ABSTRACT
A reasonably persuasive account of the changes Johann Wolfgang Goethe made to the first version could be given simply in aesthetic terms. The chief thrust of Goethe's attack comes from a different source, the story's depiction of the treatment of Sperata at the hands of her own confessor. To suggest, however, that the model of power relations represented in the story of Sperata is one in which patriarchal control is exercised by men over the sexuality of powerless women would be to oversimplify. From a feminist point of view, the rescue fantasy is of especial relevance because of the way it dramatizes so vividly the dialectic of power and powerlessness in gender relations. There are many feminists who resist the demonization of Sigmund Freud, and seek to harness psychoanalytic methods to their own purposes. Goethe seems to locate conflict within the psychology of sexual desire itself.
