Poetic Fragments – Karoline Von Gunderrode
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Poetic Fragments SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy Dennis J. Schmidt, editor Poetic Fragments Karoline von Günderrode (Tian) Translated and with Introductory Essays by Anna C. Ezekiel Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2016 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production, Jenn Bennett Marketing, Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Günderrode, Karoline von, 1780-1806, author. Title: Poetic fragments / Karoline von Günderrode ; translated and with introductory essays by Anna C. Ezekiel. Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2016. | Series: SUNY series in contemporary Continental philosophy | “Tian.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016000440 (print) | LCCN 2016007299 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438461977 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438461984 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438461991 (e-book) Classification: LCC PT2281.G8 A25 2016 (print) | LCC PT2281.G8 (ebook) | DDC 831/.6—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016000440 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments vii A Note on the Translation ix Introduction: The Work of Karoline von Günderrode 1 ONE Hildgund 39 TWO “Piedro,” “The Pilgrims,” and “The Kiss in the Dream” 87 THREE Muhammad, the Prophet of Mecca 121 Notes 301 Bibliography 325 Index 339 Acknowledgments would like to express my gratitude to my partner, Zachariah Ezekiel, I for his financial support and unwavering enthusiasm for this project. Thank you for always seeing our undertakings as team efforts; your labor was as important as mine in producing this book. A research trip for revisions to the manuscript was partly funded by an Émilie du Châtelet Award granted by the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies. Many thanks to Dr. Katerina Mihaylova, without whose support this book could not have been completed. Dr. Mihaylova’s help included advice on translation and assistance obtaining documents for research. Somehow, she managed to fit this in while working full time, teaching, and finishing a PhD thesis. Other helpful individuals have also contributed to this volume. In particular, Enoch Guimond and Dr. Oran Magal were crucial in help- ing obtain texts for my research, and Sabrina Zaman provided com- ments on an early draft. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. George di Giovanni, whose faith in my work continues to motivate me to try to live up to his expectations. vii A Note on the Translation his volume aims to make Karoline von Günderrode’s work acces- Tsible to an English-speaking audience, and to allow Günderrode’s contributions to philosophy to be recognized. With these goals in mind I have focused on capturing the meanings of the original German text with as much nuance as possible, rather than attempting to reflect meter or rhyme. The original German is presented beside the English, which I hope will enable even non-German speakers to gain an idea of the rhythm and rhyme of the original, as well as facilitate checking of the translations. Nonetheless, I have tried to avoid introducing awkwardness even for the sake of accuracy. I hope that the English translations will communicate something of the pleasure of reading Günderrode while functioning as useful texts for English-speaking students and scholars. The German text used in this volume is based on Leopold Hirsch- berg’s edition of Günderrode’s collected works (1920–22; reprint 1970), but has been checked against the historical-critical edition edited by Walther Morgenthaler and published by Stroemfeld/Roter Stern (1990–91), which is the most accurate available. The differences be- tween the Hirschberg and Morgenthaler editions are minor, but where they affect meaning the text follows the Hirschberg version, as does the translation unless otherwise indicated, and the alternative Morgen- thaler version is noted in a footnote to the English text. Very minor differences in spelling and punctuation are not indicated. I have not ix x A Note on the Translation amended errors in Hirschberg’s transcription or idiosyncrasies in spell- ing or punctuation by Günderrode. The translation of Muhammad, the Prophet of Mecca uses common English transliterations for Arabic names instead of the German trans- literations used by Günderrode. Most characters and places in the text are based on historical individuals and places, and I hope this approach will help English-speaking readers find out more about these, if they should so desire. Introduction The Work of Karoline von Günderrode he poet, dramatist, and philosopher Karoline von Günderrode T(1780–1806) published several collections and individual pieces of writing, including Poetic Fragments, at the start of the nineteenth centu- ry. Günderrode was a nuanced and original thinker whose varied writ- ings include philosophical fragments, dialogues, erotic, mystical, and religious poetry, ballads, epic, tragic and comic dramas, and fictional and semi-fictional fragments that consider political, historical, religious, and philosophical questions. Her work was known to many of the leading intellectual lights of her day, including Bettina Brentano/von Arnim, Clemens Brentano, Georg Friedrich Creuzer, Friedrich Carl von Savi- gny, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. She was a major influence on the modern German writers Anna Seghers and Christa Wolf, and has inspired works of fiction, music, film, and poetry. However, despite a steady cult following, Günderrode’s writing is generally little known even to German speakers, and is practically unknown in the English- speaking world. This gap should be addressed, since Günderrode’s work is not only often beautiful and powerful, but also reflects her original, at times radical, philosophical thought. Günderrode’s work reveals a thoughtful and innovative engage- ment with philosophical questions and literary themes of her age, but there has been little attention to her contributions to these fields. In part, this is because Günderrode wrote at a time when women were 1 2 Poetic Fragments expected to restrict their writing to particular styles (charming, sweet, whimsical) and genres (letters, diaries, lyrical poetry), when their desire to be published was often seen as reflecting vanity or other dubious or unfeminine personality traits, and when their efforts were thought to be of lower intellectual, literary, and creative merit than the work of their male peers.1 As a result, the disciplines of German literature and philosophy have yet to explore Günderrode’s treatment of literary themes or her approach to philosophical questions about metaphysics, subjectivity, death, free will, ethics, politics, and gender roles. Günder- rode was also one of the first interpreters of Asian and Middle Eastern philosophy, religion, and culture in Germany and Europe, and study- ing her appropriation of these sources can provide information on the modern European adoption of ideas from the East. Günderrode’s work will certainly be of interest to fans and scholars of German literature. But my interest in Günderrode is primarily a philosophical one, and this book aims to promote the interpretation of her work as a contribution to the philosophical, as well as literary, culture of her time. Thus, this book has two goals. First, the translations of Günderrode’s writings make these pieces available to an English- speaking audience, allowing them to be enjoyed by more readers and more readily included in courses on German literature and philosophy. Second, the critical material included in this volume indicates some of the ways in which Günderrode’s writing reveals a rich and innovative philosophy, justifying the inclusion of Günderrode’s work in the aca- demic study of philosophy. In particular, this book points out Günder- rode’s unique contributions to the German Romantic and Idealist proj- ects of reimagining metaphysics, personhood, freedom, gender roles, and possibilities for social and political arrangements. These areas of Günderrode’s thought all require closer study, and it is my hope that this book will invite more readers and scholars to embark on this rewarding investigative task. The Reception of Günderrode’s Work There is a long tradition of fascination with Günderrode’s life, relation- ships, and suicide, and Günderrode has been the subject of several films, novels, and poems, as well as many biographical or biographically ori- ented essays and books.2 However, this construction of a “Günderrode Introduction 3 mythos” has not been accompanied by rigorous or extensive attention to either the literary or philosophical merits of her writings. In fact, as a number of commentators have pointed out, the attention to Günder- rode’s biography and psychology has tended to distract attention from her work, or at best to focus the study of her writings on their connec- tions with events in her life or their supposed function as forms of es- cape or wish fulfillment.3 Meanwhile, in English-speaking culture and scholarship there is very little awareness of any