The Male Muses of Romanticism: The Poetics of Gender in Novalis, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Eichendorf1

Abstract

In German Romantic discourse generally functions as inspiration, source, and ground of poesy.2 This figuration appears to be metaphysical in nature: and feminine are troped as originary condition of possibility of Romantic self-definition and Romantic artistic production, and feminine descriptors shape Romantic conceptions of subjectivity and creativity. In scattered statements in Friedrich Schlegel's philosophical and aesthetic theory, for example, Der Geist ist d[as] ursprungl[ich] Weibliche (KA XVIII: 193, #796; emphasis in original), subject or I (das Ich) is feminine (KA XVIII: 334, #137), and woman's very essence is poesy (KA II: 269, #127); and in his autobiographical novel Lucinde title figure, who is both lover and mother to painter Julius, inspires his artistic creation. Similarly, in Novalis's Fichte-Studien self-positing ego defines itself in opposition to Muttersfare from whence it originated (Schriften II: 105, #1); subject or I is feminine (Schriften II: 261, #519); and in first of two dedicatory sonnets prefacing Heinrich von Ofterdingen dead beloved, das Urbild zartgesinnter Frauen, excites poet's metaphysical drive, functions as his muse, and safeguards his poetic (Schriften I: 193). Analyzing this female poetic ground from numerous theoretical perspectives, contemporary critics come to similar conclusions about primacy of feminine in Romantic poetic production: is idealized, unattainable other against which male poet defines himself in a gesture of wish fulfillment, priestess and source of enlightenment for male poet (Becker-Cantarino); and woman's voice are essence of Romantic poesy (Schlaffer, Kuzniar, Muller-Sievers); Romantic discourse is informed by a theory of feminine (Menninghaus, Roetzel); Romanticism itself is the discursive of Mother as source of discursive production (Wellbery on Kittler, Foreword xxiii). Clearly feminine forms an integral component of Romantic discourse, yet Romantics themselves programmatically question gender of their own poetic ground. To quote Friedrich Schlegel: Frauen werden in der Poesie ebenso ungerecht behandelt, wie im Leben. Die weiblichen sind nicht idealisch, und idealischen sind nicht weiblich (KA II: 172, #49), and his racy novel Lucinde is animated by a dizzying gender play in which a coded homoerotic aesthetic subtly debunks feminine ideal.3 Similarly, in fairy tale from Novalis's fragmentary novel Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, Hyacinth leaves his love Rosenblutchen and journeys to Sais on a quest for self-definition, and when he lifts veil of statue of goddess Isis, die Mutter der Dinge (Schriften I: 93), Rosenblutchen sinks into his arms. But in a famous distich to novel an apprentice lifts goddess's veil and sees that the mother of all things is not his beloved, but-wonder of wonders-himself (Schriften II: 584). In this instance, at least, metaphysical ground of Romantic project-presumed to be maternal, eternal feminine embodied in form of beloved-proves to be self-positing male subject.4 This essay examines figure of male muse in three canonical Romantic narratives that despite outward appearances likewise do not conform to a gynocentric paradigm and broaches a broad methodological question: Are contemporary theoretical approaches to Romanticism and gender studies shaping our readings of Romantic texts, predetermining woman's primacy and inflating woman's currency in Romantic poetics, and occluding important aspects of discourse on gender articulated by Romantics themselves? Motivating this open question is following observation: scholars cited above who argue for centrality of feminine to Romantic poetic all, in effect, concentrate on woman in constructing their textual analyses, and then conclude that woman grounds Romantic poesy. …