Spirited Women Heroes: Major Female Characters in the Dramas of Goethe, Schiller and Kleist (review)

John M. Ellis 365 wird der Interpret auf 'Symmetrien' stoßen. Es besteht demnach kein Anlaß, Un 'Tagebuch' ein von Goethe bewußt symmetrisch gegliedertes Gedicht zu sehen" (S. 111). Obgleich gelegentlich von einem "Gedicht" die Rede ist, behandelt Dietrich Das Tagebuch in erster Linie als VersnoveUe, deren Erzähler er mit Goethe identifiziert (S. 84). Was dieser Untersuchung gänzlich ermangelt, ist ein Sinn für die Ironie und die äußerste Reflektiertheit dieses Textes, dessen eigentlicher Gegenstand ja nicht das erotische Abenteuer ist, wie Dietrich meint, sondern die erotische Dichtung selbst. Smith College Hans Rudolf Vaget Prandi, Julie, Spirited Women Heroes: Major Female Characters in the Dramas of Goeüie, Schiller and Kleist. New York, Frankfurt, Bern: Peter Lang, 1983 (American University Studies, Series I, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 22). This book examines the plays by Goethe, SchUIer and Kleist which have female title roles: lphigenie, Die natürliche Tochter, Maria Stuart, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, Penthesilea, and Das Kätheben von Heilbronn. In diem, die autiior finds that "a dramatic type emerges that may be called the spirited woman hero" (p. 2). This type is to be understood against the background of "attitudes that were considered an expression of 'femininity' in the eighteenth century: passivity, dependence, self-denial, over-emotionality ... women are expected to stay out of public affairs, to marry, and to be submissive" (p. 121). Prandi's conclusion is not too surprising: examining spirited women in Goethe, Schiller and Kleist she finds diat "alt question some of the norms for feminine passivity and obedience, and that there is some experimentation with public roles for women" (pp. 121—2). In addition to this overall general purpose of die study Prandi also announces that "a subordinate purpose of this study is to reinterpret the individual dramas" (p. 3). In evaluating the contribution of this monograph to the study of the dramas of Goedie, SchiUer and Kleist, tiierefore, one must examine the value both of the general thesis, and of die specific interpretative discussions of die individual texts. FUst, as to die general theme of the study: The major problem here is that it is so general as to mean very little in relation to the specific material considered. The attitude to femininity which Prandi attributes to eighteenth-century Germany is scarcely one that is specific to it, for it is the basis of the stereotype that is familiar throughout many ages and countries. When Prandi laboriously cites contemporary Goethezeit statements to pin down the specific social attitudes of die time reflected in these plays, it is all too obvious that they look very un-speeffic indeed; there was no need to pretend diat an unfamUiar eighteenth-century background needed to be explained. And, likewise, the examples in these plays of partial transgression against the stereotype of women hardly make Goethe, SchiUer and Kleist look unusual: the recurring stereotype is regularly breached both in real life and in plays by unusual women in other times 366 GOETHE SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA and countries. The general diesis of die book is tiierefore not very productive. If one made die statement that Goethe, SchiUer and Kleist aU wrote plays, that would obviously be true, but so general as to be of little value: it is true of aU dramatists. But does one do much more than this in saying that these three dramatists aU wrote dramas in which women characters reflect both the famiUar social limitations placed on diem by die traditional stereotypes of their role, and die equaUy familiar attempts by a minority to transcend these limitations? StUl, the study might have some value if its author's careful attention to diese issues in die dramas led to enlightening new interpretations of the plays. But here too, Prandi is disappointing. There are two major problems: first, Prandi evidentiy has not done her homework and is very far from being up with the latest state of the art as far as interpretation of these plays is concerned. It is difficult to reorient die interpretation of die plays—to reinterpret diem—ff one does not know the previous work that would need to be reoriented. For example: in the decade...