Narrated Gender and Narrative Gendering in the German Novel (1680-1730)
Narrated Gender and Narrative Gendering in the German Novel (1680-1730) |
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The German novel between the Baroque and Enlightenment is generally treated only marginally in German Studies. Nevertheless there are a large number of texts which focus on the representation of womanhood from a positive point of view. The novels are media for narrated gender and narrative gendering. The PhD project describes the diverse range of these fictions of womanhood within their ambiguous narrative structures and potentials. On this note the project focuses on the interweaving of gender and genre. During this period (1680-1730) the novel is has no clear standing within the traditions of and debates on genres: it is an 'unregulated genre'. While the novel is quite in vogue in public, the theoretical value of this genre remains ambiguous until Blanckenburgs 'Romantheorie' in 1774. Nevertheless many authors – not only canonical authors like von Birken, Beer, Thomasius etc. but also marginalised authors like Bohse, Hunold, Rost – had previously emphasized the value of the genre. Referring to the tradition of the French novel, they import and modify not only theoretical impulses of the genre but also some gender-specific implications of this French tradition of 'precieuse novels', novels in many cases written by women. The PhD project offers an understanding of these interweaving subjects as gender and genre in the different national traditions.