Feminist Awakening: Ida von Hahn-Hahn’s Gräfin
Faustine and Luise Mühlbach’s Aphra Behn
Thesis Abstract
I propose that the nineteenth-century
German novels Gräfin Faustine by Ida von Hahn-Hahn and Aphra Behn by
Luise Mühlbach contribute in a valuable manner to the genealogy of feminist Vormärz
writing. The novels offer not only a reflection of society but views that
were resistant of oppression. At a time when women were subject to
marginalisation, and when voicing ideas critical in the authoritarian Prussian
state was fraught with danger, they raised several issues that were
contentious.
My analysis and exploration of a topic
by Hahn-Hahn, which was avoided by social custom, and the veiled contemporary
political criticism by Mühlbach, reveal the authors' progressive perspective.
Due to their popularity they were able to submit their ideas to the public and
thereby contribute to shape social attitudes. The authors were ahead of their
time in depicting an occurrence that has only in the late twentieth century
been addressed by the legal systems of Western society. The social criticism of
the, to a great extent, autobiographical Gräfin Faustine is uttered from
the psychological point of view of its eponymous protagonist. Aphra Behn offers
a broader socio-political analysis that includes the corruption of government
and clergy. Through the example of the heroines' actions the writers rendered
material from which “women can learn” (Weigel, “Double” 60).
While scholars have evaluated these two
works, to my knowledge no comparative study of Gräfin Faustine and Aphra
Behn has yet been undertaken. In a close reading I discuss, first, the two
writers' use of narrative to voice their objections to injustice that, in a
manner not unlike twentieth-century feminist ‘consciousness-raising,'
represents an early feminist awakening. Second, I analyse the themes of
personal, social and institutional power relationships drawing on an
interdisciplinary understanding of historical, gender, social, political and
legal concepts. Third, I aim to make these texts more accessible to an
English-speaking readership and create a wider understanding of the early
feminism in these novels by translating and extrapolating key passages.
Keywords
Hahn-Hahn Gräfin Faustine,
Mühlbach Aphra Behn, social criticism, 19th century German feminist
writing.
ERRATA for
Feminist Awakening: Ida von Hahn-Hahn's Gräfin Faustine and Luise Mühlbach's Aphra Behn
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Feminist Awakening: Ida von Hahn-Hahn's Gräfin Faustine and Luise Mühlbach's Aphra Behn
Ordered by appearance in the text.
Page v, line 5. Delete of before used
Page vii, line 1. Delete of before used
Page 13, last paragraph, line 3. Change understandings to understanding
Page 21, line 1. Delete ) before (107)
Page 22, line 4. Change 1848 to 1849 Reported on 28/7/2008 by H.J. Griephan
Page 22, ft 20, line 9. Change 1984 to 1884 Reported on 28/7/2008 by H.J. Griephan
Page 25, paragraph 2, line 3. Change in June of that year to 1849 Reported 4/8/2008 by H.J. Griephan
Luise Mühlbach
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