Synopses & Reviews
Todd Kontje offers the first survey in English of novels by German women from 1771 to 1871. He introduces readers to the lives and works of fourteen women writers of the period--including Sophie von LaRoche, Sophie Mereau, Fanny Lewald, and Eugenie Marlitt--and argues that their novels played an important role in shaping attitudes toward class, gender, and the nation in the century preceding Germany's first unification. Women, the Novel, and the German Nation explores ways in which novels about traditionally feminine domestic concerns also comment on patriarchal politics in the German fatherland.
Review
"Masterfully navigating German history with the canon of German literature, Kontje discusses uncharted waters, discussing authors who deserve higher ranking in a too-male German literature. Well written, competently researched, excellent footnotes, the book belongs in all libraries supporting German literature studies." Choice"Kontje's work, with its up-to-date bibliography and useful index, constitutes an excellent introductory study to these works...Kontje treads new paths in emphasizing both the connection between domesticity and nationality in fiction and the differences (rather than similarities) among contemporary women's writings..." The German Quarerly"an encompassing account of women writers during the 19th century..." Germanic Notes and Reviews
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: women, the novel, and the German nation; 2. The emergence of German domestic fiction; 3. German women respond to the French Revolution; 4. Liberation's aftermath: the early restoration; 5. Feminists in the Vormärz; 6. Eugene Marlitt: the art of liberal compromise; Notes; Works cited; Index.