ABSTRACT
It has been traditional in German literature from the days of Gräfin Ida Hahn-Hahn’s (1805-80) notorious novels and the more calmly reasoned ones of Fanny Lewald (1811-89) that women writers should face up to the menfolk and claim equality – particularly of passion. After 1880 there are so many of these Amazons that only the leaders can be dealt with here. Not all women writers, of course, are rebels; and perhaps as good an arrangement as any is to divide them into two armies of naughty girls and good girls, with Else Lasker-Schüler – she is not flagrantly naughty but she would have been terribly shocked if she had been classed as one of the good girls – as a dividing pinnacle.
