book review, of sorts.

[dira]

So I've been sloooooowly reading The Life of High Countess Gritta von Ratsinourhouse, to the detriment of the due dates of other library books. I think it is suffering from my short attention span, or my natural incompatibility with Victorian fairy tales. Or both.

What I did find enchanting was the scholarly introduction by Lisa Ohm, with biographical information on the mother-and-daughter authors, Bettine von Arnim and Gisela von Arnim Grimm (yes, she married a relative of one of those Grimms--the European fairy tale fandom in the 19C was apparently kinda incestuous).

Those Berlin years were exceptionally productive ones for Bettine and Gisela. The nineteen-year period encompasses all the years of Bettine's published literary activity, and it includes the time that Gisela and Bettine collaborated on Gritta in the early 1840s. Susan Zantop, in her introduction to Bitter Healing: German Women Writers from 1700 to 1830, speaks of the home as a "female ghetto" that became during the Romantic period "a space in which literary activity could develop" (19). Bettine's Berlin home was inded such a place both in spirit and in fact. The atmosphere fostered literary creativity and close collaboration between the women on literary projects as well as with others outside the home.

Is it sounding like fandom yet? How about the part about salons?

Bettine felt that talented women, too, had to contend for their growth space, and one of the few vital spaces available to them was the literary salon. The nineteenth-century German salon gave women a semipublic space for developing their natural genius, intellectual acumen, and artistic talents that replaced the male-dominated avenues of learning such as formal education, artistic apprenticeships, and travel. ...

Zantop defines the salon as quasi-utopian, since women and men of diverse classes, religions, ages, educations, ethnic backgrounds, and literary or cultural accomplishments could freely exchange their thoughts on art, politics, and society on an equal footing (24).

Bettine and her daughters held salons in their Berlin residence over many years. The salon gave them an opportunity to test their ideas in a more public and critical forum. Bettine's independence of thought and strong will often rankled other liberal-thinking women who held salons, including her own daughters. When opinions became too divergent, Bettine opened two salons in her home, one led by her daughters for the less liberal thinkers, and another more liberal salon over which she herself presided.

The high point of the von Arnim salon period took place between 1843 and 1848, the time of Gisela's most productive work (Jarvis and Jarvis, 207). The Kaffeeterkreis (Coffee Circle), a literary circle founded by Gisela and her sisters, Maximiliane and Armgart, was especially active during those years. Jarvis conjectures that Gisela's published fairy tales as well as other unpublished and partially lost fairy tales - and perhaps even Gritta - originated within the creative and supportive atmosphere of the Kaffeeterkreis (207).

The members of the Kaffeeterkreis were simultaneously members of the Jungfrauorden (Order of Virgins). The group presented fairy-tale plays to Berlin's upper-class society (207 n.6). The Order, upon Gisela's insistence, later accepted men as members; Hans Christian Andersen, for example, became an honorary member. This Jungfrauorden, representing the collaborative spirit in the von Arnim household as well as the lifelong closeness of Bettine and Gisela, is clearly reflected in the joint authorship of Gritta and in the bonding of the twelve girls in the Gritta text.

I'm just saying. Possibly there really is nothing new under the sun; Bettine and Gisela would have been big time BNFs, splitting their comms in half and then making up and cowriting again. :)


von Arnim, Bettine and Gisela von Arnim Grimm. The Life of High Countess Gritta von Ratsinourhouse. Translated and with an introduction by Lisa Ohm. University of Nebraska Press, 1999. pp. xx-xxiii.

This entry is crossposted at http://dsudis.livejournal.com/526446.html.