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It was these images which entered the consciousness of not only scholarly Germans and
Austrians, but also the general reading public, and despite his tarnished reputation in later years,
Reise um die Welt stood the test of time in academic circles, especially as no alternative or
updated German account was able to challenge its standing for years to come. Along with the key
works of Dieffenbach and Hochstetter, Forster importantly established the scientificphilosophical
tradition of the Germanic perspective of New Zealand and the Maori, which
consisted of the combined knowledge of the classically trained scientist with a sound background
in philosophy, before the latter was increasingly overtaken in the nineteenth century by a more
specialised emphasis on empiricism and physical laws. Forster’s characteristic philosophical
approach, together with his penchant for European moralising and critiquing, his desire for
peaceful relations with indigenous peoples, and his at times almost anti-European view of the
colonising process would later lend itself to similar manifestations in Dieffenbach’s work of
suggesting alternative modes of colonisation and offering logical solutions to colonial problems
in the same role of the ‘superior’ and ‘more objective’ German commentator. While much interest
and emphasis is placed nowadays, as it was then, on the happy island of Tahiti, 77 the image of
New Zealand, particularly regarding the theme of cannibalism, was nevertheless widely received
by its readers. 78 Consequently, Reise um die Welt is an important text for investigating the
nineteenth-century accounts of German-speaking explorers and travellers in New Zealand, as it
serves as a useful and necessary starting point for understanding the non-British European
viewpoint of the country and its people.
77 See, for example, Horst Brunner, Die poetische Insel: Inseln und Inselvorstellungen in der deutschen Literatur.
Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967, 119-44; Küchler Williams, Erotische Paradiese, 167-82.
78 Notably, Gottfried August Bürger’s poem “Neuseeländisches Schlachtlied” (1782) was inspired by Forster’s work
(see Hans-Werner Nieschmidt, “Bürgers ‘Neuseeländisches Schlachtlied’: Zur Aufnahme Neuseelands in die
deutsche Dichtung”, in: Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 90 (1971): 186-91).
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