The Feminine Performance of Class in Chr. F. Gellert's Leben der schwedischen Gräfin von G***

Abstract

When the narrator of Leben der schwedischen Grafin von G***,1 the countess herself, starts the narrative of her life explaining that [vielleicht] bei der Erzahlung meines Geschlechts ebenso beredt oder geschwatzig als andre sein [wurde], wenn ich anders viel zu sagen wuste (5), the reader is inevitably reminded of a specific type of epistolary novel that became popular in the eighteenth century, especially with the publication of Samuel Richardson's Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded in 1740-41. The modesty displayed by the narrator, the presentation of her life as a collage of different texts such as personal reflections, conversations and letters, and the involvement of a female narrator in a love story are all elements that clearly have undertones of that work. Critics of Christian Furchtegott Gellert's work have not failed to notice this affinity and most of them establish a link to Richardson's model. However, to consider Gellert's Leben der schwedischen Grafin von G*** (1747-48), solely within the interpretive framework of a pure imitation of the British model Pamela not only tends to overshadow the equal significance of an `indigenous' tradition (McCarthy 193), but would also forestall a discussion of the specific characteristics and the particular moments of Gellert's text. Gellert's novel enacts an element of class ambivalence that cannot be contained within the simple dichotomous vision of aristocracy and non-aristocracy established in Richardson's Pamela. In the context of the indigenous German tradition, the mid-eighteenth century appears as a time open to the questioning of the relation between the social classes, whereas the writings of later decades present the issue of class in a less complex manner. In