Exploring Representations of Early Modern German Women Book Collectors (1650-1780)
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CURATING THE COLLECTOR: EXPLORING REPRESENTATIONS OF EARLY MODERN GERMAN WOMEN BOOK COLLECTORS (1650-1780) BY KATHLEEN MARIE SMITH DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in German in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Mara R. Wade, Chair Associate Professor Laurie Johnson Associate Professor Stephanie Hilger Professor Carl Niekerk Professor Tom D. Kilton, Emeritus ABSTRACT This dissertation examines representations of book collecting by German women in the early modern period in order to explore the role of gender in this activity. Portrayals of book collectors in the modern and early modern eras offer examples of how this identity is constructed, particularly in the underlying assumptions and expectations that determine who is defined as a book collector and what criteria are used to shape that decision. In the case of four early modern women--Elisabeth Sophie Marie of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1683-1767); Elisabeth Ernestine Antonie of Sachsen-Meiningen (1681-1766); Caroline of Ansbach (1683- 1737); and Wilhelmine of Bayreuth (1709-1758)--the act of collecting is depicted as essential to their social status and an integral part of their lives. Finally, in an in-depth case study of an early modern German woman who was a book collector, Sophie of Hanover (1630-1714), this study analyzes how she represented her collecting activities and textual interaction as well as how she is represented in other texts. The way in which these early modern German women were represented and represented themselves as collectors reveals a great deal about the position of women within wider networks concerning the exchange of texts and information. The study of collecting, particularly the gendered ways in which this act is interpreted, is important for an understanding of the literary context in the early modern period, particularly the contribution of women to learning and discourses of knowledge during this time. This study seeks to understand the meaning of the act of collecting, the ways in which this act was framed, and the representation of that act by the collector, and, in doing so, to redefine the position of women in textual transmission in the early modern German context. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank the Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am very grateful for the opportunities I have received, such as the Max Kade Fellowship and the Dissertation Completion Fellowship. My research stay at the Herzog August Library (HAB) in Wolfenbüttel, where I spent three months as a Dr.-Günter-Findel Stipendiatin, was an extremely productive experience, for which I thank Dr. Jill Bepler, Frau Strauss, Herr and Frau Kopp, Herr Hogrefe, Dr. Thomas Stäcker, and all of the staff at the HAB for their valuable assistance and support. I am indebted to my fellow Stipendiaten for their intellectual engagement (and extracurricular activities). The American Friends of the HAB and the Women in German (WiG) Zantop Graduate Travel Award generously assisted with travel expenses. It would be impossible to sufficiently express my gratitude to everyone who contributed advice, support, and feedback; in particular I would like to thank Prof. Cornelia Moore, Dr. Alvan Bregman, Dr. Gabriele Ball, Gabriele Canstein, and Dr. Margherita Palumbo. Thank you to the members of my committee for their support and willingness to engage in my topic. Most of all, I am grateful to my advisor Professor Mara Wade, who was instrumental in my decision first to come to Illinois and then to continue on for the doctoral degree and who has been a constant source of encouragement, motivation, and feedback. This dissertation is a testimony to her mentorship and guidance. Finally, I would like to thank my family: my grandparents Art and Myra Wall, my sister Patti Smith, my brother-in-law Dana Schwartz, my brother Larry Smith, and my parents Jeff and Mary Smith. Without their support, none of this would have been possible. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: MOVING BACKWARDS, MOVING FORWARDS .....................................1 CHAPTER ONE: DEFINING THE COLLECTOR ......................................................................29 1.1 Theories of Collecting.....................................................................................................32 1.2 Book Collecting as a Separate and Unique Activity .......................................................40 1.3 Constructing the Book Collector ....................................................................................45 1.4 Definitions.......................................................................................................................47 1.5 Models of the Book Collector .........................................................................................67 CHAPTER TWO: FOLLOWING THE EVIDENCE: TWO EARLY MODERN GERMAN WOMEN AND THEIR COLLECTIONS .....................................................................................86 2.1 The Context of the Period: Early Modern Women and the Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation of Texts ......................................................................88 2.2 Elisabeth Sophie Marie of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1683-1767) ...............................106 2.3 Elisabeth Ernestine Antonie of Sachsen-Meiningen (1681-1766) ................................121 CHAPTER THREE: IN HER OWN WORDS: REPRESENTATIONS OF TEXTUAL INTERACTION ...........................................................................................................................138 3.1 Caroline of Ansbach (1683-1737) ................................................................................140 3.2 Wilhelmine of Bayreuth (1709-1758) ...........................................................................149 CHAPTER FOUR: SOPHIE OF HANOVER (1630-1714), CASE STUDY OF AN EARLY MODERN BOOK COLLECTOR ...............................................................................................170 4.1 The Depiction of Gender ..............................................................................................188 4.2 Depictions of Collectors and Collections .....................................................................192 4.3 The Creation and Origin of Texts .................................................................................198 4.4 Acquisition and Exchange ............................................................................................203 4.5 The Use and Misuse of Texts ........................................................................................210 4.6 Preservation, Conservation, and Destruction of Texts ..................................................216 CONCLUSION: ANALYZING THE COLLECTOR AND THE COLLECTION ....................222 FIGURES .....................................................................................................................................230 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................243 iv INTRODUCTION: MOVING BACKWARDS, MOVING FORWARDS Many modern writers and book owners, such as Walter Benjamin,1 Jorge Luis Borges,2 and Umberto Eco,3 have written about their own interactions with and perceptions of the books that they own. For example, the writer Alberto Manguel, in his book The Library at Night, gives as his chapter titles the 15 different ways in which he perceives his book collection: the library as “myth, order, as space, as power, as shadow, as shape, as chance, as workshop, as mind, as island, as survival, as oblivion, as imagination, as identity, as home.” In contrast, works by women writing about their interactions with libraries and books frequently construct these perceptions in very different ways. Awareness of the importance of access to textual collections, and the question of female representation in a literary context, is a common theme. Textual collections are often emotionally-charged locations of uncertainty about appropriate or acceptable activity for women. In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf pairs many of her reflections about the inequality of women with their absence from the bookshelves. Her access to, or physical exclusion from, the world of books serves to emphasize her discussion about women and writing. Libraries and bookshelves often serve as the site and the symbol of women’s exclusion from literary acknowledgement in this work. After she was refused entry to the university library at Cambridge, Woolf describes her reaction in a way that personifies the library itself: “That a famous library has been cursed by a woman is a matter of complete 1 Benjamin’s most well-known essay on the subject of collecting is “Ich packe meine Bibliothek aus” (Benjamin). 2 The emotional resonance of books and libraries is a constant theme in Borges’ works; see, for example, the short story “The Library of Babel” (1941) and the essay “The Wall and the Books” (1950) in his collection Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings; and the poem “Poem of the Gifts” (1960) in Dreamtigers, in which Borges writes that “I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of library.” 3 In his novels The Name of the Rose (1980) and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005), Eco deals with collections of texts and how they affect those who interact with these