Luise Büchner: A Nineteenth-Century Evolutionary Feminist. (Women in German, 9) by Cordelia Scharpf

Abstract

MLR, 105.4, 2010 1181 killing as an erhabene Wende' (p. 201). While Greiner's reading operates at a high level of abstraction and assumes a systematic understanding of idealist philosophy on Kleist's part, it is a suggestive and powerful contribution to the understanding of the play, not least because ithelps to explain certain obscure turns of phrase. A number of other essays view the play in the context of discourses of gender, sexuality, and politics. In her contribution, Katrin Pahl criticizes the assumption that Achilles and Penthesilea embody normative ideas of gender and sexual orientation, and argues that Penthesileas 'homosexuellets] Begehren furOtrere' (p. 173) drives her relations with Achilles. While the play undoubtedly offers scope forqueer approaches, Pahl's argument relies on some rather forced readings of the work, while also underplaying the cosmic proportions of Penthesilea's ambition. Christian Moser considers the motif of cannibalism in Penthesilea in the context of eighteenth-century models of political organization, inwhich cannibalism connotes a transitional stage in the civilizing process, which cannot definitively be overcome. While Moser's argument?that the play questions the teleological belief of the Enlightenment in human progress?is not new, his essay makes a genuine contribution by demonstrating how the play is embedded in awider network of eighteenth-century politico-cultural discourses surrounding cannibalism, barbarism, and civilization. Gerard Raulet also reads the play as a reflection on political legitimacy, pointing out, inmy view correctly, that this question is considerably complicated by the fact that the play does not pit desire against duty, but rather dramatizes the inability to choose between desire and duty in the person of theAmazon queen. While the essays are of a generally excellent quality, it is regrettable that there is such limited dialogue between them. Given that they all examine a common theme, within a volume whose avowed intention is to overcome a supposed lack of dialogue between critical approaches, this seems like amissed opportunity. University of Birmingham Elystan Griffiths Luise Buchner: A Nineteenth-Century Evolutionary Feminist. By Cordelia Scharpf. (Women inGerman, 9) Oxford: Peter Lang. 2008. 391 pp. ?47. ISBN 978-3-03910-325-6. This study of the lifeand work of Luise Buchner (1821-1877), based on aUniversity ofWisconsin-Madison dissertation, sheds new light on the evolution of the German women's movement. An influential, pioneering writer and organizer who played a significant role at local and national level in advocating and propagating women's education and training at a time of legal, political, social, and educational disempowerment, Buchner's contribution has until recently been largely lost fromview. The surviving documentation, partly because of World War II damage, is relativelymeagre, but Cordelia Scharpf's extensive archival research and sifting of untapped periodical and newspaper sources have enabled her to put together a substantial and persuasive picture of a life'swork of singular energy, practicality, and devotion to researching, analysing, and disseminating information in order to 1182 Reviews serve the greater social good. The author has traced some forty letters and draws productively on Buchner's lifelong correspondence with Gutzkow for insights into her personal and professional life.Although frequently obliged to record gaps in information, or reportwhat her subject might' have experienced, Scharpf assembles enough evidence to give the reader a clear idea of the educational and social context, particularly in Darmstadt, where Buchner worked tirelessly with Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, to improve women's educational and employment opportunities. Chapters 2-4 and part of Chapter 8 are devoted to presenting and elucidating four editions ofDie Frauen und ihrBeruf (1855, 1856, i860, 1872; English trans., i999)> a treatise that Buchner latterly expanded into a 272-page monograph. This accessible, systematic study signally influenced debate on educational reform. Buchner's stance was moderate and practice-oriented. She argued for equal status forwomen and men, while maintaining the separation of their spheres of activity. At the heart of the project lies the primacy ofwork, whether unpaid in the home or paid beyond it, and?in order to be able towork effectively?of training and education. Unusually, she addresses the needs of unmarried women and ignores religion. Buchner also delivered courses of history lectures,whose 1875 publication...