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5. Lessing and Misogyny: Die Matrone Von Ephesus1

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5. Lessing and Misogyny: Die Matrone Von Ephesus1 On the Literature and Thought of the N German Classical Era: Collected Essays ISBET HUGH BARR NISBET On the Literature and Thought of German Classical Era This volume provides a valuable contributi on to our knowledge of eighteenth- and nine- teenth-century intellectual life inside and outside Germany. Prof. Karl S. Guthke, Harvard University This elegant collec� on of essays ranges across eighteenth and nineteenth-century thought, covering philosophy, science, literature and religion in the ‘Age of Goethe.’ A recognised authority in the fi eld, Nisbet grapples with the major voices of the Enlightenment and gives pride of place to the fi gures of Lessing, Herder, Goethe and Schiller. The book ranges widely in its compass of thought and intellectual discourse, dealing incisively with themes including the philosophical implica� ons of literature and the rela� onship between religion, science and poli� cs. The result is an accomplished refl ec� on On the Literature and Thought on German thought, but also on its rebirth, as Nisbet argues for the relevance of these Enlightenment thinkers for the readers of today. of the German Classical Era The fi rst half of this collec� on focuses predominantly on eighteenth-century thought, where names like Lessing, Goethe and Herder, but also Locke and Voltaire, feature. The second has a wider chronological scope, discussing authors such as Winckelmann and Schiller, Collected Essays while branching out from discussions of religion, philosophy and literature to explore the sciences. Issues of biology, early environmentalism, and natural history also form part of this volume. The collec� on concludes with an examina� on of changing a� tudes towards HUGH BARR NISBET art in the a� ermath of the ‘Age of Goethe.’ The essays in this volume are brought together in this collec� on to present Nisbet’s widely- acclaimed perspec� ves on this fascina� ng period of German thought. It will be of interest to scholars and students of the intellectual life of Europe during the Enlightenment, while its engaging and lucid style will also appeal to the general reader. This is the author-approved edi� on of this Open Access � tle. As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.com Cover image: Photo by Nathaniel Shuman on Unsplash at htt ps://unsplash.com/photos/vZvNSeXzmwY Cover design: Anna Gatti book ebooke and OA edi� ons also available OBP www.openbookpublishers.com https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2021 Hugh Barr Nisbet This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Hugh Barr Nisbet, On the Literature and Thought of the German Classical Era: Collected Essays. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0180 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0180#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at, https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0180#resources Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 9781783747696 ISBN Hardback: 9781783747702 ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781783747719 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781783747726 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781783747733 ISBN XML: 9781783747740 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0180 Cover image: Photo by Nathaniel Shuman on Unsplash at https://unsplash.com/photos/ vZvNSeXzmwY Cover design: Anna Gatti 5. Lessing and Misogyny: Die Matrone von Ephesus1 The story of the widow of Ephesus is recorded in innumerable versions, from Europe to China and from antiquity to the present day.2 But the most familiar version, at least in European literature, is that in the Satyricon of Petronius.3 A young widow, renowned for her fidelity, vows to starve herself to death in her husband’s tomb. One night, a soldier on guard nearby over the corpses of some crucified thieves notices a light in the tomb and discovers the widow, with her maidservant in attendance. Encouraged by the maidservant, he prevails upon the widow first to share his meal, and subsequently to respond to his amorous advances. Meanwhile, a relative of one of the crucified thieves removes the unattended corpse and takes it away for burial. The soldier, on discovering the loss, resolves to commit suicide rather than face execution for neglecting his duty. But the widow proves equal to the emergency: reluctant to lose her lover, she offers her husband’s body as a substitute for the one stolen from the cross. My aim in this essay is to examine Lessing’s unfinished comedy on this subject, Die Matrone von Ephesus, and in particular to explain why he abandoned it when it was almost completed. This question has been 1 An earlier version of this chapter was originally published as ‘Lessing and Misogyny. “Die Matrone von Ephesus”’, in Texte, Motive und Gestalten. Festschrift für Hans Reiss, ed. John L. Hibberd and H. B. Nisbet (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1989), pp. 13–31. 2 See Peter Ure, ‘The Widow of Ephesus. Some Reflections on an International Comic Theme’, Durham University Journal, 49 (1956–57), 1–9; M. Dacier, ‘Examen de l’Histoire de la Matrone d’Ëphèse’, Mémoires de littérature, tirés des Registres de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions, 41 (1780), 523–45; and Eduard Grisebach, Die Wanderung der Novelle von der treulosen Witwe durch die Weltliteratur, 2., vermehrte Ausgabe (Berlin: Lehmann, 1889). 3 Petronius, Gaius, Satyricon, and Seneca, L. Annaeus, Apocalocyntosis, Loeb Classical Library, rev. edn (London: Heinemann, 1956), pp. 228–35. © 2021 Hugh Barr Nisbet, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0180.05 110 On the Literature and Thought of the German Classical Era discussed before, but none of the explanations so far advanced strikes me as satisfactory. Before I turn to the fragment itself, however, I should like to say something about the misogynistic associations of the story and Lessing’s attitude to them, for this will have a bearing on my later attempt to explain why the play remained a fragment. The attitude of misogyny is closely associated with the story of the widow, but its scope and expression vary considerably from one version to another. Over the centuries, these versions move along a scale between two extreme positions: between misogynistic condemnation of female infidelity on the one hand, and good-humouredtolerance, or even approval, of the widow’s change of heart on the other. Lessing described Petronius’s story as ‘undoubtedly the most bitter satire ever written on female frivolity’,4 and it certainly does imply a cynical and negative judgement on womanhood (which is hardly surprising in the context of a work in which most of the male characters are paederasts). Nevertheless, Petronius’s version is a long way from the extreme of misogyny. This extreme is reached in the versions of monkish compilers in the Middle Ages, some of whom conclude with diatribes on female depravity, and even aggravate the widow’s offence by having her mutilate her husband’s body to make it more closely resemble the corpse of the crucified thief.5 But in modern times, the movement is all in the opposite direction. In La Fontaine’s influential verse-tale La Matrone d’Éphèse of 1682, the humorous element is predominant,6 as it is in almost all versions written in the eighteenth century, when the story achieved its greatest popularity.7 Most writers are, of course, aware of the misogynistic potential of the tale; but they generally qualify it or tone it down considerably,8 even to the extent of making the main figure a man instead of a woman. In short, a more tolerant attitude than ever 4 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Sämtliche Schriften, ed. by Karl Lachmann and Franz Muncker, 23 vols (Stuttgart, Leipzig and Berlin: Göschen, 1886–1924), IX, 333; for the text of Lessing’s (incomplete) dramatic version, see ibid., III, 439–66. Subsequent references to this edition are identified by the abbreviation LM. 5 See, for example, Ure, p. 2 and Elisabeth Frenzel, Stoffe der Weltliteratur (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1962), pp. 666–69. 6 Jean de La Fontaine, Contes et Nouvelles en vers, ed. by Georges Couton (Paris: Garnier, 1961), pp. 341–45. 7 See Roseann Runte, ‘The Matron of Ephesus in Eighteenth-Century France. The Lady and the Legend’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 6 (1977), 361–75. 8 See Michael M. Metzger, Lessing and the Language of Comedy (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), pp. 164ff. 5. Lessing and Misogyny: Die Matrone von Ephesus 111 before is taken towards the widow’s lapse. In so far as her return to life is prompted by natural feelings—and in the age of sensibility, the voice of the heart has great moral authority—it merits approval rather than condemnation.9 Nevertheless, her abrupt conversion from obsession with the dead to passion for the living becomes a frequent object of satire prose and verse narrative, fable, comedy, farce, and even opera.
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