Weibliche Kreativität um 1800: Women's Creativity around 1800 ed. by Linda Dietrick and Birte Giesler

Abstract

Linda Dietrick and Birte Giesler, eds. Weibliche Kreativitat um 1800: Women's Creativity around 1800. Hamburg: Wehrhahn, 2015. 282 pp.This exciting collection essays examines the ways in which women contributed to discussions creativity around 1800 and posited their own models feminine creativity distinct from the male model. A search for models feminine creativity involves reading beyond and/or reading differently traditional, male-dominated discourses creativity, as well as exploring creative works that do not conform to genre expectations. One the strengths this book is its interdisciplinarity: the essays in the collection address a variety types creative projects and theoretical approaches. Topics range from music and art to endeavors often overlooked in discussions creativity, including translation work, editing, event organizing, and networking.After a brief introduction, the collection offers contributions in both English and German, each with an abstract in the other language. The first group contributions examines what women around 1800 read and their critical reception these texts. Linda Dietrick's chapter asks us to read through the eyes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women in order to identify moments in anthropological, literary, and philosophical texts that could be interpreted as encouraging female creativity. These texts include biographies extraordinary women, which would have provided models female creativity as well as theories epigenesis that women writers could use to justify their contribution to creative production. Waltraud Maierhofer's chapter similarly examines how Angelika Kauffmann's allegories depicting the elements painting call on contemporary theories creativity that emphasized divine inspiration over formal training. As a result, Kauffmann constructed a visual theory the creative process that is more inclusive women. Both chapters illustrate ways in which women conceptualized their creative powers within mainstream discourses creativity and reproduction.Margaretmary Daley's and Gaby Pailer's contributions each address questions genre and gender, continuing the book's exploration women as readers and creative innovators. Daley rejects the understanding Frauenromanen as trivial. Instead, she identifies the unique aesthetic and narrative elements that made the Frauenroman a productive genre for women. Daley also investigates the intertextual connections between Frauenromanen in order to explore the relationships female writers. Pailer examines Christiane Karoline Schlegel's creative adaptation a contemporary high-profile murder-suicide and the conventions the burgerliche Trauerspiel to create Duval und Charmille (1778). This Realitatsdrama depicts the potential for violence in women's sexual relationships. Pailer's contribution is especially exciting, as it is the first time the historical source material for Duval und Charmille has been identified and interpreted.Anja Gerigk's, Birte Giesler's, and Thomas Wortmann's contributions constitute the second thematic group: female authors' engagement with contemporary discourses masculinity. Gerigk's readings comedies by Juliana Hayn and Johanna von Weisenthurn explore the use this genre to mock the male Geniekult. Hayn's Der Dichterling (1781) criticizes the Geniekult by exaggerating the figure the false Genie and by making him the center the drama's comedic effect. …