Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:29:52.298Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hearing Woman's Voices in Heinrich von Ofterdingen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Abstract

In his novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen Novalis eroticizes and idealizes the female voice as unmediated poetic utterance expressing the body. Women write from the breast, with their own fluids for ink. Personifying poetry, the female character puts the burgeoning male author into an impossible position: he cannot master what she represents unless he switches gender. The mother-beloved herself undergoes constant transformation in the novel, turning into flowers, trees, and other characters. Female metamorphosis challenges androcentric Bildung, as Heinrich progressively draws on female qualities. The migratory female voice finds its way into two other German Romantic tales, Heinrich von Kleist's “Die heilige Cäcilie” and E. T. A. Hoffmann's “Rat Krespel.” In contrast to Heinrich von Ofterdingen, these works travesty the attempt to mimic the female voice.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 107 , Issue 5 , October 1992 , pp. 1196 - 1207
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Becker-Cantarino, Bärbel. “Priesterin und Lichtbringerin. Zur Ideologie des weiblichen Charakters in der Frtihromantik.” Die Frau als Heldin und Autorin: Neue kritische Ansätze zur deutschen Literatur. Ed. Paulsen, Wolfgang. Berne: Francke, 1977. 111–11.Google Scholar
Bronfen, Elisabeth. “Dialogue with the Dead: The Deceased Beloved as Muse.” Sex and Death in Victorian Literature. Ed. Barreca, Regina. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990. 241–24.Google Scholar
Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Signs 1 (1976): 875–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cixous, Hélène, and Clément, Catherine. The Newly Born Woman. Trans. Wing, Betsy. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986.Google Scholar
Dischner, Gisela. Friedrich Schlegels Lucinde und Materialien zu einer Theorie des Müβxdiggangs. Hildesheim: Gersten-berg, 1980.Google Scholar
Doane, Mary Ann. “The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space.” Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader. Ed. Rosen, Philip. New York: Columbia UP, 1986. 335–33.Google Scholar
Fuss, Diana. Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature, and Difference. New York: Routledge, 1989.Google Scholar
Geiger, Gerlinde. “Weiblichkeit in den Schriften von Frauen und Männern: Ein Vergleich.” Kontroversen, alte und neue, VI: Frauensprache—Frauenlileratur? Für und wider einer Psychoanalyse literarischer Werke. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1986. 97103.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Hoffmann Ernst Theodor. Die Serapions-Brüder. München: Winkler, 1963.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which Is Not One. Trans. Porter, Catherine. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Kahane, Claire. “Questioning the Maternal Voice.” Genders 3 (1988): 8291.Google Scholar
Kittler, Friedrich A. Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900. München: Fink, 1985.Google Scholar
Kittler, Friedrich A.Die Irrwege des Eros und die ‘absolute Familie’: Psychoanalytischer und diskursanalytischer Kommentar zu Klingsohrs Marchen in Novalis' Heinrich von Ofterdingen.” Psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Literaturinterpretation. Ed. Urban, Bernd and Kudszus, Winfried. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981.421–70.Google Scholar
Kleist, Heinrich von. Samtliche Werke und Briefe. Ed. Sembdner, Helmut. 6th ed. Vol. 2. Miinchen: Hanser, 1977. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia. Trans. Roudiez, Leon. New York: Columbia UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Kuzniar, Alice. “Reassessing Romantic Reflexivity: The Case of Novalis.” Germanic Review 63 (1988): 7786.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas. Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimitat. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1982.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Dennis F.The Myth of Death and Resurrection in Heinrich von Ofterdingen.” South Atlantic Review 48 (1983): 5266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massey, Marilyn Chapin. Feminine Soul: The Fate of an Ideal. Boston: Beacon, 1985.Google Scholar
Müller-Sievers, Helmut. “E. T. A. Hoffmann und die Trivialisierung der Musik.” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 63 (1989): 98119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munich, Adrienne. “Notorious Signs: Feminist Criticism and Literary Tradition.” Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism. Ed. Greene, Gayle and Kahn, Coppélia. London: Methuen, 1985. 238–23.Google Scholar
Newman, Gail. “The Status of the Subject in Novalis's Heinrich von Ofterdingen and Kleist's Die Marquise von O…” German Quarterly 62 (1989): 5971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, Gail. “‘The Visible Soul of Poetry’: Women and the Poet in Novalis's Heinrich von Ofterdingen.” Diss. U of Minnesota, 1985.Google Scholar
Novalis. Werke, Tagebücher und Briefe Friedrich von Hardenbergs. Ed. Hans-Joachim Mähl and Richard Samuel. 3 vols. Miinchen: Hanser, 1978–19.Google Scholar
Padilla, Katherine Mary. “The Embodiment of the Absolute: Theories of the Feminine in the Works of Schleiermacher, Schlegel, and Novalis.” Diss. Princeton U, 1988.Google Scholar
Pfefferkorn, Kristin. Novalis: A Romantic's Theory of Language and Poetry. New Haven: Yale UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Schlegel, Friedrich. Kritische Ausgabe. Ed. Ernst Behler and Hans Eichner. 35 vols. to date. München: Schöningh, 1958–.Google Scholar
Schor, Naomi. “Dreaming Dissymmetry: Barthes, Foucault, and Sexual Difference.” Men in Feminism. Ed. Jardine, Alice and Smith, Paul. New York: Methuen, 1987. 98110.Google Scholar
Silverman, Kaja. The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988.Google Scholar