ABSTRACT
The nineteenth-century critic Heinrich Laube coined the period designation Weimarer Klassik', thereby further strengthening this perception in the subsequent writing of German literary history. The concept of 'writing back' allows for the recovery of the political dimension of women authors' writing by freeing their contributions from traditional literary histories, which tend to place them in the shadow of Olympus. One example of this strategy of 'writing back' to the conventions and prescriptions of Weimar Classicism is Henriette Frolich's Virginia oder die Kolonie von Kentucky: Mehr Wahrheit als Dichtung, published in 1820 under the pseudonym Jerta in Berlin. Frolich responds to Goethe's portrayal of Bildung as an exclusively male process – represented by the male protagonist and autobiographical subject in Wilhelm Meister and Dichtung und Wahrheit – with her choice of a female protagonist. Frolich's novel is anchored in a specific historical moment; the life of the fictional protagonist is a reflection of true historical events.
