The Male Muses of Romanticism: The Poetics of Gender in Novalis, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Eichendorf1

Women, Women Writers, and Early German Romanticism

“…The generative power of women is appropriated by men for their creative endeavors, after which women themselves become superfluous. 58 The achievement of lost wholeness that the early German romantics depict as the goal of the male subject, epitomized by the male artist, is not a goal they envision for women. In fact, in one fragment Novalis explicitly asks: "Is woman the goal of the man, and is woman without a goal?"…”

“…Some commentators argue that Romanticism describes "competing discourses on gender[,]" using female voices and perspectives to critique the dominant, male-centered model. 92 Indeed, on one view, a central purpose of early German Romanticism is to perform a self-critique of masculine culture. 93 From the outset, the early German romantics presented the goal of the individual's reunification with aspects of the world it experiences as outside itself as a regulative ideal rather than something that could actually be realized.…”

“…For example, in Henry of Ofterdingen, Mathilde supposedly mediates unity and artistic development to Henry, but is repeatedly presented as a "projection" of her father Klingsohr. 102 She teaches guitar to Henry, but emphasizes that she learned it from her father; Henry first notices and is attracted not to Mathilde but to Klingsohr; and Mathilde seems to be "the spirit of her father in the loveliest disguise." 103 Helfer also points out the importance of male narration in Henry of Ofterdingen and the paucity of female narratives.…”

“…language written, spoken or sung by men-[...] is the inspiration, source, and ground of Romantic poesy[,]" and the novel "works to expose the traditional female poetic groundwoman and her voices-as constructed within and controlled by a male representational system." 105 According to Helfer, Novalis' re-gendering of the "originary poetic ground" as male-and corresponding feminization of the poet Henry-is deliberate, and aims to draw attention to what Helfer describes as Romanticism's "constructedness of gender and subjectivity within its own patriarchal representational system." 106 In other words, Novalis recognizes his status as a man writing from a man's perspective and, consistently with early German romantic ideas about communication, rather than attempting to complete the picture by adding the pieces he knows are missing, he instead highlights this inadequacy.…”

“…105 According to Helfer, Novalis' re-gendering of the "originary poetic ground" as male-and corresponding feminization of the poet Henry-is deliberate, and aims to draw attention to what Helfer describes as Romanticism's "constructedness of gender and subjectivity within its own patriarchal representational system." 106 In other words, Novalis recognizes his status as a man writing from a man's perspective and, consistently with early German romantic ideas about communication, rather than attempting to complete the picture by adding the pieces he knows are missing, he instead highlights this inadequacy. As Helfer puts it: Novalis as male author writes woman's originary poetic voice as mediated by man, as ultimately unnecessary to man.…”