Autobiography by Women in German by Mererid Puw Davies , Beth Linklater , Gisela Shaw (review)

Abstract

MLRy 98.1, 2003 255 Autobiography by Womenin German. Ed. by Mererid Puw Davies, Beth Linklater, and Gisela Shaw. Oxford, Bern, and Brussels: Lang. 2000. 310 pp. ?46; ?30. ISBN 3-906766-30-6 (pbk). Autobiography by Womenin German comprises a careful selection of essays addressing ideas about women's autobiography, which, as stated in an editorial note, emerged from a conference of the organization Women in German Studies. As outlined in the introduction by Mererid Puw Davies, particular problems in conceptualizing women's autobiographical writing reside in the fact that it frequently does not fit criteria set by traditional male-defined autobiography, because of women's different social role. This perspective underlies both the theory and practice of subsequent es? says. Michaela Hollenried advocates a comparative methodology, situating women's autobiographical writings within their cultural and historical context and revealing where women's texts contrast with canonical male autobiographies. Organized largely chronologically, subsequent essays cover a range of writing from the fourteenth to the late twentieth centuries. Two essays on writing by nuns in the fourteenthand seventeenth centuries (Ben Morgan, Charlotte Woodford) discuss the demarcation between public and private spheres and the question of whether diaries and log books were intended fora particular readership or fornone, as well as the purpose they fulfilled for the writer herself. Further contributions on pre-classical writ? ing include an examination of the motivation forautobiographical writing by widows (Helga Meise) and the related topic of notions of subjectivity in seventeenth-century writing (Eva Korman). The subsequent chronological gap, with no representation of eighteenth-century writing, seems to testifyprecisely to a problem enunciated in the introduction, the domination of the Enlightenment (male) subject in classical auto? biography. Thereafter a contribution on the nineteenth century discusses the social context of autobiography (ChristinaUjma). A linguistic and pragmatic approach (Angelika Linke) interprets the diary form, a private medium, as an 'Ort der Gegenwelt im Kontext des weitgehend mannlich-fremd bestimmten weiblichen Lebensalltags' (p. 109). The large proportion ofthe volume devoted to twentieth-century writing suggests how the autobiographical category has been extended in this period. Two articles address writing by authors better known forother work: Vicki Baum and Gina Kaus, who faced the problem of being regarded as Trivialautorinnen, wrote autobiography as a means of self-assertion (Andrea Capovilla); while the actress Emmy Hennings's fictionalized autobiography is described as an 'Inszenierung des taglichen Lebens' (p. 166: Christiane Schonfeld). Comparative strategies provide insights into women's accounts of the Second World War, including differing perspectives of women writing about the persecution of the Jews, according to their position as exiles, moralists, or internees (Helmut Peitsch). Two fictionalized autobiographies of the late twentieth century reflecting on the war display a conflict between generations (Carmel Finnan). Birgit Dahlke considers writers' motivation for largely suppressing the topic of rape in 1945 and explicitly discusses differences between women's and men's writing of the time, as well as contrasting East and West German perspectives. GDR issues also emerge in the loss of identity in women's poetry since unification (Karen Leeder). Two articles argue fora writer's oeuvre to be read as autobiography: an account of Ruth Rehmann shows that certain perspectives in her work can productively be read autobiographically (Gisela Shaw). Georgina Paul pushes the boundaries of autobiography to the limit, arguing foran autobiographical reading of Anne Duden's work, on the grounds of the position of the subject. This volume brings together a wide range of women's autobiography in German 256 Reviews and suggests how farboth genre and interpretation have developed beyond the canonical field. University of Salford Juliet Wigmore Interkulturelle Literatur in Deutschland: Ein Handbuch. Ed. by Carmine Chiellino. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler. 2000. X+ 535PP. ?30. ISBN 3-476-01618-8 (hbk). This exceedingly useful volume has five sections. The firstconsists of a historical, a political, and an economic and social survey of the various groups who settled in the Federal Republic in the period 1955-2000. The firstgreat population movements towards the end of the war and in the immediate post-war years are therefore not part of the project, nor is German-Jewish writing included in the literature section. This section traces an...