CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Scholarship; Research; and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College German Faculty Research and Scholarship German 2009 Shedding, Witchcraft, and the Romantic Subject: Feminist Appropriation of the Witch in Sarah Kirsch’s Zaubersprüche Qinna Shen Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.brynmawr.edu/german_pubs Part of the German Language and Literature Commons This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. https://repository.brynmawr.edu/german_pubs/31 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Shen, Qinna. 2009. “Shedding, Witchcraft, and the Romantic Subject: Feminist Appropriation of the Witch in Sarah Kirsch’s.” Neophilologus 93.4: 675-689. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-008-9121-0 Shedding, Witchcraft, and the Romantic Subject: Feminist Appropriation of the Witch in Sarah Kirsch’s Zaubersprüche (1973) Abstract: Against a background of the feminist appropriation of the witch taking place concurrently in second-wave American, French and West German feminism, the paper examines Sarah Kirsch’s appropriation of the witch as a subversive figure in her poetry cycle Zaubersprüche (Conjurations, 1973). In subverting the traditional image of the witch, Kirsch establishes a new one: that of a feminist witch and a feminist witch-writer. The witch is both the fictive character created by Kirsch, and her own self-designation; in the latter case, writing, especially writing in the experimental fashion, is a form of witchcraft.