ABSTRACT

German women writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have been the subject of feminist literary critical and historical studies for around thirty years. This volume, with contributions from an international group of scholars, takes stock of what feminist literary criticism has achieved in that time and reflects on future trends in the field. Offering both theoretical perspectives and individual case studies, the contributors grapple with the difficulties of appraising 'non-feminist' women writers and genres from a feminist perspective and present innovative approaches to research in early women's writing. This inclusive and cross- disciplinary collection of essays will enrich the study of German women's writing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and contribute to contemporary debates in feminist literary criticism. Anna Richards is Lecturer in German at Birkbeck College, University of London. Helen Fronius is College Lecturer in German at Keble College, University of Oxford.

part I|68 pages

New Approaches

chapter 1|11 pages

Forgotten Women Writers?

Reflections on the Current State and Future Prospects of Gender Studies

chapter 3|15 pages

Chasing the Cloudy Woman

In Praise of a Historical Approach to Women Writers

part II|86 pages

Case Studies

chapter 6|15 pages

Nineteenth-Century Sentimentality and Renunciation

E. Marlitt’s Goldelse (1866) and Gabriele Reuter’s Liselotte von Reckling (1904)

chapter 8|14 pages

Nursing and Caretaking Stories for Girls

Feminist Analysis of a Conservative Genre

chapter 9|12 pages

Writing Back, More Truth than Fiction

Henriette Frolich’s Virginia oder die Kolonie von Kentucky (1820)

chapter 10|15 pages

Contestations of Normativity

Rereading Nineteenth-Century Authors with Current Moral Philosophy

chapter 11|14 pages

‘Race’, Gender, Nation

Colonial(ist) Constructions of Alterity and Identity in Frieda von Bülow’s Autobiographical Writings from German East Africa