Heroines in Perversity: Marie Schmith, Animal Magnetism, and the Schubert Circle

Abstract

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A symbolic defence of animal magnetism: a copperplate engraving by Ludwig Richter as the frontispiece of the account of the somnambulist Auguste K. (1843)

“…It is probably no exaggeration to say that animal magnetism was the theory which gave the type of medicine generically labelled as Romantic its most characteristic features. 2 In the climate of thought led by the desire to develop a philosophy of Nature, based both on observation and on the use of reason, the doctrine pronounced by Mesmer (and innumerable revisions, particularly by German doctors in the first decades of the nineteenth century) became a matter of passionate interest for the society of the time, and left its stamp on literature, music and the figurative arts (Barkhoff, 1995;Feurzeig, 1997;Wöbkemeier, 1990). In some cases its presence in these areas unrelated to A symbolic defence of animal magnetism: a copperplate engraving by Ludwig Richter as the frontispiece of the account of the somnambulist Auguste K. ( 1843 medicine went well beyond that of a mere motif; rather the reverse -artistic expression was at the service of medical theory.…”