Book Description

"Literature written by women in German during the period long known patriarchally as the Age of Goethe was largely lumped in with other unserious or artistically unworthy works under the category Trivialliteratur, literally 'trivial literature.' Using insights from Gender Studies yet acknowledging the need for a literary canon, Great Books by German Women offers a critical interpretation of six canon-worthy German novels written by women in the period, for which it coins the term 'Age of Emotion.' The novels are chosen because they depict women's ordinary yet interesting lives and, equally, because each displays formal strengths that yield prose particularly able to express emotion. The first, Sophie von La Roche's Die Geschichte des Frèauleins von Sternheim (The History of Lady von Sternheim), draws on the tradition of the epistolary novel while also finding new ways to depict empathetic emotions. The second, Friederike Unger's Julchen Grèunthal, brings to the Frauenroman or women's novel the use of irony to portray a heroine's emotions during her coming of age. The next novels add lyricism to their prose to capture sensual emotions: Sophie Mereau's Blèutenalter der Empfindung (The Blossoming of Feeling) imagines women's affinity for the philosophical sublime, while Caroline Wolzogen depicts female desire in her Agnes von Lilien. The fifth novel, Die Honigmonathe (The Honeymoon), by Karoline Fischer, explores the agony that extreme emotions cause--not only for women but also for men. The last novel, Caroline Pichler's Frauenwèurde (The Dignity of Women) expands the focus from a young heroine to multiple mature characters while maintaining the centrality of women's talents and emotions. Finally, this study accords honorable mention to some other women's novels before concluding that the influence of these six works was in no way trivial, either in portraying women's lives and emotions or in the history of German literature"--