Women and Family Life in Early Modern German Literature by Elisabeth Wåghäll Nivre (review)

Abstract

276 Reviews 'spyl'(pp. 15-18), 'gesellen',and'kneht'(pp. 73,118,303). AtWhitsun 1459thereisa record in Venlo, the only one of its kind, of a performance of a 'spil van Tristram' put on by young men from the better families (pp. 87, 453). There is also strong evidence (pp. 256-57, 270-71) for the use of plays in political disputes, almost cabaret-like, with up-to-date local references, particularly within the context of urban, early Re? formation friction. In transcribing such evidence from the municipal sources there is room for slips of the pen and misreadings induced by tired eyes. The author is severe on such mistakes of earlier scholarship, but also with regard to his own earlier work (pp.235-36). Bibliography and indexes forpeople, places and concepts, and play topics round off this book, together with a fine collection of fifteenplates and a relevant frontispiece that are provided with brief and clear commentaries. This volume satisfies easily the high typographical expectations that we have of this series. Munich John Margetts Womenand Family Life in Early Modern German Literature. By Elisabeth Waghall Nivre. Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2004. xi + 221 pp. $70; ?50. ISBN 157113 -197-3. Womenand Family Life is a study of the discourse of gender in fictional works written by Protestant men in the sixteenth century, and in some legal documents from the same period. Elisabeth Waghall Nivre sets out to avoid merely describing the stereo? types with which women are depicted by men, and seeks to analyse what constitutes a gendered male and a gendered female for the authors of the works. As Nivre points out, there is still much scope for research on gender in early modern German literary texts, and this is therefore a welcome contribution to the field. The texts chosen are chapbooks and novels by Jorg Wickram, 'Schwanke' by Jakob Frey and Martin Montanus, Johann Fischart's Geschichtklitterung(1582), and Polizeiordnungen from Strasburg. Nivre draws on Michel Foucault for her ideas of how men and women shape their own gendered identity and the identity of others (consciously and unconsciously), and sees the texts as able both to represent contem? porary ideas about gender and potentially to shape them. Wickram idealizes gendered relationships both in his chapbooks and in his novels, depicting a social order maintained through family lifein which men and women each know their role. Nivre draws on a wealth of interesting examples to show how Frey's and Montanus's 'Schwanke' instead depict women's potential forvice and folly.They contain explicit depictions of sexual behaviour, which suggest that they would not have been considered suitable for a female readership. Women's behaviour in the 'Schwanke' is often out of control or exaggerated, invariably because of men's failure to exereise restraint. Throughout this study, it is not the depiction of women per se with which Nivre is concerned, but the relationship between women and men. In so far as the works are didactic, they depict roles formen to emulate, and demonstrate the dangers of deviating from them. In the chapter on Fischart, Nivre distinguishes productively between 'women' (virtuous wives) and 'non-women' (whores, adulteresses, witches, and so on). She suggests that Fischart reduces woman to 'a creature that is made only to accompany man', and furthermore that he is unable to believe in the ideal woman (wife) of his own text. Certainly, ideal women are somewhat absent from the Polizeiordnungen, which Nivre uses to ground the fictional texts in a loosely constructed social reality. Nivre's analysis of the texts suggests that for the authors of the works it was the discourse of gendered masculinity that was of primary importance. To use Judith MLR, 101.1, 2006 277 Butler's terminology, it appears to be men, rather than women, who are the 'bodies that matter' in these texts. They were largely intended fora male readership, and they set out, through negative and positive examples, how men ought to behave, and how men should make women behave. Female deviancy arises to disrupt the social order as a result of male failure or folly. It is as though the women are feared, but also in? fantilized: reduced...