Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Women Writers, Warriors, and Travelers: The French
Revolution in German Literature
Chapter 1: Domestic Fiction, Bourgeois Tragedy, and Gothic Endings:
Therese Huber’s Die Familie Seldorf (1795-96)
Chapter 2: Historical Fiction: Caroline de la Motte Fouqué’s Das
Heldenmädchen aus der Vendée (1816)
Chapter 3: Staging Historical Tragedy: Christine Westphalen’s
Charlotte Corday (1804)
Chapter 4: Autobiographical Petition: The Lebensbeschreibung (1821)
of Regula Engel, the “Swiss Amazon”
Chapter 5: Robinsonade as Encyclopedia: Sophie von La Roche’s
Erscheinungen am See Oneida (1798)
Chapter 6: Bildungsroman of America: Henriette Frölich’s Virginia
oder die Kolonie von Kentucky (1820)
Conclusion: Fictions of History
Works Cited
Index
About the Author
Stephanie M. Hilger is associate professor of comparative literature, German, and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Focusing on the period from 1795 to 1820, Hilger discusses novels
by six women—Therese Huber, Caroline de la Motte Fouqué, Christine
Westphalen, Regula Engel, Sophie von la Roche, and Henriette
Frölich. These women's works were trivialized by their
contemporaries, including Goethe, or were difficult to obtain (they
are now available in electronic form). Each of the novels Hilger
discusses criticizes exclusionary Enlightenment thinking, failed
ideals of fraternity from the French Revolution, and the lack of
social welfare for widows or victims of war. In discussing Sophie
von La Roche’s Erscheinungen am see oneida (1798), a novel about
noble émigrés living alone on an island in Lake Oneida (in upstate
New York), Hilger reveals that European and Native American
identities remain entirely stereotypical and hopelessly
constricting. The prejudices of the society from which people
wished to escape persist in a 'new' world that fails to foster
intellectual, social, or gender freedom. Hilger also discusses the
form, structure, and narrative voices of these novels, their
previous commentators, and further avenues for research. Supporting
her argument with an extensive bibliography and notes, Hilger
offers fruitful approaches to these and similar works,
demonstrating how such criticism can help redefine the literary
canon. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and
above.
*CHOICE*
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