“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. These authors’ letters have been described as “life as the process of writing” and represent a high degree romanticization – the reflection of the reflection – where thoughts, questions, and experiences are poured directly, in a seemingly chaotic way, onto paper. The approach of the “life as the process of writing” removes the split between art and literature and enables the authors to answer the Romantic call according to the maxim that “the world must become romanticized” by being potentialized. ii Although Levin Varnhagen, Brentano von Arnim, and Günderrode address multiple topics, it is love (agape, philia, eros) that is at the center of their creative work. Brentano von Arnim connects the process of creative writing to the act of speaking rooted in a divine model of communication where “love is only gods’ conversation” and “question and sweet answer.” One cannot separate oneself from love – as it encompasses all aspects of our lives – just as one cannot separate oneself from dialogue because such separation would create dialogue interruptions and ultimately crises. The writers I discuss are undeniably all women but all different from one another, and their differences help us see that any essentializing argument about them would be unproductive. I read their letters not relegating them to a private realm as “being too focused on love,” but rather positioning them within Romantic literary movement as they strive to live Romantic philosophy through letters. The relationship of the women authors to salon conversation is reflected and practiced through the genre of the letter on the level of art. The Romantic letter thus should have an established place in Romantic aesthetic theory. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This extensive project would not have been possible without the support of many people. My heartfelt gratitude goes primarily to my adviser Laurie Johnson, who read my numerous revisions and helped me concentrate on the light at the end of the tunnel as well as spoiled me with savory lunches on regular basis. I wish to thank my committee members, Stephanie Hilger, Carl Niekerk, and Yasemin Yildiz, who offered guidance and read all these stacks of pages. I profited enormously from the University of Illinois Graduate College awards: a Dissertation Travel Grant that allowed me to do an extensive research on Rahel Levin Varnhagen archives at the Varnhagen Collection at the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, Poland, and a Dissertation Completion Fellowship that provided me with the financial means to complete this project. For making my research Poland possible, I would like to thank the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures for Ernst Alfred Philippson Graduate Research Travel Award. I give special thanks to Steven Kruh who lent me his eyes during the process of editing. I also would like to acknowledge my mom, Maria Bełda, for her unfailing enthusiasm and assistance. And finally, a very big thank you to my children, John-Paul, Dominique, Marie-Rose, Joseph, Patrizia, and numerous friends who endured this long process with me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .........................................................................................................................................vi CHAPTER 1: LETTERS OF ROMANTIC WOMEN WRITERS AS CONTRIBUTIONS TO A NEW CONVERSATION .............................................................................................................1 1.1 Dialogue in the Romantic Letter .................................................................................................6 1.2 Romantic Letters as Enactments of Symphilosophy ..................................................................18 1.3 Romantic Letters and Their Connections to Salons ....................................................................26 1.4 “Love” in the Letters as Both Topic and Narratological System ................................................36 1.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................41 CHAPTER 2: RAHEL LEVIN VARNHAGEN’S UNDERSTANDING OF LOVE, REALIZED THROUGH DIALOGUE .................................................................................................................44 2.1 Rahel Levin Varnhagen’s Life and Letters in Private and Public Spaces ..................................47 2.2 Exchanges with Friedrich von Genz ...........................................................................................66 2.3 Exchanges with Caroline von Humboldt and Karl August Varnhagen ......................................79 2.4 Exchanges with Clemens Brentano ............................................................................................94 2.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................110 CHAPTER 3: BETTINA BRENTANO VON ARNIM AND THE DIALOGUE ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE AS FUSION OF THE SENSUAL AND SPIRITUAL FORCES .......113 3.1 The Influence of Sociability on Bettina Brentano von Arnim’s Life and Work ........................122 3.2 Romantic Philosophy as Reflected in Dialogicity in Die Günderode ........................................133 3.3 Social Integration Manifested as Strategies of Resistance and Dialogue Interruptions in Die Günderode .........................................................................................................................................141 3.4 Dialogues with Clemens Brentano in Die Günderode ................................................................159 3.5 “Love” as a Unifying Concept in Die Günderode ......................................................................165 3.6 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................173 CHAPTER 4: LOVE AS PASSION IN THE LETTERS AND SELECTED WORKS OF KAROLINE VON GÜNDERRODE ................................................................................................176 4.1 Strategies of Dialogue in Günderrode’s Private Letters .............................................................180 4.2 Friendship as Sociability and Symphilosophy in Günderrode’s Letters .....................................186 4.3 Intellectual Love as a Foundation of Life, Art, and Death in Günderrode’s Letters ..................196 4.4 Letters with Friedrich Carl von Savigny .....................................................................................202 4.5 Letters with Georg Friedrich Creuzer .........................................................................................208 4.6 Letters with Clemens Brentano ...................................................................................................221 4.7 Dialogue Crisis Through the Exclusion of Günderrode .............................................................225 4.8 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................228 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .........................................................................................................230 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................................239 v PREFACE On May 28, 1811, Rahel Levin Varnhagen, drawing upon her experience as the leading Berlin salonnière, writes to Alexander von Marwitz: “Dann ist und bleibt eine Korrespondenz lebendig.”1 She refers to the manner in which they both need to communicate so as to replicate face-to-face conversation in their letters as closely as possible. Levin Varnhagen reflects here on how letters have the capacity to capture both the immediacy