Femininity and Dress in fic- Tion by German Women Writers, 1840-1910
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Scripts, skirts, and stays: femininity and dress in fic- tion by German women writers, 1840-1910 https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40147/ Version: Full Version Citation: Nevin, Elodie (2015) Scripts, skirts, and stays: femininity and dress in fiction by German women writers, 1840-1910. [Thesis] (Unpub- lished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Scripts, Skirts, and Stays: Femininity and Dress in Fiction by German Women Writers, 1840-1910 Elodie Nevin Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in German 2015 Department of European Cultures and Languages Birkbeck, University of London Declaration for PhD thesis I have read and understood the regulations for students of Birkbeck, University of London concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: Date: 12/08/2015 2 Abstract This thesis examines the importance of sartorial detail in fiction by German women writers of the nineteenth century. Using a methodology based on Judith Butler’s gender theory, it examines how femininity is perceived and presented and argues that clothes are essential to female characterisation and both the perpetuation and breakdown of gender stereotypes. Based on extensive research into the history of dress including historical studies, fashion journals and conduct books, the thesis indicates how clothes were scripted for bourgeois women in nineteenth-century Germany. Women were expected both to observe the expensive dictates of fashion and to prove themselves morally superior. Arranged chronologically, this thesis analyses how this paradox is approached by female authors. It concludes that the revolutionary spirit of the 1840s was evident in the ways in which Louise Aston (1814-1871) and Fanny Lewald (1811-1889) portrayed dress, although both rely on sartorial traditions. ‘Natural’ beauty is at the centre of their characterisation, but the ‘natural’ is shown, not necessarily consciously on the part of the authors, to be an achievement. This is also true in the didactic works of Eugenie Marlitt (1825-1887) who surrounds her ‘natural’ protagonists with women who mis-perform their gender by dressing ostentatiously. Progressive writers at the end of the century are more direct in their treatment of the dress paradox. Such authors as Hedwig Dohm (1831-1919) and Frieda von Bülow (1857-1909), create heroines who feel vulnerable and awkward because of the pressure to be sexually attractive. This thesis concludes that dress is used in different ways to show how the dictates of fashion correspond to the dictates of patriarchal society; how sartorial details literally and metaphorically shape women; and how female writers accentuated the way dress functions as a means of oppression or attempted to overlook dress as a way of emphasising other feminine attributes. 3 Acknowledgements I could not have written this thesis without the tireless support and guidance of my supervisor, Dr Anna Richards. Her patience and comments over the course of almost ten years helped me not only to write my dissertation but to complete it. I would like to thank not only the British Library, the Senate House Library and the Staatsbiblothek zu Berlin, all of which I enjoyed visiting on a regular basis, but also the growing wealth of libraries online, including in particular The Sophie Project, A Digital Library of Works by German-speaking Women, and Ngiyaw eBooks. The feedback from my examiners, Dr Caroline Bland and Dr Charlotte Woodford, was also both useful and heartening, and I am hugely grateful for the time they put into reading and commenting on my work. I owe a lot, too, to my family, who encouraged me in just the right way at every stage of the process. My academic parents, Dr Caroline Zilboorg and Dr Thomas Nevin, were careful readers on numerous occasions and my brothers and sister contributed with moral support and, in the case of my eldest brother, Dr Austin Nevin, continual sympathy and, finally, tricky formatting. I could not have conceived my thesis without the help of my husband, Daniel, whose rigorous attitude towards structure and perceptive approach to what was to him quite foreign material – despite his own German roots – encouraged me to focus on dress in the first place. I am also deeply indebted to him for his understanding of what he referred to as my ‘hobby’. 4 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. 4 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 7 Methodological Framework ......................................................................................... 9 Judith Butler’s gender theory and its applications ....................................................... 9 Fashion Theory ............................................................................................................ 17 Femininity and clothes in nineteenth-century Germany .............................................. 22 Thesis Outline .............................................................................................................. 29 Chapter One - The History of Women’s Dress in Nineteenth-Century Germany .... 31 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 32 Secondary Literature .................................................................................................... 37 Empiremode: the early nineteenth century .................................................................. 39 Biedermeiermode: 1830-1840...................................................................................... 42 Vormärzmode: 1840-1850 ........................................................................................... 44 ‘Zweites Rokoko’: 1850-1860 ..................................................................................... 46 1860-1870 .................................................................................................................... 49 Die Gründerzeit: 1870-1880 ........................................................................................ 50 1880-1890 .................................................................................................................... 52 The ‘Belle Epoque’: 1890-1914 ................................................................................... 56 Dress Reform ............................................................................................................... 65 Aesthetics and Dress Reform ....................................................................................... 66 Medical Arguments for Dress Reform ......................................................................... 69 Dress Reform in Fashion Journals ............................................................................... 72 Criticism of Dress Reform ........................................................................................... 74 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 77 Chapter Two - Fanny Lewald and Louise Aston: Clothes as protest or diversion in novels of the 1840s .......................................................... 79 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 79 Fanny Lewald (1811-1889) .......................................................................................... 86 Secondary Literature ................................................................................................ 89 Diogena (1847) ........................................................................................................ 90 Clementine (1843) ................................................................................................... 91 Jenny (1843) ............................................................................................................ 96 Eine Lebensfrage (1845) .......................................................................................... 100 Louise Aston (1814-1871) ........................................................................................... 110 5 Secondary Literature ................................................................................................ 111 Aus dem Leben einer Frau (1847) ........................................................................... 112 Lydia (1847) ............................................................................................................. 120 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 129 Chapter Three - Eugenie Marlitt: Bourgeois Morality and Dress