Women and Literature in the Goethe Era 1770-1820: Determined Dilettantes

ISBN-13: 9780199210923 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 272 str.

Helen Fronius

Opis

The Goethe era of German literature was dominated by men. Women were discouraged from reading and scorned as writers; Schiller saw female writers as typical 'dilettantes'. But the attempt to exclude did not always succeed, and the growing literary market rewarded some women's determination. This study combines archival research, literary analysis, and statistical evidence to give a sociological-historical overview of the conditions of women's literary production. Highlighting many authors who have fallen into obscurity, this study tells the story of women who managed to write and publish at a time when their efforts were not welcomed. Although eighteenth-century gender ideology is an important pre-condition for women's literary production, it does not necessarily determine the praxis of their actual experiences, as this study makes clear. Using a range of examples from a variety of sources, the real story of women who read, wrote, and published in the shadow of Goethe emerges.

Recenzje

The study has a number of particular strengths...Perhaps the greatest achievement, though is to have written an English-language book on this topic that will both satisfy scholars of differing persuasions through its well-considered intellectual contributions and induct curious students at undergraduate and posgraduate levels into this fascinating feild.

O autorze

Helen Fronius studied at St Hilda's College, Oxford, for an undergraduate degree in History and germna. Her postgraduate studies began with an MSt in Women's Studies at Oxford, which was followed by a DPhil on women writers in the Goethe era (on which this book is based). She has been working as a college lecturer in German in Oxford, and is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher on an AHRC-funded project. Her current research is an interdisciplinary study of infanticide in the late eighteenth century.