These essays (in English except for four items in German and French) provide an intercultural perspective. They deal with such diverse aspects of North American (including Québécois) literature as "Kanadas Verhältnis zu den USA im Spiegel seiner Literatur," "Canada and American Slavery", the Acadian theme in "Longfellow et Antonine Maillet" and "The Western Love Code: Faulkner, Hébert, Hemingway, and Ondaatje." The continental context also pervades treatments of novels (featuring Indian wars, sentimentalism, the West, and modern pícaros), story cycles (e.g., Atwood's), and the long poem (Kroetsch).