Britische und Irische Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur 39
Landmarks in German Women’s Writing
von Hilary Brown
1. Auflage
Landmarks in German Women’s Writing – Brown schnell und portofrei erhältlich bei beck-shop.de DIE FACHBUCHHANDLUNG
Peter Lang Bern 2007
Verlag C.H. Beck im Internet: www.beck.de ISBN 978 3 03910 301 0
Inhaltsverzeichnis: Landmarks in German Women’s Writing – Brown Introduction
When one thinks of the ‘landmarks’ of German literature, it is probably not works by women which spring to mind. We might come up straight away with Faust, for example – and be hard-pressed to name a single female dramatist, let alone a landmark play by one. Women writers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have been overshadowed by their male counterparts, and their work has not entered the canon to the same extent as writing by women in other countries such as Britain and America. But the absence of women from the canon has not gone unnoticed by scholars. Interest in German women’s writing was reawakened by feminist critics in the 1970s, and it is now a thriving – if still marginal- ised – area of research. Scholars now recognise that there are various reasons why women have struggled in the past to make their mark as writers. For instance, they point to the socio-historical factors which have limited women’s access to the world of writing and publishing (if women in the Age of Goethe were expected to keep to the domestic sphere, and those with literary ambitions tended to publish only warily and stick to putatively humble genres, was one of them likely to turn out a Faust?). They have also asked questions about the reception of the texts produced by women. It is increasingly accepted that literary history is determined by the ideologies of those who construct it, and that the process of placing literature in hierarchies has often resulted in women’s writing being dismissed as trivial. Yet the criteria used to judge what is significant can change. It is heartening that the rediscovery and reassess- ment of German women writers has led to numerous reprints of their texts and a growing body of excellent reference works and scholarly studies. This volume seeks to celebrate the achievements of twelve women writers, some well-known, some whose work is perhaps less familiar. The selection is by no means definitive; there are certainly others who would have merited inclusion if space had allowed. The aim has been to examine anew the lives and works of a range of women from different 8 Introduction periods. They stand out as landmarks for a variety of reasons. Some are among the few women whose work has found its way into the canon and has long been acknowledged to be innovative or influential. Other writers may have been obscured from view at different times but they, too, deserve to be celebrated for the fascinating contribution they have made to German culture. The volume begins in the Middle Ages and opens with a portrait of Mechthild von Magdeburg, the thirteenth-century nun who breaks new ground by writing in German instead of Latin and whose remarkable text, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit, had a profound impact on mystical writing in the German-speaking lands in subsequent centuries. For the early modern period, the choice has fallen on the poet Margaretha Susanna von Kuntsch, who achieved fame among her local circle during her lifetime and even more widely after her death. She is an important figure because her life and work can be regarded in some respects as typical for the women who took up their pens at this time. The En- lightenment is represented by Sophie von La Roche. La Roche’s skilful compositions – in particular her highly successful first novel Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim – had a far-reaching influence on the cul- ture of the late eighteenth century. The Romantic woman writer to be included here is Bettine von Arnim. Her ‘novels’ push Romantic notions of art and life to new limits: she combines different genres and mixes up authentic and fictional documents to create a new literary form. The obvious choice for the Biedermeier period is Annette von Droste- Hülshoff, justly celebrated and not least for her rich and challenging poetry. Our landmark of the late nineteenth century is Marie von Ebner- Eschenbach, whose fiction – often humorous and gently critical of social ills – makes her a major exponent of realism. For the years around the turn of the century, we have Lou Andreas-Salomé. Andreas-Salomé stands out because of her close connections to Nietzsche, Rilke and Freud and because of her fine, perceptive writing which engages with major concerns of the day such as psychoanalysis and the question of female emancipation. In the early twentieth century, it is Else Lasker- Schüler, famed for her highly original and vivid poetry, who rises up as an important landmark. The Weimar period is represented here by Irmgard Keun. Keun’s first two novels, Gilgi – Eine von uns and Das kunstseidene Mädchen, were instant best sellers and appeared to capture the mood of a generation. And finally, the volume focuses on three Hilary Brown 9 major writers of the post-war era: Ingeborg Bachmann, whose brilliant writing is characterised by ambiguities, leaving it ever-open to differing interpretations; Christa Wolf, who has produced many key works of East German literature and remained for decades one of the most prominent public intellectuals in Germany; and Elfriede Jelinek, whose unique experiments with language in her novels and plays have earned her acclaim in many quarters and a string of prestigious literary prizes, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004. Placing the writers side by side in this manner is valuable because it sheds light on the question of gender and authorship, that is to say the extent to which the gender of the writer affects what she writes. When we consider these twelve authors, it appears that their position as women does indeed have some effect on the circumstances in which they work and the texts they produce. Particularly in the earlier periods, women had to contend with the expectation that their primary role was that of wife, mother and household manager: we see Kuntsch tied first and foremost to her domestic duties, La Roche begging her father for a boy’s edu- cation, Arnim launching her career only after bringing seven children into the world. (And these women are the lucky ones – note how many in the volume are members of the privileged classes.) Their position as women may affect their choice of genre or form. Kuntsch composes a madrigal for her husband’s birthday (‘its formal simplicity […] attractive to anyone writing under pressure of time’); La Roche opts for the ‘pri- vate’ and suitably feminine epistolary novel, allowing her to uphold the pretence that she has not written for publication; Ebner-Eschenbach turns away from the patriarchal world of the theatre to concentrate on prose fiction. It may have a bearing, too, on their choice of subject matter: quite a number, at least, explore gender roles in their writing. And their position as women may contribute to their understanding of themselves as writers. Some appear to feel some affinity for women writers of the past: we think of Wolf’s interest in Arnim and Günderrode, Jelinek’s in Keun and Bachmann. Certainly, there is a sense in which we can speak of a female literary tradition. However, concentrating only on gender issues does not do justice to these writers and their work. There may be links between them but there are just as many differences. They do not always stick to traditionally ‘feminine’ genres or ‘female’ subjects but tackle a variety of genres and forms and a whole range of ‘universal’ themes. They may have drawn 10 Introduction inspiration from each other but they are inspired too by Richardson, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein; critics may draw parallels between them but compare them at the same time to Grillparzer or Bernhard. Their gender may affect what they write to some extent, but so too, of course, might their class, nationality, political convictions, religion. Ultimately, it would be wrong-headed to pigeon-hole them on account of their gender and suggest that they belong in an alternative, female canon. They deserve to be viewed in a much wider context. We must hope in the end to look beyond the question of gender, and re-read fine writing by women as fine writing and not always as writing by women.
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This volume originated in a series of lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge in Michaelmas Term 2005. I am grateful to all the con- tributors for their hard work and enthusiasm. I would also like to thank Jo Whaley, Peter Hutchinson, David Midgley and Sharon Nevill for their support. Publication was made possible by a generous grant from the Tiarks Fund.
Hilary Brown