Women's Collective: Female Authorship in the Novel Leben Und Abenteuer

Annales Academiae Paedagogicae Cracoviensis Folia 49 Studia Romanica III (2008) Aleksandra Bednarowska Women’s collective: female authorship in the novel Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Laura by Irmtraud Morgner In Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf envisioned a time, when women: will have ceased to be the protected sex. Logically they will take part in all the activi- ties and exertions that were once denied them. The nursemaid will heave coal. The shop woman will drive an engine. All assumptions founded on the facts observed when women were the protected sex will have disappeared… Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation1. Three important novels by East German authors, which were published in 1974, offered a critical vision of women’s lives in a land, in which Woolf’s vision became close to the reality. These three boundary crossing novels: Irmtraud Morgner’s Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Laura (the title of the American translation is The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by Her Minstrel Laura), Brigitte Reimann’s Franziska Linkerhand and Gerti Tetzner’s Karen W. questioned the reality of women’s emancipation under socialism. In absence of free political discussion in the media, literature became an important venue for examination of issues of gender. The above mentioned women writers, broke the silence about women’s discrimination in a socialist society, and spoke out about women’s limited presence in the public sphere. They spoke out against the double burden and criticized patriarchal family structure, in which women still carried most of the household duties. Socialism offered women equal rights, but it did not change prevailing attitudes towards women. One has to note that the scope of the discussion was, however, limited to the criticism of people’s mentality. The socialist system was presented, as the only viable option for East Germany and its existence was not questioned. Many critics hailed Morgner’s novel Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Laura as ‘the most important work of GDR 1 Woolf, Virginia, 27–28. 72 Aleksandra Bednarowska literature to deal with women’s emancipation’2. Recent translation into English3 from the year 2000 brought a renewed interest in the novel and new studies of Morgner’s works appeared in English4. Westgate’s book Strategies under Surveillance: Reading Irmtraud Morgner as a GDR writer places Morgner as a political writer whose works were primarily influenced by the ‘socialist ideal and its deformation in the GDR’5. Emde’s study Entering History. Feminist Dialogues in Irmtraud Morgner Prose centers on Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz and views the novel as an example of postmodernist literature. Emde calls Morgner ‘one of the most dar- ing and radical aestheticians of her generations’6 and identifies her ultimate goal as helping women enter history. In this paper I introduce Morgner’s novel Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Laura, which is virtually unknown in Poland and present its innovative structure. Women’s rights and the role of women in society are central concerns throughout the novel. The difficulties women face in the modern world – in the GDR and elsewhere, are presented both through the actual experiences of two protagonists named in the title of the novel: Beatrice and Laura, as well as through other examples. Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Laura was the first volume of a planned trilogy. The second part Amanda was published in 1983. Parts of the unfinished third volume were published posthumously in 1998 under the title Das heroische Testament. ‘Of course this country is a land of miracles’7, reads the first and the last sentence of Morgner’s novel. In a short introduction she explains how she came into posses- sion of ‘five pounds of paper’ i.e. the manuscript describing the life and unlikely 2 See for example: Karen Achberger, R. Karen, Friedrich Achberger, ‘Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatriz as Chronicled by Her Minstrel Laura. Irmtraud Morgner’, in: New German Critique, No. 15 (Autumn, 1978), p. 121–146. 3 Morgner, Irmtraud. The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by her Minstrel Laura. A Novel in Thirteen Books and Seven Intermezzos. Translated by Jeanette Claussen. Lincoln, London: University of Nebrasca Press, 2000. 4 See for example: Entering History. Feminist Dialogues in Irmtraud Morgner Prose. Silke von der Emde. Bern: Peter Lang Verlag, 2004. Strategies under Surveillance: Reading Irmtraud Morgner as a GDR writer. Geoffrey Westgate. Amsterdam: Rodopi 2002. 5 Westgate, Geoffrey, 8. 6 Emde, Silke von der, 11. 7 Natürlich ist das Land ein Ort des Wunderbaren. All quotations from the novel in English come from the following edition: Morgner, Irmtraud. The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by her Minstrel Laura. A Novel in Thirteen Books and Seven Intermezzos. Translated by Jeanette Claussen. Lincoln, London: University of Nebrasca Press, 2000. The original version in German comes from the edition: Morgner, Irmtraud. Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatritz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Laura. Roman in dreizehn Büchern und sieben Intermezzos. Hamburg, Zuurich: Luchterhand, 1977. The German version is followed by page number from the Luchterhand edition. Women’s collective: female authorship in the novel Leben und Abenteuer... 73 adventures of Trobadora Beatrice de Dia, a woman troubadour, i.e. a trobairitz8, of twelfth-century Provence, who unhappy with the misogyny of the Middle Ages and unappreciated as a woman and artist in her time, seeks to escape the ‘medieval world of men’ and makes a pact with Persephone to sleep for eight hundred ten years. The basis for the figure of Beatrice is a historical figure of Comtessa de Dia, who lived in Provence in a late 12th century and was one of the most prolific of the trobairitz. Her works, of which only one survived, reflected traditional modes of courtly love from a woman’s perspective. In her songs she claimed to long to be in the arms of her love, the troubadour Raimbau d’Aurenga rather than those of her husband. Morgner appropriates the historical figure of de Dia, transporting her from the 12th to the 20th century. While Beatrice had been asleep for 810 years, Persephone and her mother Demeter, and the Beautiful Melusine had been working on rein- stating ancient matriarchal conditions. Beatrice chooses a third way, ‘which was to be neither patriarchal nor matriarchal but human’. The search for such equality is a driving force behind almost all of her actions. Beatrice’s adventures in modern times cover a five-year span – from May 6th 19689 to March 197310. In May 1968 Beatrice wakes up because highway construc- tion workers are about to demolish her castle. On her way to Paris she is raped and realizes that the misogyny she was trying to escape, still exists. In Paris she meets a GDR journalist Uwe Parnitzke who invites her to visit East Germany – ‘a land of miracles’ where women are truly free and emancipated. In the GDR employment prospects for female troubadours are not good, but she obtains work first as a circus performer, then as an operator of a poetry generator and finally as a writer. In Berlin Beatrice meets Laura Salman, a single mother, and an academic turned a trolley-car driver. Beatrice convinces her to become her minstrel. Aided by the magic of her sis- ter-in-law the Beautiful Melusine, who is half-human and half-dragon, Beatrice travels around the world hunting a unicorn, before returning to help Laura raise her baby son. During Beatrice’s travels, Laura writes stories for her and performs as minstrel in various factories around Berlin. Towards the end of the novel Beatrice fells out of a window and dies on March 12th 1968. The novel ends with The gospel of Valeska, 8 Trobairitz were Provençal female troubadours of the 12th century and the 13th century who wrote in Langue d’oc. The word trobairitz was first used in the 13th century romance Flamenca. It comes from the Provençal word trobar. Trobairitz wrote verses, and performed for the Occitan noble courts. They are exceptional in musical history as the first known female composers of Western secular music; all earlier known female composers wrote sacred music. The trobairitz were part of courtly society. The most important trobairitz are Alamanda Castelnau, Azalais de Porcairagues, Maria de Ventadorn, Tibors, Castelloza, Garsenda de Proença and the Comtessa de Dia. 9 French legislative election took place on June 23 and 30, 1968 to elect the 4th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic. ‘On May 6th 1968 30,000 demonstrators gathered in Paris and other cities to protest against the security police. They demanded that the police should be withdrawn from the Latin Quarter, the Sorbonne reopened and the arrested students released’. See: Tariq Ali and Susan Watkins. 1968. Marching in the Streets. 10 French legislative election took place on March 4 and 11, 1973 to elect the 5th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic. 74 Aleksandra Bednarowska which Laura reads as a revelation on the Trobadora’s burial day. The author of the gospel, Valeska Kantus was an East German woman scientist who undergoes a sex transformation and becomes a man. Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Laura has been seen as a feminist novel: it is about women and their relationships with one another, with men, with their children and parents, and with the state, society, housework, and history. It can also be viewed as a reflexive novel, about writing, the relationship between writers (and different aspects of each individual writer), socialist aesthetics, and the creative process.

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