The Philosophic Game: Eighteenth-Century Masquerade in German and Danish Literature and Culture a DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
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The Philosophic Game: Eighteenth-Century Masquerade in German and Danish Literature and Culture A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Anne Beryl Wallen IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Rembert Hüser, Poul Houe May 2012 © Anne Beryl Wallen, 2012 Acknowledgements My studies, research and dissertation writing have been supported by several institutions, for which I must express my most sincere appreciation: the University of Minnesota, particularly for the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and the Graduate School Fellowship; the Department of German, Scandinavian & Dutch, particularly for the Hella Lindemeyer Mears Fellowship, the Gerhard and Janet Weiss award, and to Hella Mears and Gerhard Weiss themselves for their support; the U.S.-Denmark Fulbright Comission; the American Scandinavian Foundation; and the P.E.O. Scholars Award. I am also grateful to the University of Copenhagen Institute of Nordic Studies and Linguistics for hosting me during my Fulbright year in Copenhagen. Thanks to Lisbet Hein of Hørsholm Museum and to Ida Poulsen of the Theatre Museum in the Court Theater for generously sharing materials and knowledge with me. At the individual level, my thanks go first to my co-advisors, Rembert Hüser and Poul Houe, for sharing their experience and providing guidance over the past several years. The size of my dissertation committee has raised eyebrows, but I could not imagine having gone forward with my project without the invaluable input each of my committee members has provided. Ruth-Ellen Joeres and Richard Leppert both also served on my Master’s committee, and so deserve special thanks for their support throughout my graduate studies. Thanks to Jim Parente for encouraging my dual Scandinavian and German interests. Thanks to Charlotte Melin for her careful reading of many chapter drafts as well as for her patient mentoring. Thanks are also due my advisor at the Master’s Level, Jack Zipes, whose scholarship has continued to inform my thinking, and to many other teachers and professors in Minnesota, Kansas, and abroad who have encouraged and influenced me over the years. My most heartfelt thanks on this count go especially to Mary Klayder and Leonie Marx at the University of Kansas, and my high school German teacher Margarete Dorsch, whose dedication and enthusiasm continue to inspire me. Throughout this process I have benefited tremendously from the encouragement and sympathy of other dissertation writers. For their in-person and on-line presence in my life I thank: Carrie Collenberg-Gonzalez, Amanda Doxtater, Christine Isakson, Laura i Ishiguro, Lindsay Lawton, Hilde Norrgrén, Ashley Olstad, Amanda Petersen, Anja Shepela, Roger Skarsten, and my office mates in Folwell Hall, on Amager and on Christianshavn. In the final stages especially my work colleagues Sally Taylor Lieberman and Ginny Steinhagen were understanding and generous with their advice. Thank you all. I feel extremely fortunate to have such a supportive extended family. Thank you especially to my parents, Rose Marie and Mike Wallen, and my sister Miriam Wallen, for always believing in me. Tusind tak to my in-laws Bodil and Michael Holm, Anne Mette Holm, and Thomas Heron. I do not know if I could ever adequately express my gratitude to my husband, Carsten Holm, who has been the best possible friend and companion for this process. Thank you for making coffee in the morning and reading me bedtime stories at night, proofreading, debating, and always cheering me on. Thank you to our son Nicolai Michael Holm for making me laugh and helping keep things in perspective. ii Dedication For Carsten iii Abstract My dissertation is titled “The Philosophic Game: Eighteenth-Century Masquerade in German and Danish Literature and Culture.” Masked balls were one of the most popular forms of entertainment in eighteenth-century Europe, and appears frequently as a motif in the period’s literature and arts. Analyzing court journals, newspaper reports, and works of art in combination with literary and philosophic texts, I present a picture of masquerade as experienced and as imagined by eighteenth-century participants and observers in Danish and German lands. I argue that the apparent triviality of masked balls belies the complicated rule systems that governed them, and that the motivations for its performance are tied to many of the era’s concerns, raising questions about the individual’s place in society, and the individual’s relationship to sex, class, and nationality. In the first chapter, “The Rules of the Game,” I trace the origins and influences of masquerade in Northern Europe, and explore the complex systems of conventions and publicized rules that governed this reputedly carnivalesque practice. I analyze how masquerades are organized and discussed by writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and consider participants’ motivations in light of philosophic texts by Ludvig Holberg and others. The second chapter looks at the masquerade’s reputation as a “Wunder-Land” (Carl Gustav Heräus), especially as it appears in comedies by Holberg, Johann Elias Schlegel, and Theodor Körner. Here the masquerade appears as a kind of Foucauldian heterotopia, where everyday norms are suspended and personal liberty can be expressed. The third chapter, on the other hand, tackles the masquerade as a site of “Misfortune” in terms of potential moral and sexual danger, particularly for women. I focus on two longer prose works by Sophie von La Roche and Charlotte Dorothea Biehl that contain pivotal scenes of masquerade. In the final chapter, I analyze the “afterlife” of the masquerade in nineteenth- through twenty-first-century historical fiction. In each chapter I follow case studies of masquerades held during the Struensee period at the court of Danish King Christian VII. Throughout the dissertation, I consider how masquerade and the discourse surrounding it relate to contemporary notions of metaphorical “masquerade.” iv The Philosophic Game: Eighteenth-Century Masquerade in German and Danish Literature and Culture Doctoral Dissertation by Anne B. Wallen Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iv Introduction ................................................................................................................... .1 Chapter One: The Rules of the Game ......................................................................... 14 Maskenfreiheit ................................................................................................................. 22 Who Can Play .................................................................................................................. 31 “Hier gilt kein Unterscheid...” ......................................................................................... 35 Sensual and Sensory Overload ........................................................................................ 43 The Expansion of Time ................................................................................................... 48 Sites of Performance ....................................................................................................... 51 Whole in the Mask .......................................................................................................... 56 Chapter Two: Masquerade as “Wunder-Land” ........................................................ 63 Mascarade ....................................................................................................................... 72 De Usynlige ..................................................................................................................... 83 Der Geheimnißvolle ......................................................................................................... 88 Der grüne Domino ........................................................................................................... 92 The Masquerade Rumor Mill .......................................................................................... 95 The Confession ................................................................................................................ 99 Chapter Three: Masquerade as Misfortune ............................................................... 105 Den forklædte Maler ........................................................................................................ 117 Die Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim .................................................................. 130 Chapter Four: The End of the Masquerade ............................................................... 152 Neumann’s Struensee and the Trans-European Masquerade .......................................... 159 Introduction and Initiation ............................................................................................... 164 Folkefest and Exclusivity ................................................................................................ 168 Sexuality and Scandal – Early 1770 ................................................................................ 175 The Final Unmasking – January 1772 ............................................................................. 182 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 194 v Introduction “Dansen hade slutat vid tvåtiden.