Sub-Version: Weiblichkeitsentwurfe in den Erzahltexten Lou Andreas-Salomes

Abstract

Wernz, Birgit. Sub-version: Weiblichkeitsentwurfe in den Erzdhlteten Lou AndreasSalomes . Pfaffenweiler. Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1997. 202pp. Birgit Wernz's monograph on Lou Andreas-Salome's literary work is inspired by constructivist theories of femininity that give new perspectives on Salome's texts and biography. Influenced primarily by Judith Butler, Wernz contends that Salome's literary work anticipated deconstructionist textual strategies such as irony, parody, and mimetic variation, aesthetic features that unsettle dominant discourses on femininity. Wernz's approach to Salome's work intends to function as a corrective to the prevailing Salome scholarship that criticizes her body of work for its generally conventional stance on and femininity. In her first chapter, 'Post'-Feminismus als Methode, Wernz outlines the usefulness of constructivist theories of the subject for her work. Arguing for an historical approach to the category of the feminine as a relational and a functional, as opposed to an essential, category, Wernz relies heavily on Butler's Gender Trouble to show that politically subversive texts need not create counter-images of strong women, but rather can use mimetic strategies as a way to expose gender categories as confining and arbitrary. The historical dimension of the book is addressed in the second chapter. In it Wernz depicts turn-of-the-century discursive formations of the focusing on the psychoanalytical metaphor of the woman as mystery. After a somewhat narrowly focused discussion of historical formations of femininity, she gives a cursory overview of their subversion in literature by writers at the turn of the century. Finally, Wernz leads us into a discussion of Salome's texts as they define the feminine, a definition constructed in dialogue with female contemporaries active in the women's movement. The subsequent chapters discuss Salome texts, beginning with her essays on Ibsen's female characters and moving on to Salome's own works of short fiction and ending with a discussion of her collection of stories, Menschenkinder. Salome's early work on Ibsen's female characters shows her evolving analytical/literary interest in the psychology of in the context of heterosexual love and marriage. Wernz asserts that the Ibsen essays cross genre borders between fiction and theory and thus can be seen as a precursor to her own literary treatment of the themes of women and love. In her Ibsen essays, Salome discusses the various subject positions accorded to the female characters and renders the various ways that they internalize, subvert, or otherwise react to being held captive by love and marriage. A discussion of three Salome stories makes up the next three chapters. Each story represents, in Wernz's view, a deconstruction of the dominant ideology of femininity (via subverting the masculine/feminine binarism) without portraying a counter-image of an emancipated female character. …