Romantic Dialogue in the Letters and Works of Rahel Levin Varnhagen, Bettina Brentano Von Arnim, and Karoline Von Günderrode
“DANN IST UND BLEIBT EINE KORRESPONDENZ LEBENDIG”: ROMANTIC DIALOGUE IN THE LETTERS AND WORKS OF RAHEL LEVIN VARNHAGEN, BETTINA BRENTANO VON ARNIM, AND KAROLINE VON GÜNDERRODE BY RENATA FUCHS 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, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Laurie Johnson, Chair Associate Professor Stephanie Hilger Professor Carl Niekerk Associate Professor Yasemin Yildiz ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I analyze letters and other writing by three women writers during the Romantic period: Rahel Levin Varnhagen, Bettina Brentano von Arnim, and Karoline von Günderrode. I investigate interpersonal communication in the traditional form of the dialogue as it developed between these women authors and their peers. These epistolary projects reflect a different approach of each woman writer to their letters: Levin Varnhagen’s letters were destined to be published from the beginning; Bettina Brentano von Arnim’s letters were used as a material for her fictional epistolary novel; Günderrode’s letters were meant to remain private. Scholarship has often focused on attempts to justify women writers for their choice of the letter genre while I claim that the authors discussed here actively preferred the form of a letter. I argue that due to the form and content of these letters, a new model of interpersonal communication emerges, which borrows creatively from the Romantic concepts of sociability (including salon conversation) and symphilosophy. The letter exchanges analyzed here are in fact collaborative projects that adhere to the ideals of Early Romantic philosophy.
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