Recasting Historical Women

Stephanie Bird University College London

• Introduction: historical context; problematizing the female subject; history, identity and gender; identification; narrative technique. Figures of fantasy - Karin Reschke Verfolgtedes Glucks: the paradoxes; gender; illness, the body and homosexual desire; Riandres Milena Antotwortet - en brief: ideological concerns; liberating the historical Jesenska; woman and language. Kein Ort Nirgends - a place for feminist deconstruction? authorial desires; gender; the body and the unconscious; privileging the female; deconstruction and the female subject; Derschatten eines traumes: generalization; the victim model; identification. The political as personal Brigitte Struzyk's - Caroline Unterm Freiheitsbaum: ideological commitment; democracy; eros and action; narrative; method; gender; Caroline - marginality and paternal identification; the rejection of Sororean idealism; Theresa - marginality and maternal identification; the de-mystification of history. Striving for the authentic Sigrid Damm Cornelia Goether: ideological motivation; gender and the problem of historical specificity; narratorial identification and idealization; the role of Goethe; Sybille Knauss Achelise: aims and methods; gender; history and invention. Biography as historical novel - Volker Ebersbach Caroline: the narrative approach; gender - the narrator's fashionable concession; the historical Schlegel-Schelling; female rivalry - a vehicle for narrational misogyny; Sybille Knauss, Charlotte Corday: essentialized subjectivities; the eternal male - the eternal female; pure interiority; Marie's motivation and Marat/Sade; the force of history; conclusion - unexpected bedfellows. Conclusion: narrative technique; gender; defending the antagonistic figure; defending utopia; final words.

'(a) fruitful and complex examination of specific women... [...](Bird) offers intriguing presentations of the contexts in which these historical women functioned - versus contemporary historical settings - and gives attention to gender issues and to the functions of famous figures like Goethe in each relevant text. Extended quotations in German, good scholarly apparatus, an extensive bibliography, and copious references to lesser-known texts make this an excellent volume for upper-level undergraduates through faculty and interested specialists.'Choice'The merit of Bird's approach is that, while ever alert to their weaknesses and limitations, she engages with the texts on their own terms, allowing for differences between them and refraining from pressing them into the service of an overarching theoretical construct.'Modern Language Review