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ABSTRACT
This paper adds to efforts to retrieve the long-neglected philosophical contributions of Karoline von Günderrode (1780–1806), and is one of the first to seriously address the political commitments in Günderrode’s work, especially regarding revolution. This idea gains an unusual status in the context of Günderrode’s metaphysics, and is key to understanding the connections between Günderrode’s more obviously philosophical writings and her literary work. I argue that Günderrode’s concept of revolution resembles, in some respects, the ideas of other thinkers of her time, but has ramifications for conceiving of human individuals and their relationships to society and nature that are unique to Günderrode. First, I use a comparison with the work of contemporaries on revolution to justify interpreting Günderrode’s metaphysics in relation to her thought on politics. Günderrode often masks her political thought in the form of plays, and the paper next considers the theme of revolution in her plays Muhammad, the Prophet of Mecca, and Udohla. Lastly, the paper contrasts Günderrode’s position on revolution to claims by Herder and Fichte, arguing that Günderrode’s conception of a cycle of enhancement and decay of natural forces, political power and social cohesion differs from androcentric models that emphasize the development of consciousness.
Notes
1 E.g. Project Vox (http://projectvox.org); History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org); APA Women in Philosophy (https://blog.apaonline.org/?s=women+in+philosophy); the Oxford New Histories of Philosophy series; Waithe, A History of Women Philosophers; Gardner, Rediscovering Women Philosophers. On the value of attention to historical women philosophers and barriers to doing so, see O’Neil, “Early Modern Women Philosophers”; Tyson, Where Are the Women?
2 Battersby, “Stages on Kant’s Way”; Bohrer, Der romantische Brief; Burdorf, “Diese Sehnsucht”; Christmann, Zwischen Identitätsgewinn und Bewußtseinsverlust; Dormann, Kunst des inneren Sinns; Ezekiel, “Metamorphosis, Personhood, and Power”; Ezekiel, “Women, Women Writers, and Early German Romanticism”.
3 On ‘gender censorship’, especially regarding Günderrode, see: Becker-Cantarino and Clausen, “Gender Censorship”; Ezekiel, Introduction to Poetic Fragments, 9–15; Hoff, “Geschlecht und Zensur”.
4 On the discussion of what kind of writing counts as philosophy and how this is decided, see Tyson, Where Are The Women? Tyson argues that it is not enough to acknowledge that some historical women meet existing criteria to be considered philosophers, because doing so does not “displace the practices of conferring philosophical authority that exclude women”. Rather, the fact that women have been repeatedly excluded from the history of philosophy should be used to highlight how the borders of philosophy have been drawn specifically to obscure and exclude women’s intellectual work.
5 Günderrode worked on Schelling between 1804 and 1806 (SW III, 338–343). In addition to Bruno, she read Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (1797), Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (1799), System des transcendentalen Idealismus (1800) and Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademischen Studiums (1803).
6 On the moral implications of Günderrode’s metaphysical thought and its differences from Fichte and Schelling, see Nassar, “Human Vocation”.
7 Notes from Herder’s Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität (1794) also appear in Günderrode’s notebooks from 1800–1801 (Hopp and Preitz, “Umwelt III”, 226, 264, 276).
8 Translations my own unless stated otherwise. Translations from “Idea of the Earth” are taken from Gjesdal and Nassar, Women Philosophers; translations from Muhammad, the Prophet of Mecca are taken from Günderrode, Poetic Fragments.
9 Günderrode’s notes on chemistry (SW II, 442f.) demonstrate familiarity with scientific theories underlying claims of parallels between human and chemical relations.
10 Similarly, August Ludwig von Schlözer claims: “I accept not only revolutions of the human species, but also revolutions of the globe, in world history” (Vorstellung seiner Universal-Historie, 348; see also 1, 13, 84, 265–266). See Friedrich Schlegel, “Rede über die Mythologie” (KFSA 2, 322), excerpted in Günderrode‘s study book (SW II, 281).
11 Voltaire’s 1741 play about Mohammed (a foil for his critique of French politics), Le fanatisme, was translated into German and modified by Goethe in 1800. On the relationship of Günderrode’s play to these works, see: Ezekiel, Introduction to “Muhammad”, 124; Hilger, “Staging Islam”, 100, 106; Licher, “A Sceptical Mohammedan”.
12 On Goethe and Günderrode on revitalization, see Hilliard, “Orient und Mythos”.
13 Novalis’ piece was written in 1799 but not published until 1828, so cannot have directly influenced Günderrode. I use it here because it provides a clear overview of Novalis’ model of history.
14 Novalis’ and Günderrode’s accounts are not as starkly different as I present them here, since (a) Novalis’ idea of progress is not straightforwardly linear, but involves a spiral process of repeating the same thing, each time at a higher level, and (b) Günderrode maintains that progress is possible, and this, were it to occur, would also result in a kind of spiral, as new constellations of entities gradually became more animated. I hope the way I have described the two models is helpful for illustrating the underlying difference, i.e. that for Günderrode, unlike Novalis (and others such as Hegel), what is most central is the cyclical, destructive-reconstructive movement of revolution, while progress, if it occurs, is accidental.
15 Translations of Fichte are from Preuss, The Vocation of Mankind.
16 “As nature exalted man, she exalted him to dominion over the Earth” (Herder, Ideen, IV, 239).
17 And Herder, who also claims natural forces are subject to entropy (Ideen, I, 15, VI, 268).