Hermann's Handmaidens? Male Archetypes and German Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Women's Writing

Abstract

Despite their lack of franchise, women participated actively in the discourse of unity in the emerging German nation with their pens—one of the few means of accessing the public arena open to them. This article examines how Johanna Franul von Weiβenthurn, Louise von François and Clara Viebig, writing in 1813, 1859 and 1913, respectively, invoked in their texts the figure of Hermann, the first-century warrior who led the Cheruscans against the occupying Roman force. It posits, firstly, that Hermann is an archetypal figure who served in successive eras of the long nineteenth century as a repository of collective hopes for unity and national strength in times of danger and uncertainty, and, secondly, that the literary transformations of this archetype—from historical figure to more contemporary re-imaginings in the form of a patriotic German student fighting against Napoleon and a Berlin blacksmith of the pre-unification era—reveal a variety of female concerns, which can be interpreted as gender-determined manifestations of the male archetype and which serve to nuance the conventional image of masculine heroism.