Loving in Queer Time: Rahel Varnhagen's Life and Letters

Abstract

Abstract: In this essay I argue that the salonnière Rahel Levin Varnhagen's extended singlehood and Jewishness made her a queer figure in early nineteenth century Berlin. While her non-normativity was initially compelling to Berlin's social elite, the Napoleonic Wars engendered antisemitic, patriotic impulses among her friends that left Varnhagen isolated from her social circle. However, out of this alienation came the opportunity to forge intimate friendships with other women who were also rejected or stigmatized by Berlin's elite. Varnhagen's correspondence with Rebecca Friedländer and Pauline Wiesel reveals how loneliness opened a space for queer expression that destabilized contemporary notions of sexual normativity. In analyzing Rahel as a queer figure and exploring the tensions that arose from this status, I examine the intersectional boundaries of belonging that emerged within early-nineteenth-century Prussia's shifting sociopolitical landscape.