Dramen (Gesamtausgabe) (review)

Goethe Yearbook 321 Jahrmarktsfest zu Plundersweilern. She also loved the theater and engaged troupes whenever possible. And, last but not least, her inteUectual curiosity made her an unportant member of several Weimar societies and social gatherings. If Werner's biography is so entertaining and colorful, it is due to the fact that Anna AmaUa's story is embedded in the larger context of the city of Weünar. Werner provides information on everyday Ufe, contemporary fashion and cosmetics, and social and cultural history. She introduces us to Weünar's inteUectual leaders, to amusing WeUnar gossip and anecdotes, as weU as to major poUtical events. At tunes, however , Werner's desire to make her book accessible to non-academic readers leads to simplifications and easy generaUzations. Furthermore, the wealth of background information occasionaUy threatens to obfuscate the mam subject of the study. Thus, we lack proof where we most want it. Werner's claim, for example, that Anna AmaUa saw her son Carl August as partner substitute and that his coming of age catapulted her into an identity crisis remanÃ-s largely unsubstantiated. Instead of taking recourse to Oedipal feelings, one could easUy assume that, after sixteen years as regent, Anna AmaUa simply dreaded the loss of her poUtical power. In spite of such occasional shortcomings, Werner's biography is an unportant work. Not only does it ful many gaps in our knowledge of Goethe's duchess, it is also very weU suited to introducing this interesting personaUty to the wide readership she deserves. Mount Holyoke College Elisabeth Krimmer Charlotte von Stem, Dramen (Gesamtausgabe), ed. Susanne Kord. Frühe Frauenliteratur Ui Deutschland, vol. 15. HUdesheün, Zurich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1998. 280 pp. If Christiane von Goethe has been relatively invisible Ui the Goethe scholarship, precisely the opposite is true for Charlotte von Stem. Although her letters to Goethe are not extant, presumably because she destroyed them, nevertheless her voice survived in other parts of her correspondence. This volume now attempts to recover her Uidividual identity independent of her relation to Goethe. It contains her four extant dramatic works and an introduction that identifies issues in the plays other than the weU-studied ones of how they reflect on her feelings about Goethe. The plays are, m order, Rino (1776), Dido (1794), Neues Freiheitssystem oder Die Verschwörung gegen die Liebe (1798) and Die zwei Emilien (1800). Only the last was pubUshed during Stem's lifetime—through SchUler's mediation with Cotta Ui 1803. The first two were pubUshed Ui the late 19th century in Adolf SchöU's edition of Goethe's letters to Stem; Dido had already been pubUshed separately by the indefatigable Heinrich Düntzer. Neues Freiheitssystem, unfortunately, is known Ui print only through two apparently extensive adaptations by dtfferent (male) editors; the original is Ui the Goethe- 322 Book Reviews Schüler archive in WeUnar but the text is represented here by the most recent adaptation. Because this is a photo-reprint each play has the separate pagination of the edition from which it was taken; the editor's notes Ui these originals are not included. Rino is a four-page Knittelvers pasquüle on Goethe's popularity at the WeUnar court shortly after his arrival. The cast consists of Rino (to be played, the manuscript specifies, by Goethe) and four adoring ladies , to be played by Anna AmaUa and Charlotte von Stem, among others . The women squabble over him for two scenes, then discover that he has been leading aU of them on when each produces her own billet doux. RUio is one of the bards included m Goethe's translation from Ossian m Werther; the women associate him with Werther; the women's names are typical of the sentimental Ritterdramen of the period . Thus even without the specifications about the cast, it is difficult not to read this as a text primarily about Goethe and Stein's attitude toward him. The introduction does not specify whether Rino was actuaUy performed, but it is perhaps more interesting m the current chmate of criticism to examine it as an example of Weimar court culture: its groupie-ness, its cult of sentimentaUty, its cattiness, its...