In my radio show (listen here), I discussed some life events of Louise Brachmann and especially her narrative "The Artist" [Die Künstlerin] with my guest author, Anke Gebert. By the time this particular narrative was published in four parts from January 18th to January 25th, 1816, in the literary magazine Der Sammler [The Collector] by the Viennese publisher Anton Strauß, the author was already an established and widely read writer.
With the confidence of being able to present her readers with another variation of her existential inquiries, she presented them with the ingredients of ideal love between a man and a woman: "The happiness that is talked and written about so much, and yet so few really know." [„Des Glücks, von dem so viel gesprochen und geschrieben wird und das dennoch so Wenige nur kennen.“] The love conjured in the narrative promises and demands a better world, explicitly opening the possibility of a "different," egalitarian social order.
In an era when women in society were reduced to their roles as housewives and mothers, and even denied a soul and thus their humanity[1], the author Louise Brachmann developed a utopia of gender equality[2] in her narrative. Not only that, but she also depicted a woman who realized herself as an artist in the public sphere of society and a man who unconditionally loved her with all her "human" qualities and desires. It is hard for us today to truly grasp how incredibly revolutionary and unusual such an independent, artistic woman in public life of the late 18th century would have been. However, through personal experiences, Brachmann knew all too well how alien she was to her contemporaries as a female writer, yet she portrayed her protagonist, "The Artist" [Die Künstlerin], in the most beautiful colors. Thus, the author reveals through her heroine the impressive strength of a woman who does not give up her dearest wishes and boldest dreams, transcending the boundaries of societal norms and continuously searching for her true self.
In her youth, Brachmann witnessed the French Revolution, and into adulthood, her life was marked by the tremendous societal upheavals, the unromantic realities of the Coalition Wars, and the Wars of Liberation. During this period, she experienced unprecedented possibilities for herself as a woman but also a gradual disillusionment that women, in general, underwent after the time of the revolution due to the restrictive Women's Rights Code of Napoleon (1807, and Code Civil from 1804) and the beginning of the Restoration (from 1815). Therefore, the theme of love in Brachmann's work is a counter-design to the horrors of war, an invocation of death in favor of an equal partnership between man and woman and happiness in life.
Louise Brachmann's literary work is anchored in early Romanticism and, besides concrete political contexts, also critically deals with the Enlightenment and rational worldview of her contemporaries. At the same time, she explores the romantic love and the real possibilities of such “original love” to the utmost. Her preferred genres are narratives, fairy tales, and poetry, with the boundaries between the two genres of fairy tales and narratives often being fluid in her works. Even today, Louise Brachmann is highly regarded for her poetry, but especially her narratives, fairy tales, legends, and sagas, which were particularly successful during her lifetime. Modern literary scholars, such as Sigrid Lange or Shawn Jarvis, who recently published a collection of fairy tales by German-speaking female authors, with Brachmann's titular fairy tale Im Reich der Wünsche [“In the Realm of Desire”] as well as the reissue of Prinzessin Nachtschatten [“Princess Nightshade”] by the editor Hans Dietmar Sievers, engage with her unique genre of fairy tales. During her lifetime, Louise Brachmann published her poetry and prose in all major literary magazines and almanacs, as well as a total of 12 books. Posthumously, two more anthologies were published from her estate by her good friend Karl Schütz. Her large circle of friends, which included authors such as Helmina de Chézy (1783-1856), Caroline Pichler (1769-1843), Dorothea Schlegel (1764-1839), Benedikte Naubert (1752-1819) and Sophie Mereau-Brentano (1770-1806) as well as Sidonie von Hardenberg and Novalis, Schiller, Friedrich and August Schlegel, among many others, played a crucial role in her success as a writer.
The reception of Louise Brachmann's literature has been overshadowed retrospectively by a narrative of painful life events, unhappy love stories, and her manner of death, more so than with almost any other female writer. Her suicide on September 17th, 1822, when she drowned herself in the Saale River in Halle, has contributed to the enduring image of this writer as a tragic, lovesick "Sappho," more than her literature actually allows and deserves.
[1] See: Gössmann's overview of the "scholarly" discussion of the pros and cons of women being human, with texts from the 16th to late 18th centuries: Gössmann, Elisabeth (Ed.). Ob die Weiber Menschen seyn, oder nicht? [“Whether Women are Human or not“]. Archiv für Philosophie und Theologiegeschichtliche Frauenforschung. Band 4. 2. Ausgabe. [Archive for philosophy and theological history of women's research. Volume 4. 2nd edition.] Munich: Iudicium, 1996. [2] Brachmann's colleague and friend Sophie Mereau-Brentano had developed a comparable utopia in her novel Das Blüthenalter der Empfindung [“The Flowering Age of Sensation”] in 1794. Listen to the show with Edith Dühl and Sophie Mereau-Brentano here!
