230 Reviews ofanallegorical tradition, mythology was thecreation ofa paradigmatic culture, for Moritz it was thecreation oftheimagination, for Herderanexample of metaphorical expression. Thesethree writers arediscussedbriefly before Herder's ideasareagain givencloserscrutiny and itemergesthat mythology becomes thelanguageforthe expression ofhumanity. This isfollowed bya chapter on Schiller, for whommytho logyarticulated perceptions of the modernworldandwas a toolfor describingit. Schilleristhelinking figure between Enlightenment HellenismandRomanticism on the brink of modernity. Greinederisable toshowthatthe notorioustag'Gedanken lyrik' concealsthefactthat Schiller's poetryisabout mythology and thealienation of the modern age.Schiller developsa notionofdivinity for hisownpurposes. Greinedergives a non-politicalreadingof Das altesteSystemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus, which he sees as proffering a visionof aestheticsalvation. This leads to thestrengthening of theconvictionsharedby theearly Romantics Friedrich SchlegelandSchellingthat mythology articulated truth andcouldbe con ceptually autonomous. Thesewritersarticulated withgreater clarity what couldbe achieved withmythology and saw its potentialforreinvention and reinterpretation. They failed, on theother hand, to create a new mythology inpractice. No new set of mythological characters emerged, thenewmythology was vagueandunstableand lackedthe mechanismstounify experience;insteadthere was playful speculation, syncretism and plurality, disparateforms, establishedthemes but no predefined canon. All of realitywas to be encompassed, all narratives to be mythological. The newmythologies were febrile attempts toovercomealienation. Greinederrightly stresses, therefore, thatthenewmythology was a theoretical venturefraught with difficulties. Itsflexibility has tobeweighedagainstitslimitations. What isnew here is the focus on thepotential and problems that inhere inmytho logy and the argument that the new mythology was not primarily a reaction to the failings inEnlightenment thought. Greinederalludesinpassingtohow thefailings of the newmythologies reflect wider tendencies ofGerman thought: howmuch, for example, an individual writercan affect culturallife. It would havebeen interesting forGreineder to place his arguments occasionally in theEuropean context, but as it stands the book is a considerable achievement. Its reader is invited to follow the often tortuous twists and turns of argument in the key attempts to deal with mythology. Greineder's book does not make easy reading; there is a high level of abstraction. But this is in the nature of the subject, for tacklingwhich he deserves much credit. This is a demanding book, but a rewarding one. MURRAY EDWARDSCOLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE JOHN GUTHRIE Challenging SeparateSpheres. Female 'Bildung' inEighteenthandNineteenth -Cen tury Germany.Ed. byMARJANNE E. GoozE. (North AmericanStudies in 1gth-Century German Literature, 40) Oxford:PeterLang. 2007. 317 pp. ?47.30. ISBN 978-3-03911-018-6. Thisvolumecomprises selected papersfrom a conference on 'Tales Toldby Women: German Women Writers of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries', which was MLR, 104.1, 2009 231 heldat the University ofGeorgia in2002.The conference was thethird so farina seriesoriginating in theLancaster University 'German WomenWritersinthe Age ofGoethe'dayschools. The twelve essayscollectedherearepresented as havingthecommontheme of Bildung:the writers discussedchallenge the dominantideology oftheir time, which placedwomen in thedomesticsphere, bydrawing attention to theissueof female Bildung. AsMarjanne E. Gooze explainsinher introduction, Bildung is takento mean not justeducationbut 'an individual's entire moral, spiritual, behavioral, emotional, political and intellectual development' (p.15).Thewriters depict women on the pathtowards personaldevelopment and showhow thisleadstotheassertion of female agency. Inother words,thetexts provetobe subversive invarious ways. Thischimesin withmuch research todateonwomenwriters of theperiod: 'female authorsintheeighteenth andnineteenth centuries[. . .]reframe, revalue, redefine, renegotiate, subvert, reject, and otherwise challengesocial,legal,educational, and developmental gender models' (p.1i). DespiteGooze's attempts todraw theessaystogether underone heading,the volumeremains somewhat disparate. The contributors do not all directly address theconceptofBildung.Theydo, however, keep comingback to thesame, more generallineof argument, namelythat whilewomen'swriting may appearat first glancetobe conservative, itcanactually be interpreted as innovative, radical,sub versive. This is thecase acrosstwocenturies. Anca L.Holden, forinstance, shows how MarianneEhrmann boldlysought toencourage hersextoexercise their powers of reason inher 1789 collection of aphorisms and essays Ein Weib einWort; Debbie Pinfoldexamines writing byFanny Lewald, Malwida von Meysenbug,andJohanna Kinkelon therevolutions of 1848-49 and concludesthattheauthors maywrite in conventional female modes but manage to imply at the same time thatwomen have a crucial role to play inGermany's future;Alicia L. Carter argues that the late nineteenth-century conductbooksofHenriette Davidis showed womenhow even the housewife canassertagency withinherdomestic kingdom. While the arguments are familiar,many of the texts discussed here may not be. For example, there is an essay analysing the lettersofMagdalena Pauli and Johanna Sieveking, two membersofHamburg'sGroJ3burgertum, which isbased on unpub lished materialinthe HamburgStaatsarchiv. Thereisa study oftheautobiographies of two working-class women-servantDorisViersbeckand factory worker Verena Conzett-from the turnof the century. Even in the case ofwriters such...
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Sep 15, 2024
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