Metamorphosis, Personhood, and Power in Karoline von Günderrode

Abstract

This paper argues that the neglected writer Karoline von Günderrode (1780–1806) develops a model of personhood and a related conception of agency that add to post-Kantian Idealist and German Romantic attempts to understand the relations between self and world and between freedom and determinism. In this paper, I locate the outline of this model in Günderrode's conception of death as metamorphosis. The paper begins from the claim that Günderrode rethinks the Kantian sublime to construct a non-dualistic cosmology and a unique model of personhood. I suggest that Günderrode's account of the self and its world informs a conception of agency that is grounded in the basic vulnerability and finitude of human beings and that denies that autonomy is a condition of freedom. I argue that Günderrode's notion of death as metamorphosis allows her to avoid overemphasizing consciousness and autonomy on the one hand and, on the other, affirming self-annihilation or accepting determinism. The result is a conception of individuality and freedom that reflects the dependency and vulnerability of human existence. The last part of the paper uses Günderrode's play “Hildgund” as an example of how this model of agency emerges in her work.