Victorian Women Writers and the Other Germany: Cross-Cultural Freedoms and Female Opportunity by Linda K. Hughes (review)

IF 0.3 3区 社会学 0 HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Joanne Shattock
{"title":"Victorian Women Writers and the Other Germany: Cross-Cultural Freedoms and Female Opportunity by Linda K. Hughes (review)","authors":"Joanne Shattock","doi":"10.1353/vpr.2023.a937156","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\n<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Victorian Women Writers and the Other Germany: Cross-Cultural Freedoms and Female Opportunity</em> by Linda K. Hughes <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Joanne Shattock (bio) </li> </ul> Linda K. Hughes, <em>Victorian Women Writers and the Other Germany: Cross-Cultural Freedoms and Female Opportunity</em> ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. xiv + 282, $99.99/ £75.00 hardcover. <p>Returning from a trip to Germany in 1841, Elizabeth Gaskell recalled her surprise and delight in meeting Mary Howitt in Heidelberg, not least because the Quaker author was dressed in colourful satin and sported a leghorn bonnet with drooping white feathers. More than a decade later, Marian Evans—in Weimar on what was, in effect, her honeymoon with George Henry Lewes—observed with interest that women attended the theatre unaccompanied, something unimaginable in London at that time. A country that permitted such personal freedom, whether sartorial or more substantial, proved attractive to successive Englishwomen, Linda K. Hughes argues in her wide-ranging and impressively researched new book, <em>Victorian Women Writers and the Other Germany: Cross-Cultural Freedoms and Female Opportunity</em>. Hughes selects ten women writers whose travels in Germany from the 1830s through the first decade of the twentieth century engendered a sense of freedom, both personal and intellectual, and created opportunities that were not available at home. Some, like Gaskell, Howitt, and the future George Eliot, travelled with partners and children. Others, like Anna Jameson, Jessie Fothergill, Michael Field (the pen name of Katherine Bradley and her niece Edith Cooper), and Amy Levy, travelled on their own. At the end of the century, Elizabeth von Arnim and Vernon Lee encountered Germany as expatriates, bringing a transnational perspective to the experience.</p> <p>The \"other\" Germany of Hughes's title is the Germany of talented, independent women and their circles, from whom each generation of English-women <strong>[End Page 676]</strong> directly or indirectly benefited. The first chapter, on Anna Jameson, Ottilie Von Goethe, and their \"women's network,\" describes the impact of Goethe's gifted daughter-in-law on Jameson. Theirs was one of the great women's friendships of the nineteenth century, as Hughes recounts. Her research reveals a passionate Jameson, in love with Ottilie, devotedly caring for the latter's illegitimate child, and writing <em>Social Life in Germany</em> (1840) in collaboration with her. Mary Howitt spent three years in Germany with her husband William, making contacts that would later prove useful in <em>Howitt's Journal</em> (1847–48). Their daughter Anna Mary Howitt was an art student in Munich, taking private tuition from a professor at the university because women were not permitted to register. Installments of her memoir, <em>An Art-Student in Munich</em> (1853), were published in the <em>Ladies' Companion, Household Words</em>, and the <em>Athenaeum</em>. Elizabeth Gaskell returned to Germany accompanied by two of her daughters in the late 1850s and published two stories arising from her experience: \"The Grey Woman,\" serialized in <em>All the Year Round</em> in January 1861, and \"Six Weeks at Heppenheim,\" published in the <em>Cornhill</em> in May 1862.</p> <p>Of Hughes's ten subjects, George Eliot had the longest association with Germany, visiting it first with Lewes in 1854 and returning more than eight times, the last in 1880—ironically on her second honeymoon, this time with John Cross. Hughes points out that Marian Evans's hesitancy with spoken German, in contrast to her scholarly competence in the language, meant that she initially relied on Lewes to interpret daily conversation. His German was fluent; moreover, he had established contacts with male writers and intellectuals in earlier visits, leaving Marian to make inane conversation with the women, as she complained in a letter to her friend Caroline Hennell. What began as a negative impression of Germany and the Germans changed once her language skills improved. Meanwhile, her reading and reviewing continued apace. Hughes teases out Eliot's complicated response to the poet Heine and in particular his Jewishness, part of an intellectual journey that would culminate with <em>Daniel Deronda</em>. She discussed Heine in two reviews for the <em>Leader</em>, for which Lewes was the literary editor, and in the <em>Westminster Review</em> article \"German Wit: Heinrich Heine\" in January 1856. Her <em>Leader</em> reviews, though anonymous, were acknowledged as hers in the metropolitan circles in which she and Lewes moved...</p> </p>","PeriodicalId":44337,"journal":{"name":"Victorian Periodicals Review","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Victorian Periodicals Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.2023.a937156","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • Victorian Women Writers and the Other Germany: Cross-Cultural Freedoms and Female Opportunity by Linda K. Hughes
  • Joanne Shattock (bio)
Linda K. Hughes, Victorian Women Writers and the Other Germany: Cross-Cultural Freedoms and Female Opportunity ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. xiv + 282, $99.99/ £75.00 hardcover.

Returning from a trip to Germany in 1841, Elizabeth Gaskell recalled her surprise and delight in meeting Mary Howitt in Heidelberg, not least because the Quaker author was dressed in colourful satin and sported a leghorn bonnet with drooping white feathers. More than a decade later, Marian Evans—in Weimar on what was, in effect, her honeymoon with George Henry Lewes—observed with interest that women attended the theatre unaccompanied, something unimaginable in London at that time. A country that permitted such personal freedom, whether sartorial or more substantial, proved attractive to successive Englishwomen, Linda K. Hughes argues in her wide-ranging and impressively researched new book, Victorian Women Writers and the Other Germany: Cross-Cultural Freedoms and Female Opportunity. Hughes selects ten women writers whose travels in Germany from the 1830s through the first decade of the twentieth century engendered a sense of freedom, both personal and intellectual, and created opportunities that were not available at home. Some, like Gaskell, Howitt, and the future George Eliot, travelled with partners and children. Others, like Anna Jameson, Jessie Fothergill, Michael Field (the pen name of Katherine Bradley and her niece Edith Cooper), and Amy Levy, travelled on their own. At the end of the century, Elizabeth von Arnim and Vernon Lee encountered Germany as expatriates, bringing a transnational perspective to the experience.

The "other" Germany of Hughes's title is the Germany of talented, independent women and their circles, from whom each generation of English-women [End Page 676] directly or indirectly benefited. The first chapter, on Anna Jameson, Ottilie Von Goethe, and their "women's network," describes the impact of Goethe's gifted daughter-in-law on Jameson. Theirs was one of the great women's friendships of the nineteenth century, as Hughes recounts. Her research reveals a passionate Jameson, in love with Ottilie, devotedly caring for the latter's illegitimate child, and writing Social Life in Germany (1840) in collaboration with her. Mary Howitt spent three years in Germany with her husband William, making contacts that would later prove useful in Howitt's Journal (1847–48). Their daughter Anna Mary Howitt was an art student in Munich, taking private tuition from a professor at the university because women were not permitted to register. Installments of her memoir, An Art-Student in Munich (1853), were published in the Ladies' Companion, Household Words, and the Athenaeum. Elizabeth Gaskell returned to Germany accompanied by two of her daughters in the late 1850s and published two stories arising from her experience: "The Grey Woman," serialized in All the Year Round in January 1861, and "Six Weeks at Heppenheim," published in the Cornhill in May 1862.

Of Hughes's ten subjects, George Eliot had the longest association with Germany, visiting it first with Lewes in 1854 and returning more than eight times, the last in 1880—ironically on her second honeymoon, this time with John Cross. Hughes points out that Marian Evans's hesitancy with spoken German, in contrast to her scholarly competence in the language, meant that she initially relied on Lewes to interpret daily conversation. His German was fluent; moreover, he had established contacts with male writers and intellectuals in earlier visits, leaving Marian to make inane conversation with the women, as she complained in a letter to her friend Caroline Hennell. What began as a negative impression of Germany and the Germans changed once her language skills improved. Meanwhile, her reading and reviewing continued apace. Hughes teases out Eliot's complicated response to the poet Heine and in particular his Jewishness, part of an intellectual journey that would culminate with Daniel Deronda. She discussed Heine in two reviews for the Leader, for which Lewes was the literary editor, and in the Westminster Review article "German Wit: Heinrich Heine" in January 1856. Her Leader reviews, though anonymous, were acknowledged as hers in the metropolitan circles in which she and Lewes moved...

维多利亚时代的女作家与另一个德国:琳达-K.-休斯(Linda K. Hughes)所著的《跨文化自由与女性机遇》(评论
以下是内容的简要摘录,以代替摘要:评论者: 维多利亚时代的女作家与另一个德国:Linda K. Hughes 著,《维多利亚时代的女作家与另一个德国:跨文化自由与女性机会》(剑桥:剑桥大学出版社,2012 年):跨文化自由与女性机遇》(剑桥:剑桥大学出版社,2022 年),第 xiv + 282 页,精装版售价 99.99 美元/75.00 英镑。1841 年,伊丽莎白-盖斯凯尔从德国旅行归来,回忆起她在海德堡见到玛丽-豪伊特时的惊讶和喜悦,尤其是因为这位贵格会女作家身着色彩斑斓的绸缎,头戴一顶白色羽毛下垂的鸽子帽。十多年后,玛丽安-埃文斯(Marian Evans)在魏玛与乔治-亨利-卢斯(George Henry Lewes)度蜜月时,饶有兴趣地注意到女性在无人陪伴的情况下观看戏剧,这在当时的伦敦是难以想象的。琳达-K.-休斯(Linda K. Hughes)在其内容广泛、研究深入的新书《维多利亚时代的女作家和另一个德国》中指出,一个允许这种个人自由(无论是服饰自由还是更多的实质自由)的国家对历代英国女性具有吸引力:跨文化自由与女性机遇》。休斯选取了十位女作家,从十九世纪三十年代到二十世纪头十年,她们在德国的旅行为她们带来了个人和思想上的自由感,并创造了在国内无法获得的机会。有些人,如盖斯凯尔、豪伊特和未来的乔治-艾略特,与伴侣和孩子一起旅行。其他人,如安娜-詹姆逊、杰西-福瑟吉尔、迈克尔-菲尔德(凯瑟琳-布拉德利及其侄女伊迪丝-库珀的笔名)和艾米-李维,则独自旅行。世纪末,伊丽莎白-冯-阿尼姆和弗农-李以侨民的身份邂逅德国,为这段经历带来了跨国视角。休斯笔下的 "另一个 "德国,是才华横溢、独立自主的女性及其圈子的德国,每一代英国女性 [完 676 页] 都直接或间接地受益于她们。第一章介绍了安娜-詹姆逊、奥蒂丽-冯-歌德及其 "女性网络",描述了歌德的天才儿媳对詹姆逊的影响。正如休斯所描述的,她们是 19 世纪最伟大的女性友谊之一。她的研究揭示了一个充满激情的詹姆逊,他爱上了奥蒂丽,全心全意照顾后者的私生子,并与她合作撰写了《德国社会生活》(1840 年)一书。玛丽-豪威特(Mary Howitt)与丈夫威廉一起在德国生活了三年,建立了一些联系,这些联系后来在《豪威特札记》(1847-1848 年)中被证明是有用的。他们的女儿安娜-玛丽-豪威特(Anna Mary Howitt)是慕尼黑的一名艺术系学生,因为当时不允许女性注册,所以她在大学里接受教授的私人指导。她的回忆录《慕尼黑的艺术学生》(1853 年)在《女士伴侣》(Ladies' Companion)、《家常话》(Household Words)和《雅典娜》(Athenaeum)上陆续发表。19 世纪 50 年代末,伊丽莎白-盖斯凯尔在两个女儿的陪同下返回德国,并发表了两篇由她的经历创作的故事:1861年1月在《All the Year Round》上连载的 "The Grey Woman "和1862年5月在《Cornhill》上发表的 "Six Weeks at Heppenheim"。在休斯笔下的十位主人公中,乔治-艾略特与德国的交往时间最长,她于 1854 年与卢斯一起首次访问德国,之后又回访德国八次以上,最后一次是在 1880 年--讽刺的是,这次是她与约翰-克罗斯第二次度蜜月。休斯指出,玛丽安-埃文斯对德语口语犹豫不决,这与她的学术能力形成鲜明对比,这意味着她最初要依靠卢斯来翻译日常对话。卢斯的德语非常流利,而且他在之前的访问中已经与男性作家和知识分子建立了联系,因此玛丽安只能与女性进行无趣的交谈,她在写给朋友卡罗琳-亨内尔的信中这样抱怨道。随着语言能力的提高,她对德国和德国人最初的负面印象也随之改变。与此同时,她的阅读和评论工作仍在继续。休斯揭示了艾略特对诗人海涅,尤其是他的犹太身份的复杂反应,这也是以丹尼尔-德兰达(Daniel Deronda)为顶点的思想之旅的一部分。她在卢斯担任文学编辑的《领导者》的两篇评论以及《威斯敏斯特评论》的 "德国智慧 "一文中讨论了海涅:Heinrich Heine "一文。她的《领导者》评论虽然是匿名的,但在她和卢斯所在的大都市圈子里却被公认为是她的作品...
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
Victorian Periodicals Review
Victorian Periodicals Review HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信