George Bancroft's Goethe (English Goethe Society Lecture)

Speaker: Paul E. Kerry (University of Texas at Austin/Brigham Young University)

This paper explores George Bancroft’s evolving view of Goethe and his writings. Bancroft, son of a Massachusetts clergyman, was a model Harvard student and came across German thought there. He then pursued doctoral studies at the University of Göttingen, heard lectures in Heidelberg and Berlin, and travelled in Europe (1818-22). He is often remembered for his History of the United States, a multi-volume project he worked on for decades that would grow into ten volumes and many editions, as well as for his ambassadorial roles in Great Britain and Germany. Opposed to slavery and a strong supporter of the Union, he helped to ensure the preservation of President Abraham Lincoln’s 'Gettysburg Address'. Bancroft was invited by both houses of Congress to eulogize Lincoln after the latter’s assassination.   

Scholars have suggested that Bancroft’s conservative New England background kept his intellectual interests narrow during his time studying in Germany. He was, for example, under strict charge from his Harvard mentors to avoid German theology. He is strategic in what he conveys in his letters to his Harvard supporters who have provided him with the funds to make this extraordinary opportunity available to him. Yet, his journal entries provide a different story. Bancroft begins to make his own assessments and exercises his agency to listen to the lectures he chooses to hear, including in German theology. This paper seeks to use archival research to better situate Bancroft’s personal experience of visiting with Goethe in Weimar, as well as his subsequent assessments of Goethe’s writings in prominent American periodicals of the day, in the context of Bancroft’s broader experience in Göttingen, as well as Bancroft’s changing interests, expanding public and professional roles, and his own published writings. These help to shed light on the nuance and complexities of intercultural transfer and of transatlantic intellectual influence and reception.

Paul E. Kerry is a Senior Research Fellow in the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and an Associate Professor in the History Department at Brigham Young University. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Oxford, an Honorary Fellow of the Woolf Institute, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.  

Attendance free. All are welcome to attend, in person or online via Zoom. Advance online registration is essential, please select appropriate ticket when booking.