Hybrid identities: John Henry Mackay and Houston Stuart Chamberlain between Englishness and Germanness

The son of a Scottish marine insurance broker and a German mother, John Henry Mackay (6 February 1864–16 May 1933) was born in Greenock, Scotland. He was only nineteen months old when his father died. His mother returned with him to Germany, where he grew up with German as his mother tongue. An allowance provided by his mother gave Mackay financial independence after completing his schooling. He travelled much, and chose the career of a writer, at first of lyric and narrative poetry. He made translations from poetic and political English texts, but never wrote that language well. Research on Mackay concentrates mostly on two facets of his writings: the political texts, such as Die Anarchisten: Kulturgemälde aus dem Ende des XIX. Jahrhunderts [The Anarchists: A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century] (1891), and the homoerotic/ pederastic narratives (Die Bücher der namenlosen Liebe [Books of the Nameless Love] (1905–1913) published under the pseudonym of Sagitta. The approach in this article focuses on different aspects of his poetics and work, specifically on how he draws on multilingualism and cultural hybridity, but also on his literary creativity compared to Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s work. In contrast to Chamberlain’s writings, Mackay’s otherness turned into a creative force and became a dominant theme in his poetry, narratives, and novels.