“Meine Schwester Natalie ist hiervon ein lebhaftes Beispiel:” Bildung and Gender in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre
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Juliana de Albuquerque
Abstract
In Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre the famous chapter on the Beautiful Soul is the portrait of an individuality that gradually takes flight from herself into a religious pathology. It has been argued by a number of scholars, including Marianne Hirsch (1983) and Catriona MacLeod (1998), that this is intended by Goethe to be taken as a paradigm of Bildung for women, as the best that a woman of exceptional sensitivity could hope to achieve in his society and time. In this paper I challenge this interpretation. I argue that Goethe’s notion of Bildung is an ideal of self-mastery that is valid for men and women equally. To this end I draw a comparison between the characters of the Beautiful Soul and her niece Natalie, the character Wilhelm seeks throughout the novel and who eventually becomes his wife. Goethe juxtaposes these two figures at several points to contrast images of health and progression with images of illness and paralysis. Goethe’s ideal of Bildung has deep psychological and therapeutic implications that are still relevant-it offers us the ideal of the individual, whether man or woman, who in the face of the circumstances of their lives learn to master their responses to them, and overcome the constraints imposed by society to achieve a genuine expression of his or her personality.
Abstract
In Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre the famous chapter on the Beautiful Soul is the portrait of an individuality that gradually takes flight from herself into a religious pathology. It has been argued by a number of scholars, including Marianne Hirsch (1983) and Catriona MacLeod (1998), that this is intended by Goethe to be taken as a paradigm of Bildung for women, as the best that a woman of exceptional sensitivity could hope to achieve in his society and time. In this paper I challenge this interpretation. I argue that Goethe’s notion of Bildung is an ideal of self-mastery that is valid for men and women equally. To this end I draw a comparison between the characters of the Beautiful Soul and her niece Natalie, the character Wilhelm seeks throughout the novel and who eventually becomes his wife. Goethe juxtaposes these two figures at several points to contrast images of health and progression with images of illness and paralysis. Goethe’s ideal of Bildung has deep psychological and therapeutic implications that are still relevant-it offers us the ideal of the individual, whether man or woman, who in the face of the circumstances of their lives learn to master their responses to them, and overcome the constraints imposed by society to achieve a genuine expression of his or her personality.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Table of Contents VII
- Introduction 1
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Goethe’s (Anti-)Classicism and Experientialism
- Embracing the Enemy: The Problem of Religion in Goethe’s “Confessions of a Beautiful Soul” 13
- “Meine Schwester Natalie ist hiervon ein lebhaftes Beispiel:” Bildung and Gender in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre 27
- Mediating Subjectivities: Anti-Classical and Anti-Ideal Impulses in Goethe’s Zur Farbenlehre and Die Wahlverwandtschaften 49
- Reading Surfaces: Goethe and Benjamin 69
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Kant-Critique and the Romanticist Movement
- Jakob Friedrich Fries as an Opponent of German Idealism 87
- Apparent Purposes. How Does the Purpose of Purposelessness Operate? 103
- Antecedents to Hegel’s Conception of Judaism in Kant’s Practical Philosophy 115
- “Diese Unwissenheit ist mir der unerträglichste Mangel, der gröste Widerspruch”: The Search for Pre-rational Knowledge in Karoline von Günderrode 131
- Romantic Anti-Idealism and Re-evaluations of Gender: Schlegel, Günderrode and Literary Gender Politics 147
- The Polymorphous Political Theology of Novalis and Marcuse 161
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Hölderlin and Nietzsche: The Ecological Complication of Idealist Aesthetics
- Hölderlin’s Poetics of Zärtlichkeit: The Corporeal Turn of Transcendental Idealism 175
- Grund/Abgrund. On Kant and Hölderlin 187
- Nietzsche and Cognitive Ecology 209
- Overturning Philosophy: Classic and (Anti)-Classic Considerations on Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo 227
- Index 243
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Table of Contents VII
- Introduction 1
-
Goethe’s (Anti-)Classicism and Experientialism
- Embracing the Enemy: The Problem of Religion in Goethe’s “Confessions of a Beautiful Soul” 13
- “Meine Schwester Natalie ist hiervon ein lebhaftes Beispiel:” Bildung and Gender in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre 27
- Mediating Subjectivities: Anti-Classical and Anti-Ideal Impulses in Goethe’s Zur Farbenlehre and Die Wahlverwandtschaften 49
- Reading Surfaces: Goethe and Benjamin 69
-
Kant-Critique and the Romanticist Movement
- Jakob Friedrich Fries as an Opponent of German Idealism 87
- Apparent Purposes. How Does the Purpose of Purposelessness Operate? 103
- Antecedents to Hegel’s Conception of Judaism in Kant’s Practical Philosophy 115
- “Diese Unwissenheit ist mir der unerträglichste Mangel, der gröste Widerspruch”: The Search for Pre-rational Knowledge in Karoline von Günderrode 131
- Romantic Anti-Idealism and Re-evaluations of Gender: Schlegel, Günderrode and Literary Gender Politics 147
- The Polymorphous Political Theology of Novalis and Marcuse 161
-
Hölderlin and Nietzsche: The Ecological Complication of Idealist Aesthetics
- Hölderlin’s Poetics of Zärtlichkeit: The Corporeal Turn of Transcendental Idealism 175
- Grund/Abgrund. On Kant and Hölderlin 187
- Nietzsche and Cognitive Ecology 209
- Overturning Philosophy: Classic and (Anti)-Classic Considerations on Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo 227
- Index 243
