Writing the Self, Creating Community: German Women Authors and the Literary Sphere 1750–1850 ed. by Elisabeth Krimmer, Lauren Nossett

Abstract

 Reviews it as a second-rate exercise for his talents. Indeed, when, amazingly, in August  d’Annunzio finally managed to send a dra of his article to Olschki, he half apologized for the long delay, implying the impossibility for him (or anyone) of compressing into a small compass anything new concerning the grandeur of Dante. More immediately, however, creditors had formed noisy queues outside the gates of his baronial mansion, the Capponcina, where auction sales of his goods, including all furnishings and ornaments, were organized for the beginning of  June. Melosi shows how preoccupied the nervous Passerini became in his analysis of the mood in Florence, where, he reported to d’Annunzio, bets were being laid on whether or not he would accept the contract. Disdain and discomfort forced d’Annunzio to take refuge in flight using the temporary pseudonym of Gerard d’Argan. He continued on to Genoa and then to Paris, where he stayed for six months on the fourth floor of the Meurice, in Rue de Rivoli (fellow guests in the hotel were Guglielmo Marconi and the Italian Ambassador Tittoni). In secrecy, and under another assumed name, Guy d’Arbes, d’Annunzio le Paris for Arcachon. U  O J W Writing the Self, Creating Community: German Women Authors and the Literary Sphere –. Ed. by E K and L N. Rochester, NY: Camden House. . viii+ pp. £. ISBN –– ––. In this varied and accessible collection of essays, conventional period boundaries are subordinated to the steady rise of women writers and readers to become signi- ficant factors in German-language literature for the first time. While not ignoring canonical literary movements or the persistent opposition to women’s authorship during these years, its contributors concentrate on exploring and celebrating the roles—both historical and imagined—that women of letters were able to create for themselves and the networks in which they participated. A good balance is struck between well-known figures (Sophie von La Roche, Karoline von Günderrode) and investigation of largely forgotten authors; the fascinating Polyxene Büsching, for instance, whose brief stint as literary confidante of Catherine the Great is analysed by Ruth P. Dawson, together with her letters to fellow poet Johanna Charlotte Unzer as a female community of practice (pp. –). Variety as a characteristic of the collection also applies to its methodological approaches and the appeal its essays will have for readers. Some will be particularly useful as teaching resources as they provide introductions to the history of reading, women’s education, and the overall social and political context as well as to the author in question (for example, the two opening articles by Monika Nenon and Lauren Nossett on La Roche). Others are more speculative and aimed at a more specialist audience in their detailed focus on individual texts or re- MLR, .,   search paradigms. Angela Sanmann contributes a stimulating discussion of the anonymous  French translation of La Roche’s Die Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim, attributed to Marie-Elisabeth de La Fite, herself an author of moral tales for children (pp. –). Sanmann reflects on what the alterations and additions tell us about La Fite’s progressive views of womanhood and her understanding of her dual role as writer and translator; she also reconsiders the relationship between this first French translation and Joseph Collyer’s  English version. Further examples of more specialist essays include Amy Jones’s comparative analysis of vampirism as a metaphor for authorship in the writings of Günderrode and Clemens von Brentano. Jones inspires with a persuasive combination of Motivgeschichte and close readings, made all the more valuable as she decisively breaks with autobiographical readings of Günderrode’s poetry (pp. –). Also inspiring is Sara Luly’s essay on ‘Ghostwriters’ (pp. –), which for the first time brings together texts by Benedikte Naubert and Sophie Albrecht to consider how their spectral protagonists represent not only the dilemmas faced by women writers of the day (self-censorship!), but also possible solutions (self-Othering). In an important addition to the volume’s predominant focus on individual writers and/or works, Julie L. J. Koehler examines uses of the ‘Märchenoma’ tradition as a strategy for legitimizing women’s claims to literary authorship...