ABSTRACT
“Are Women in Rock also Women in Romanticism?” explains the theoretical and historical basis for writing about contemporary women musicians as Romantics. After arriving at a definition of Romanticism unmoored from period, Rovira explores the status of women in western philosophy as a background to Romanticism. Traditionally, philosophy has aligned reason, mind, and spirit, while women have been subordinated through an alignment with emotion, nature, and the body, but German Romanticism in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Arthur Schopenhauer signaled a shift in women’s status in philosophy. Specifically, Romanticism’s shift in focus from literature to music undermined the previous misogynist philosophical regime by subordinating reason to an immanent position within nature and making the primary characteristic of spirit out to be will. With music as a privileged, direct expression of will, which is now the primary characteristic of spirit, women were theoretically emancipated from their subordinate position in the previous philosophical regime. The chapter ends by interrogating the principles of German Romanticism against feminist scholarship on English language Romanticisms for their compatibility, asking if women could be considered Romantics at all, and demonstrating how bringing this scholarship into conversation with German Romanticism and the work of Löwy and Sayre nuances and complicates the claims made about women in ways that help position the work of female rock musicians within Romanticism.
