, had it been this child who was indispensable to us?”). Ultimately, A Dirge for My Daughter is, when at its best, a fetish object for the archivist.

Erin Wunker, Canadian Literature

Frederick Philip Groves Lyrik geht unter die Haut und schiebt sich bis ins Mark. Dem Saarbrücker Professor für Englische Literatur und Dichter Klaus Martens verdanken wir die Publikation eines einzigartigen Lyrikbandes. Ganz im Sinne des Verfassers erscheinen in "A Dirge for my Daughter" Sonette des Deutschkanadiers F. P. Grove neben Bildern und erklärenden Prosatexten. So entsteht auf 80 gewissenhaft editierten Seiten ein Memorial für Phyllis May, die Tochter Groves, die 1927 im Alter von zwölf Jahren ganz plötzlich verstarb. Von schier übergroßen Erwartungen an ihre Zukunft überfordert und mit Liebe überschüttet, hinterließ Phyllis May einen so gewaltigen Schmerz, dass für Grove die einzig mögliche Art des Überlebens darin bestand, seine Gefühle in strikte Pentameter und in Reim zu fassen, um sich so schreibend von der Verzweiflung zu distanzieren und gleichzeitig ein Andenken zu schaffen an alles, dessen er sich nun beraubt fühlte. Seine Sonette lassen sich kaum mit den Neuerungsversuchen der Moderne assoziieren. Strukturell wie inhaltlich wirken sie zunächst fast erdrückend archaisierend, und man meint, noch im Tode überfordere der schreibende Vater sein Kind mit seiner alles Leben verneinenden Verhaftung an ihr Fehlen. Allerdings wird von Anfang an klar, dass sich Grove eines größeren, allgegenwärtigen Fehlens bewusst ist: Im Leben als Todeserleben ist alles Seiende nur noch arbiträres Indiz für das ungreifbare, in die Vorstellung und in Formen abgeglittene Abwesende. LANG LEBE DIE FORM! - Diese Sonette sind schierer Lebenswille. Grove ermöglicht es dem an post-moderne Spielchen gewöhnten Lyrikliebhaber, die Strenge des Sonetts als eine sehr aktuelle LebensForm zu betrachten.

Sabine L. Müller, "How can you dare to live?" Croon 23 (Fall 2007)

Klaus Martens has selected and attentively edited 35 of the poems Frederick Philip Grove wrote in response to the death of his daughter May, of a ruptured appendix, 17 July 1927 (a few days before her twelfth birthday). Martens writes a restrained introduction in the face of Grove’s unrestraint, and concludes: “Suffice it to say, he felt the poetry had gone out of his life.” This nicely ambiguous formula describes both the unpoetic poems, and the earnestly agonized accompanying prose notes in which Grove keeps trying to explain (to himself?) why and where a particular poem was written.  
 
“Blow” is a noticeably frequent noun; accumulating interrogatives plead for explanations, while “chaotic”, “convulsive”, “hideous” bludgeon the reader with evidence of Grove’s agony—the more agonizing for the inadequacy of the vocabulary. A surprising number of black and white photographs illustrate the text; some are barely distinguishable but maybe the more ghostly appropriate for that—a complement to Grove’s frequent images of “mist”. Grove mentions no names, and only rarely a particular identifying detail: in their austere unnaming, these poems add resonantly to the endlessly compelling Grove/Greve saga. 

Laurie Ricou, Canadian Literature 193 (Summer 2007)

Klaus Martens, ed. The Canadian Alternative. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2004. 145 pages. ISBN 3-8260-2635-7.

UAP (Canada)

amazon.de (Germany)

Klaus Martens, F.P. Grove in Europe and Canada: Translated Lives. Foreword by E.D. Blodgett. Translated by Paul Morris in collaboration with the author. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2001. 351 pages. Many illustrations. ISBN 0-88864-364-0. CAD 34.95.

This is a considerably reworked, expanded and updated translation of Martens' 1997 book Felix Paul Greves Karriere-Frederick Philip Grove in Germany.

From the Liner Notes

Frederick Philip Grove´s autobiography, In Search of Myself, won the Governor General’s Award for non-fiction in 1947. Yet the details of his early life are anything but clear. In this remarkably rich portrait of the author’s life and milieu, Klaus Martens follows Grove’s alter ego, Felix Paul Greve, from a mysterious period in Germany as a student and translator to his new identity as F.P. Grove, a teacher and writer in Canada.
Originally from a working-class background, the young Greve sought to establish himself among wealthy writers and archaeologists in Bonn, Munich and Berlin. He racked up large debts living as a nomadic intellectual, never quite finding the recognition he desired. Eventually he found steady work as a literary translator, with mixed success. Before fleeing for the New World in 1908, he played a seminal role in introducing Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, Andre Gide and other early moderns to German readers.
Drawing on previously unavailable evidence, Martens offers detailed accounts of the circles in which Greve moved. More importantly, he shows how Grove translated his own past into the autobiographical epics A Search for America and In Search of Myself. Through new readings of these and Greve’s little-known German writings, Martens speculates on the real-life sources for many of Grove’s “fictional” characters and scenarios.
With more than fifty period photos and documents, countless letters, and a foreword by E.D. Blodgett, F.P. Grove in Europe and Canada represents the definitive biography of the writer Northrop Frye called a “Canadian Dreiser.” An invaluable resource for scholars in Canadian and German literature, comparative literature, modernism, publishing history and translation studies.

Reviews

"...a scholarly work of exceptional depth and detail….For while he gives us a scholarly biography of the first rank, Martens remains aware that fiction can sometimes illuminate reality as much as the facts, particularly when that fiction comes from such a talented fabulist and translator as FPG.”

Neil Querengesser, Concordia University College of Alberta, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2, 2002

"Those who argue that Canadian literary history is boring, provincial and lacking in colourful personalities would do well to consider the case of Frederick Philip Grove....One of the most intriguing aspects of this book is its least scholarly: Martens's frequent speculations and hypotheses about the significance of Greve's life in the context of European art and letters....Martens's work is the first that, as its title suggests, provides a sustained examination of both Felix Paul Greve, the German translator, and Frederick Philip Grove, the Canadian author, and explores the interplay between the two not-entirely-separate lives and works....(A)n important addition to academic work on Greve/Grove.”

Lisa Salem-Wiseman, Literary Review of Canada

"In this richly detailed new biography, Klaus Martens explores Grove's German origins with meticulous detective work…. The tale is riveting, with numerous peaks and highlights…. Not only is this biography meticulously researched, it is fun to read, as Martens explores Grove's life and work with sympathy and irony.”

Irene Gammel, Great Plains Quarterly, Fall 2002

"Votre nouveau livre a l'air tout à fait passionnant!”

Catherine Gide

"Taking as its focus Felix Paul Greve, it reveals through painstaking research in archives around the world the 'hidden' dimension of a life that had, until Martens' book, continued to remain a mystery.... F.P. Grove in Europe and Canada is a stellar piece of research.”

Richard Cavell, International Canadian Studies Centre, University of British Columbia

"I used to be familiar with his name (F.P. Greve) ever since I was a young bookseller in the Germany of the late 50s/early 60s. Of course, all one knew then was that he disappeared or died in 1909... It's truly one of the more amazing literary detective stories of our time. It's also an interesting tie-in with the biography of Grove's intimate friend, Baroness Elsa, who moved on to become the arch-priestess of New York DADA.”

Helmut Schwarzer, Yankee Book Peddler

"Martens's biography is exemplary and Canadian in impulse to the degree that it hypothesizes a continuum even as it demonstrates with aplomb a history of dereliction, severance, oblivion and repudiation. Martens's copious array of illustrations documents Herr Felix Paul Greve and Mr. Frederick Philip Grove alike--their identity and their disunity, their broken and intersecting worlds, each with its own perishable, memorable personnel.”

Eric Miller, Books in Canada

"Grove’s life is a brilliant work of fiction. F.P. Grove in Europe and Canada presents an exciting new study of the enigmatic author. The book is remarkably rich in detail and indispensable to Canadian Studies.”

Irene Gammel, author of Sexualizing Power: F.P. Grove and T. Dreiser

"In F.P. Grove in Europe and Canada: Translated Lives, Klaus Martens has at least two objectives. One is to offer a scholarly account of Felix Paul Greve's life as a translator, author, and dramatist in Germany prior to his faked 1909 suicide, his arrival in Canada in 1912, and his subsequent career as a writer in this country. (Despite its title, Martens's study focuses largely on Greve's European years.) F.P. Grove in Europe and Canada thus seeks to offer a more detailed and authoritative account of Greve's life in Germany than that provided by D.O. Spettigue's ground-breaking but outdated FPG: The European Years. And he succeeds. Martens's other objective is to document the role translators play in the mediation of culture. Greve played an invaluable role in the introduction of Oscar Wilde, H.G.Wells, Gustave Flaubert, André Gide, and many others to German readers. 'There can be little doubt,' Martens argues at one point, 'that André Gide owed much of his early international reputation to Felix Paul Greve's efforts, and both knew it.'
[…]
Morris and Martens have incorporated new findings into the translation - most notably the material concerning Greve's relation to Gide and his life in the United States - and generally reworked the material for Canadian readers. As a result, F.P. Grove in Europe and Canada is both more detailed and complete than the book it translates. (It is also generously illustrated.) Because the biography is based on ground-breaking research, the narrative Martens offers is refreshingly original. At times - most notably concerning the years Greve spent in the United States - he is forced to speculate in the absence of compelling evidence. When research fails to provide answers, however, he clearly separates speculation from substantiated argument."

Paul Hjartarson, University of Toronto Quarterly

Klaus Martens, Paul Morris, Arlette Warken, eds. A World of Local Voices. Poetry in English Today. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2003. 160 pages. ISBN 3-8260-2635-7. EUR 19.75.

Klaus Martens , ed. Pioneering North America: Mediators of European Literature and Culture. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000. 254 pages. ISBN 3-8260-1756-0. EUR 35.00.

Reviews

Pioneering North America reveals the richness and breadth of the concept of cultural mediation when it is imaginatively and systematically applied. The book contains twenty highly specialized and divergent essays thoughtfully grouped into four sections, and a brief but graceful explanatory preface by editor Klaus Martens, who directs the Saarbrücken project on the mediation of world literature under whose aegis this collection was undertaken.

Pioneering North America consists of three essays devoted to cultural mediator par excellence Felix Paul Greve/Frederick Philip Grove and one on the extraordinary role of his onetime common-law wife, “Baroness Elsa,” in the modernist project to “renew American culture” led by The Little Review and other “little” magazines. In the second section, titled “Mediators of Literature,” an intriguing essay documenting the mutual influence of Djuna Barnes and European surrealism functions as a sort of transition to the first, given the close connections between Barnes and Else von Freytag-Loringhofen. Three of the contributions in this section examine various aspects of translation. One of these discussses Michael Hamburger and Christopher Middleton’s translations which facilitated the reception of many German writers in the United States, despite the ignorance of and prejudice against all things German in 1940s Britain. Three highly original contributions conclude this eclectic section. In a piece titled “The Moment of the Condom” the introduction of condoms into the U.S. through a Philadelphia bookstore run by French colonial exile Moreau de Saint-Méry becomes an act of cultural mediation read in terms of Foucauldian concepts of sexuality. Another essay describes how the U.S. Armed Services Editions, which provided free reading material for millions during and shortly after the Second World War, functioned as an instrument of transatlantic cultural mediation. The essay also discusses the economic and political dimensions of the ASE. The final contribution in this section, looking at inter-cultural phenomena in terms of functionalist analysis, examines the relations between Flemish and foreign cultures with a closer look at the role of American literature in Belgiumduring the Second World War.

The third section of the book focuses on issues of theory and genre and includes a fascinating piece on the occurrence of the Hansel and Gretel theme in American poems by women, while contributions in the fourth and last section, titled “Literature and the Other Arts,” range from Delsarte’s influence on American theatre to photography. Christoph Ribbat’s superb essay “The European Eye: Refugee Photographers from Nazi Germany” is an eloquent conclusion to this remarkable volume.

Rosmarin Heidenreich, Canadian Literature 177 (Summer 2003)

According to editor Klaus Martens, such a project is vital at this historical moment given the 'almost frightening and overpowering volume' of North American literature and culture now inundating Europeans. It is time, implies Pioneering North America, to remind readers of the originating and enduring European imprint on North American culture. Essays dedicated to Canadian literature are the focus of this review.

Adele Wiseman Heaps, UTQ 72, no. 1 (Winter 2002-3)

Die kulturellen Beziehungen zwischen Nordamerika und Europa scheinen schon so lange einer vielbefahrenen Einbahnstrasse Richtung Osten zu gleichen, dass die Erinnerung an deutlich andere Zeiten zunehmend verblasst. Dem wirkt ein von Klaus Martens herausgegebener Band nachdrücklich entgegen. In zwanzig Aufsätzen wird der Einfluss dokumentiert, den europäische Kultur, vor allem Literatur, Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts und Jahrzehnte später auf die USA und Kanada hatte. Der thematische Bogen der Resultate einer Saarbrücker Tagung nt sich von literarischen Quellen vom Schlage der Gebrüder Grimm über unerreichte Praktiker, etwa den Photographen Alfred Eisenstaedt, und Kulturmediatoren wie Felix Paul Greve alias Frederick Philip Grove sowie Else von Freytag-Loringhoven bis hin zu europäisch beeinflussten amerikanischen Literaten. darunter Djuna Barnes und John Dos Passos. Die internationalen Beiträger präsentieren fast immer neue Facetten ihres Gegenstands, nie hersscht ein dozierender Ton vor, der individuelle Schreibstil ist durchgehend lesbar, und die Quellenangaben sind akkurat sowie teilweise sehr ausführlich. Nicht zuletzt da, wo es heikel wird, so beim deutschen Beitrag zur Blütezeit afroamerikanischer Kultur, der Harlem Renaissance (1919-1940), ist die Argumentation schlüssig. "Pioneering North America" ist eine gelungene Publikation.

"Europas Kulturexport nach Nordamerika." Neue Zürcher Zeitung August 18, 2001, 190: 64.

Klaus Martens and Jutta Ernst, eds. "Je vous écris, en hâte et fiévreusement": Felix Paul Greve - André Gide. Korrespondenz und Dokumentation. Schriften der Saarländischen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek 5. St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 1999.

Reviews

The publication of the correspondence between André Gide and Felix Paul Grève, better known to Canadian readers as Frederick Philip Grove, is a milestone in the research of Greve/Grove's European years. It sheds an entirely new light on the relationship between the two men, eloquently subsumed in the phrase quoted in the title, variations of which characterized the closing of many of the letters on both sides of the correspondence. Meticulously documented, carefully but not pedantically annotated, the correspondence itself is preceded by an illuminating introduction and a penetrating essay, both by Martens, the latter piece indicating the degree to which Greve's fortunes, after he had served his prison term, were affected by the machinations of his rival Franz Blei.

This volume conclusively lays to rest the hitherto prevailing notion that Grève was a kind of Gide groupie. In his introduction Martens observes that the correspondence reveals that Grève was at least as important to Gide as Gide was to Grève. Martens' interpretation of the relationship would also explain the intensity of the two men's first encounter, in which a central issue is the opposition between life and art: Gide argues for the supremacy of the artist, who prefers to faire agir rather than act himself, a position he will reiterate in his letters, while Grève avows his preference for action: "L'œuvre d'art n'est pour moi qu'un pis-aller. Je préfère la vie."

Gide's attraction to Grève was essentially narcissistic: Grève the man-of-action fed Gide's artistic inspiration, which involved observation from a distance. Gide, awaiting Grève in Paris, knew that the latter had just been released from prison, while Grève was initially unaware that Gide had been informed of this. It is Greve's life, and, one senses, his dramatic appearance on arriving in Paris that left such a lasting impression on Gide. In his diary Gide writes: "Je vis aussitôt cette figure glabre, comme passée au chlore, ce corps trop grand pour qui tous les sièges sont bas ... Je souhaitai ardemment que ce fût lui. C'était lui."

Indeed, the letters support Martens' contention that for Gide, Grève was a sort of alter ego in whom Gide saw a reflection of a possible version of his own life. This explains why, after the first meeting, he preferred correspondence to personal encounters. In one of his early letters, Gide writes to Grève: "De toutes les figures que j'ai rencontrées, vous êtes une de celles qui m'a le plus intéressé [. ..] Vous m'intéressez autant que le premier jour, et c'est là, si je puisse ainsi dire, un intérêt de cœur autant que de la tête, mais à moins que ce ne soit pour pénétrer un peu plus avant dans votre vie, je n'éprouve pas le besoin de vous revoir."

Martens, who has also published a new study of Greve's European years that greatly expands and in some cases contradicts the earlier findings of Douglas O. Spettigue (Felix Paul Grèves Karriere: Frederick Philip Grove in Deutschland), offers an intriguing analysis of Grove's motivation in writing his "autobiography": in In Search of Myself, Grove cites the biography of the "young Frenchman" that has been brought to him as an incentive to write his own life story. Martens suggests that this act has a subtext: while Gide's life is written about by someone else, Grove must write (act) himself. What may have been crucial, according to Martens, in motivating Grove's oblique allusions to Gide in his "autobiography," was his frustration at the absence of any references to Grove (as Grève) in Gide's biography or, indeed, his autobiography (Si le grain ne meurt).

The correspondence consists mainly of Greve's letters to Gide, the other side of the correspondence presumably having been destroyed or lost after Greve's "death" in 1909. However, thanks to the cooperation of Madame Gide, the book does include drafts of a number of Gide's letters to Grève. Taken together, these letters reveal much about the relationship between the two writers, and document Greve's astonishing productivity as a translator and writer. They also chronicle Greve's desperation for ever more translation work, in order to pay his crushing debt to Kilian, and his exhaustion and increasing hopelessness at the circumstances in which he finds himself. In a poignant letter dated August 28,1906, he writes to Gide: "Je ne crois plus au succès. Je ne suis plus qu'une machine à écrire, et je deviens stupide, inintéressant. Je convoite une cahute pour m'étendre sur une paillasse. C'est triste mais c'est vrai. À force d'être surexcité et fatigué on devient comme ça."

The text is interspersed with copies of manuscripts and letters as well as beautifully reproduced, full-page copies of title pages of the works of Grove-Greve and Gide. The correspondence is followed by a number of excerpts from Grove/Greve's writings, and concludes with the transcription of Gide's journal notes describing his first encounter with Felix Paul Grève.

Rosmarin Heidenreich, Canadian Literature

Diese Neuerscheinung ist für alle, die in die deutsche Vergangenheit von Frederick Philip Grove alias Felix Paul Greve etwas mehr Licht bringen wollen, höchst willkommen. Denn zum ersten Mal wird die literarische Beziehung zwischen Greve und André Gide über den Briefwechsel beider mehr als nur fragmentarisch greifbar. […] Bedauerlicherweise war das Grove-Archiv der University of Manitoba aus welchen Gründen auch immer nicht in der Lage, Martens Einsicht in das Originalmaterial nehmen zu lassen. In dieser Situation kann die Hartnäckigkeit von Martens, der sich mit seiner Mitarbeiterin Jutta Ernst im Einvernehmen mit F.P. Greves Sohn A. Leonard Grove an Mme Catherine Gide (Inhaberin der Rechte an Materialien zu Gide) wandte, nicht hoch genug veranschlagt werden.

Das Ergebnis kann sich sehen lassen. […] Martens vergisst nicht darauf hinzuweisen, dass es sich bei ‚den meisten Briefen Gides […] um handschriftliche Briefentwürfe bzw. –kopien’ handelt, ‚deren Vollständigkeit nicht in jedem Fall gewiß ist.’ Dennoch bietet die vorliegende Sammlung eine willkommene Möglichkeit, die Bedeutung Gides für Greve und umgekehrt eingehender zu untersuchen. […]

Die These, dass Grove in seiner erfundenen Autobiographie In Search of Myself sich Gides Lebenslauf anverwandelte, ist aufgrund der Ausführungen von Martens überaus plausibel. Greves literarische Bedeutung beruht nicht auf seinen vernachlässigbaren deutschen Werken, sondern in erster Linie auf seiner Übersetzertätigkeit, trotz der Rufmordkampagne (der Martens den zweiten einleitenden Beitrag widmet) des mit ihm konkurrierenden Franz Blei: „Blei et Greve se canardent: On the Making and Unmaking of Reputations“. Greve war ein wichtiger Teil der deutschen Übersetzerkultur seiner Zeit, aber sein Name wurde ab 1909 regelrecht aus dem öffentlichen Gedächtnis getilgt. […]

Noch 1997 macht sich der Herausgeber Raimund Theis Bleis vernichtende Zeichnung von Greve als amoralischem Monster zueigen. Es ist das Verdienst von Jutta Ernst und Klaus Martens, mit dem vorliegenden Briefwechsel diesen Eindruck zurechtzurücken. […]

Bleibt noch nachzutragen, dass der Band ästhetisch überaus ansprechend gemacht ist und durch seine nützliche Bibliographie sowie seine Dokumentation, welche schwer greifbare Rezensionen (zu Nietzsche und Stendhal), Beiträge (zu George Meredith und Flaubert) und Aufsätze (‚Reise in Schweden’, 1909) zugänglich macht, außerordentlich gewinnt. Der Band gehört in die Hände all jener, die sich für das literarische Klima des ersten Jahrzehnts des 20. Jahrhunderts interessieren.

Konrad Gross, Zeitschrift für Kanadastudien (2003)

Klaus Martens. Felix Paul Greves Karriere: Frederick Philip Grove in Deutschland. Schriften der Saarländischen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek 3. St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 1997.

Reviews

Erst jetzt hat Klaus Martens, 53, Amerikanist an der Universität in Saarbrücken, das eigentliche Vorleben des Prärie-Literaten erforscht. Und siehe da. Die Wahrheit, aus kleinsten Puzzleteilen rekonstruiert, ist verrückter als alle Legenden vom verarmten Aristokraten. Grove war ein literarischer Tausendsassa und begnadeter Selbsterfinder. […]

Bis vor kurzem war der Rest [Groves literarisches Schaffen] kanadische Literaturgeschichte. Jetzt aber sind Frederick Philip Groves Memoiren zu Indiziensammlungen geworden. Wie in einem wild durcheinandergeworfenen Kostümfundus hat Grove/Greve dort seine früheren Existenzen abgelegt, überblendet und drapiert. Die Spurensicherung wird noch lange weitergehen.

Johannes Saltzwedel, Der Spiegel 45/1997

Martens zeichnet durch neue Archivfunde und philologische Detektivarbeit ein weitaus genaueres Bild von Greve und seiner Bedeutung als Literaturvermittler im Deutschland der Jahrhundertwende, als dies bisher möglich war. Hatte Grove in seiner fiktiven Lebensbeichte nicht gesagt, sein leben sei ein Palimpsest? Martens erhebt die Vermutung zur Prämisse, dass alle Angaben aus dem Geist zur Verschleierung gemacht wurden und zumindest einen faktischen Kern enthalten. Jeder gefundene authentische Fetzen, und sei es die Lektüreliste des jungen Felix Paul am Johanneum, wird in den Gesamtzusammenhang des zerrissenen Lebens gestellt, in der Hoffnung, die Biographie des Autors stimmig zu machen. Endlich sollen auch die Romane Groves als Schlüssel zur Wahrheit über Felix Paul Greve dienen; jede Korrespondenz zwischen der Fiktion des Autors und der Fiktion des Menschen wird dankbar aufgegriffen, um dem Autor die Mechanismen zu entlocken, mit denen er sein Leben zur Fiktion umgeschrieben hat.

Alexander Pajevic, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Nr. 217 (18.Sept. 1997) 38.

Klaus Martens Felix Paul Greves Karriere: Frederick Philip Grove in Deutschland presents the first biographical study of FPG from a German perspective. Bringing together a rich diversity of unpublished materials from German archives, Klaus Martens’ meticulous detective work provides important new insights and will be no less influential than Spettigue’s pioneering work. Grove afficionados will find many rewarding highlights. […]

Martens also provides detailed evidence about the few but influential women in Greve’s life. Canadian feminist scholars […] will be interested in Martens’ discussion of Ludwig Klages’ sister, the virginal Helene […]. Scholars of the Dada poet Else von Freytag-Loringhoven, aka Else Greve from 1903-1911, will be intrigued by Martens’ findings that Hugo von Hofmannsthal provided support for “Else Greve” in her proposal to translate John Keats’ letters into German. […]

This biography also signals a new approach to Grove. Through the lens of Klaus Martens, a widely published translator of Derek Walcott, Dylan Thomas, and Wallace Stevens, FPG emerges as a brilliant cultural mediator. Martens’ is the first study, that makes a sustained case for FPG’s immense contribution to the construction of a culture of translation in fin-de-siècle Germany […] Martens’ intimate knowledge of the world and workings of fin-de-siècle publishers and translators makes this work an important cultural study. […]

The books scholarly research is presented in a lucid style making this richly detailed work accessible to a wide range of German readers. […] This meticulously researched work provides a comprehensive bibliography and features formerly unpublished photographs, including an intriguing one of FPG surrounded by male friends and seductively posing as “Nixe” on a cart. The semiotics of this and other photographs alone make Felix Paul Greves Karrierre an invaluable and provocative resource for further study of the life history of Canada’s most famous literary con-man. 

Irene Gammel, Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik (1999)

Nach der Pionierleistung von Douglas O. Spettigue, der 1973 in FPG: The European Years als erster die Identität des deutschen Greve und des kanadischen Grove nachwies, und den auf einen Hinweis von Lynn DeVore zurückgehenden Kenntnissen über die unveröffentlichten Erinnerungen von „Baroness Elsa“ (alias Else Endell, geb. Ploetz) und ihre Beziehungen zu FPG – um nur zwei markante Beispiele zu nennen – legt nun Klaus Martens ein umfangreiches Werk vor, das unser Wissen über die Frühgeschichte von FPG, die ja später den ‚Rohstoff‘ seiner persönlichen Mythologie bilden sollte, beträchtlich erweitet, auf eine neue, gesicherte Grundlage stellt und darüber hinaus einen vertieften Einblick in seine Existenz als Mensch und Autor bietet.

Die Ergebnisse von Martens’ eingehenden Feld- und Quellenstudien, gestützt und ergänzt durch eindrucksvolle Dokumente und reichhaltiges Bildmaterial, sind in vieler Hinsicht beeindruckend. Neue Erkenntnisse ergeben sich vor allem für die Phasen: die Schulzeit am Hamburger Johanneum (1889-1898), die Bonner Studentenzeit und die gesellschaftlichen und sportlichen Aktivitäten im akademischen Ruderclub „Rhenus“ sowie seine vielfältige Übersetzer- und Schriftstellertätigkeit in München und Berlin, einschließlich der Kontakte zu Verlagen, vor allem J. C. C. Bruns in Minden. Darüber hinaus förderte Martens viel Wissenswertes über FPGs Verhältnis zur literarischen Szene der Jahrhundertwende, über seinen Aufenthalt am Deutschen Archäologischen Institut in Rom und nicht zuletzt auch über seine Beziehung zu Else und August Endell zutage.

Martens füllt Lücken, deckt Querverbindungen auf, stellt manches richtig, was die kanadische Forschung – sei es aus Gründen der transatlantischen Distanz, sei es aus sprachlichen Gründen – nur verzerrt wahrgenommen hat. Natürlich ist die Spurensicherung, so ergiebig sie auch ist, nicht Selbstzweck. Martens’ Hauptinteresse gilt offenkundig der posthumen Rehabilitierung von FPG: der immer noch enigmatische Autor wird uns nicht nur als aktiver Teilnehmer am Literaturbetrieb der Dekade zwischen 1900 und 1910 präsentiert, sondern auch und vor allem als literarische Mittlergestalt, dessen rege Übersetzungstätigkeit Martens als Aspekt interkultureller Kommunikation deutet. Trotz intensiver Bemühungen gelingt FPG auf keinem der von ihm erprobten Gebiete der Durchbruch zur Spitze. Die Anerkennung wird ihm versagt. Greves Versuch, sich innerhalb der europäischen Avantgarde zu etablieren, scheiterte nach Martens’ Ansicht, weil er als Emporkömmling und Außenseiter nicht zu den „Sonnenknaben“ (191) der literarisch tonangebenden Kreise gehörte, so daß seine verdienstvolle Tätigkeit geradezu einer Verschwörung des Schweigens zum Opfer fiel.

Darüber hinaus werden auch biographische Strukturen wesentlich klarer als bisher erkennbar: das Schauspielerische und unter Masken Verborgene seiner Künstlerexistenz, auch das Unstete und Sprunghafte, FPGs Beweglichkeit, Rastlosigkeit, Bereitschaft zur Neuorientierung. So läßt sich etwa in plötzlichen Ortswechseln, wie z. B. im Umzug von Hamburg nach Bonn im April 1898, geradezu eine Vorwegnahme des Identitätswechsels erkennen, wie er sie mit dem Sprung von Europa nach Nordamerika gut zehn Jahre später (1909) vollzieht. Daß die Thematik des Unterwegsseins dem ersten seiner kanadischen Texte, Over Prairie Trails (1922), zugrundeliegt, ist – Martens weist zurecht darauf hin (308) – gewiß kein Zufall. Persönliche Lebensgeschichte und intellektueller Habitus entsprechen sich: FPGs Tätigkeit als Übersetzer ist eine biographische Facette seines Talents der Anverwandlung an fremde Identitäten.

Die kanadische Kritik hat nach Erscheinen des Bandes beklagt, daß Martens die bahnbrechenden Vorarbeiten Spettigues und anderer nicht ausreichend gewürdigt habe. Diese Einwände treffen aber eigentlich nur auf das erstaunliche deutsche Presse-Echo zu, das in Unkenntnis der Forschungslage in der Tat den Eindruck erweckt, als habe Martens eine völlig neue Entdeckung gemacht. Martens selbst hebt einleitend hingegen ausdrücklich hervor, „daß die grundlegende Arbeit über die Biographie und das Werk bislang im wesentlichen durch kanadische Literaturwissenschaftler geleistet worden ist“ (26), wobei er deren Verdienste durch den Hinweis relativiert, daß ihr Zugang zu den Quellen und der Umgang mit ihnen aus verschiedenen Gründen behindert gewesen sei. Auch wenn die gleich zu Beginn geäußerte Ansicht, das kanadische FPG-Bild sei „wegen der nahezu völligen Vernachlässigung seiner früheren Existenz als der Lyriker, Übersetzer, Essayist und Romancier Felix Paul Greve“ (15) irreführend, in dieser Pauschalität nicht zutrifft, so ist doch richtig, daß die kanadische Forschung nicht selten allzu bereitwillig darauf verzichtet hat, Perspektiven zu entwickeln, welche die Prä-Existenz FPGs als deutscher Schriftsteller in ihren Untersuchungshorizont einbeziehen.

[…]

Die eigentlichen Rätsel, die FPG und sein Werk aufgeben, harren – so scheint es uns heute – immernoch ihrer Lösung. Martens’ gründliche und gehaltvolle Studie bietet einen willkommenen Anlaß, die Grundfragen der Grove-Forschung neu zu überdenken.

Walter Pache, Anglia. Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie. 118:4 (2000) 633-637.

Klaus Martens, ed. Literaturvermittler um die Jahrhundertwende: J.C.C. Bruns' Verlag, seine Autoren und Übersetzer. Schriften der Saarländischen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek 1. St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 1996.

Reviews

Vor zehn Jahren hat sich der damals in Göttingen arbeitende Literaturwissenschaftler Klaus Martens, ausgehend von der frühen Whitman-Übertragung bei Bruns, auf die Suche gemacht. In Minden wurde er fündig. In einem verborgenen Winkel der Druckerei fanden sich die längst vergessenen, aber aufbewahrten Verlagsverträge und Begleitschreiben, die Familie erlaubte Einsicht in die Privatkorrespondenz des Dichters, Übersetzers und Verlegers Max Bruns. […] Die ersten Ergebnisse seiner gemeinsam mit einem Mitarbeiterstab erarbeiteten Untersuchungen konnten jetzt der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert werden: Durch eine umfangreiche Ausstellung mit insgesamt 239 Exponaten in der Saarländischen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek vom 15. Januar bis 28. Februar 1996, und durch einen sie ergänzenden, aufwendig gestalteten Katalog. Die bisherige Ausbeute ist außerordentlich ertragsreich: nicht nur für die Kenntnis der Literaturproduktion und Literaturvermittlung einer jüngeren Epoche, sondern auch für die allgemeine Buchhandelsgeschichte. Weil auch die Vertragsgestaltung mit Autoren und Übersetzern, zugleich die Bedingungen des internationalen Urheberrechts einbezogen sind, wird beispielhaft deutlich, wie erkenntnisfördernd die Erforschung solcher Grundlagen der Verbreitung von Literatur ist und was noch anderswo nachgeholt werden müsste, soweit man in ähnlichen Glücksfällen auf überlieferte Quellen zurückgreifen kann. […]

Ausstellung und Katalog befassen sich in erster Linie mit den Übersetzern, deren Leistung von Rezensenten meist nicht beurteilt werden können, von Literaturhistorikern kaum oder gar nicht wahrgenommen werden, erst in jüngster Zeit allmählich Anerkennung finden. Mit 23 Namen kann die Mitarbeiterliste des Bruns-Verlages aufwarten: in Kurzbiographien werden sie vorgestellt. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit findet die Übersetzungstätigkeit des Verlegerehepaares Max und Margarete Bruns sowie des Felix Paul Greve, die sich alle drei auch als Lyriker und Erzähler ausgezeichnet haben. Wie sehr unterschiedliche oder unzureichende Regelungen des sich erst entwickelnden internationalen Urheberrechts erschwerend und konfliktträchtig waren, lässt sich aus den im Katalog auszugsweise wiedergegebenen Korrespondenzen ablesen. […]

Klaus Martens und seine Forschungsgruppe haben das reiche ausgewählte Material übersichtlich gegliedert und sorgfältig interpretiert, mit manchen Überraschungen. An vergessene Erstausgaben und Erstübersetzungen wurde erinnert, bisher unbekannte Dichterhandschriften konnten vorgezeigt werden. So dürfte sich die Ausstellung in Saarbrücken durchaus mit ähnlich gearteten Veranstaltungen messen lassen.

Peter Neumann. Börsenblatt des deutschen Buchhandels 17 (Feb. 1996) 84-86.