Interested in the diachronic history of the wanderer in various texts of the German nineteenth century, Andrew Cusack has written a book rich in information and ideas. While drawing on a wide range of works related to wandering or traveling, Cusack writes most extensively on Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and Wanderjahre (“The Wanderer as the Subject of Education”); Tieck's Franz Sternbald's Wanderungen and Novalis's Heinrich von Ofterdingen (“The Wanderer in the Romantic Imagination”); Heine's Harzreise, Büchner's Lenz, and Fontane's Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg (“The Wanderer in Political Discourse”); and Gotthelf's Jakobs des Handwerksgesellen Wanderungen durch die Schweiz, Holtei's Die Vagabunden, and Raabe's Abu Telfan oder Die Heimkehr vom Mondgebirge (“Wandering at the Margins: Journeymen and Vagabonds”). A study that includes both novels and travel narratives under the rubric “motif of the wanderer” has built-in problems, which I'll get to later, but it also has its advantages.

The insightful discussion of Wilhelm Meister begins with a close look at “the body language of autonomy” (14), at the metaphors of walking or gait in the novel. Herder's claim that through their upright gait humans became creatures of art becomes a productive way to gauge Meister's progressive education as he moves from “hinschlendern” and “schleichen” to “zweckmäßige Schritte” that resemble the “starke Schritte” of his mentor the Abbé (17). Cusack writes that ”… ‘wandern’ as it appears here indicates a particular stance to be adopted toward the world, a posture of alertness whose iconic symbol is the figure of the wanderer, a man on the qui vive, whose upright stance indicates both a maximum receptivity to his surroundings and a readiness to reach out and grasp the material of which they are made” (34).

Freemasonic rituals as practiced by the Society of the Tower serve to structure Wilhelm's wandering education. As Cusack investigates the stages of Wilhelm's journey in the Wanderjahre, and as he argues that the reader herself acts as a wanderer in the novel, he would find good support for his ideas in my own article, “‘Des Maurers Wandeln / Es gleicht dem Leben’: The Freemasonic Ritual Route in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre” (Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, June 1984).

In his second chapter, Cusack turns to a pair of important romantic novels that feature journeys made by young men. Franz Sternbald's artistic wanderings driven by Sehnsucht find an interesting context in a discussion of the journey as a liminal state.