Constructing the Subject? Emmy Ball-Hennings’s Autobiographical Texts

Abstract

Between 1935 and 1948, the poet, actress and performance artist Emmy Hennings (1885–1948) wrote three autobiographical texts, namely Blume unci Flamme (Flower and Flame), Das flüchtige Spiel: Wege nnd Umwege einer Frau (The Fleeting Game: A Woman’s Ways and Deviations) and Ruf und Echo (Outcry and Echo).1 In this chapter, I shall attempt to trace Hennings’s life and explore the tension between reality and fiction in her autobiographies by comparing her autobiographical self with the multifaceted, contradictory personality that presents itself in her letters and diary entries and those of her contemporaries. Of course, tension is to be expected, since autobiographical selves are always constructions; however, a marked teleological tendency in Hennings’s autobiographical texts at once veils and unveils a marked difference.KeywordsPresent FormPerformance ArtistAutobiographical NarrativeGolden HairAutobiographical WritingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.