Lessing, Goethe, Kleist and the Transformation of Gender: From Hermaphrodite to Amazon (review)

236 Book Reviews Eleanor E. ter Horst, Lessing, Goethe, Kleist and the Transformation of Gender: From Hermaphrodite to Amazon. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. 210 pp. This book is a study in gender contrast and the development of gender definition at a juncture which the author views as critical for the history of shaded sexual definition. After setting forth the theoretical assumptions underlying her study, ter Horst analyzes selected characters in two or three dramas of Lessing. She continues with Goethe's WUhelm Meister and finishes with Kleist's Penthesilea. Reference to other works of each writer, including the Hamburgische Dramaturgie of Lessing and selected plays of Goethe, provide added dimension to her view of literary figures from some of the most famUiar works of the eighteenth-century literary canon. Ter Horst bases her analysis on such sources as Thomas Laqueur's books on gender, Page duBois's Centaurs and Amazons (1982), Judith Butler's discussions of contemporary feminism, and Ute Frevert's book entitled "Mann und Weib und Weib und Mann": Geschlechter-Differenzen in der Moderne (1995). Commenting on her use of Butler and Laqueur, ter Horst says: "Both Laqueur's and Butler's theories are anti-essentialist in that they problematize the Unk between biological sex and gender roles, pointing instead to the cultural construction of gender. At the same time, each relies on a different paradigm —in Laqueur's case history, in Butler's case the performative—to explain the persistence of certain concepts of gender" (175). Ter Horst approaches this famUiar German Uterature by applying elements from both theorists. As she fürther states in the concluding chapter, "The Uterary texts of Lessing, Goethe and Kleist adapt and transform the discourse of their time concerning gender, the body, and economic transactions.These works are also Ui dialogue with other Uterature, with contemporaneous as weU as classical texts" (175). Thus she has undertaken the arduous task of looking to both classical and modern sources to explain gender in their drama or fiction. As concerns the ancient past, Lessing, Goethe and Kleist themselves certainly had access to texts from that time, although how many and through what sources is not clear. The conclusions of modern classical scholars cited here present a smaU sampling from a field rich Ui new gender and cultural studies. Quotations Ui ter Horst's book are not always from primary Greek texts, but from their modern interpreters. An understanding of classical antiquity remains essential for a complete view of the heritage enjoyed by writers Ui the German eighteenth century. Thus, comparison between the German classical writers and those of the ancient world, for example ter Horst's consideration of the role of Homer's Iliad in Penthesilea, are informative throughout the book. Ter Horst suggests that our ideas about gender evolved from the long-standing one-sex definition of the historical past to a two-sex gender conception, which was actuaUy evolving Ui the eighteenth century itself. Quoting Karin Hausens 1976 essay Ui an anthology entitled Sozialgeschichte der Familie in der Neuzeit Europas (367), ter Horst paraphrases: "Polarized gender roles did not begin to emerge until the late eighteenth century. The rise of the bourgeois famtfy and the exclusion of women from the pubUc sphere coincided with the development of a new discourse around gender characteristics. Women were increasingly characterized as passive and emotional, suited for domestic duties and excluded from the realms of poUtics and the outside world. These were reserved for men, who supposedly embodied the opposite quaUties of activity and rationaUty" (2-3)· Goethe Yearbook 237 After establishing these and other frameworks for her study, ter Horst discusses Miss Sara Sampson and Minna von Barnhelm, particularly women who exhibit masculine traits. When she continues with WUhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, she is careful to explain her choice of genre, since this is the only novel she considers.There is a wealth of material for the exploration of gender identities in Goethe's inexhaustible book and the other works of Goethe, primarily dramas, which it suggests. Notable among the female figures ter Horst considers is, of course, Mignon. Thérèse and Natalie also figure prominently along with others, and many of their male...