The Guises of Modesty: Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's Female Artists by Ferrel V. Rose (review)

206Rocky Mountain Review FERREL V. ROSE. The Guises of Modesty: Marie von EbnerEschenbach 's Female Artists. Columbia: Camden House, 1994. 213 p. 1 he significance of gender in Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's development as a writer and in the critical evaluation of her work is a major focus of this study. Ferrel Rose offers numerous examples of the strong influence of Ebner-Eschenbach's male colleagues and reviewers in matters ranging from the production of her dramas and the publication of her fiction to the assessment of her writings in reviews and literary histories. The Guises ofModesty proceeds from the premise of self-censorship. Rose argues that Ebner-Eschenbach's efforts to seek approval within the literary establishment led her to censor unacceptable themes and figures from her work. Rose identifies the female artist as one of these censored characters, noting that the lack of success of her first publications featuring women as artists prompted Ebner-Eschenbach to disguise female artists and their problems in ways more appealing to the literary public: as male artists, craftswomen, dilettantes, or Lebenskünstlerinnen (experts in the art of living). The Guises of Modesty consists of six chapters, three of which focus on longer fictional narratives: Aus Franzensbad (1858), Lotti, die Uhrmacherin (1889), and Meine Kinderjahre (1906). The remaining chapters examine specific aspects of shorter works: Ebner-Eschenbach's depiction of Schiller as artist in the play, Dr. Ritter; split identity in Zwei Comtessen and in the short story, "Ihr Traum"; and satirical impulses in her later writings, "Prinzessin Leiladin," "Die Visite," and "Gouvernantenbriefe." Beginning her study with Aus Franzensbad: Sechs Episteln von keinem Propheten, Rose seeks to draw connections between Ebner-Eschenbach's earliest publication and her later writings in order to counter the popular image of Ebner-Eschenbach as "poetess of charity" (Dichterin der Güte). Aus Franzensbad is an epistolary narrative, published anonymously in 1858, comprised of travel letters sent from a Bohemian spa by a patient to her doctor and his critical replies. Rose explores Ebner-Eschenbach's ambivalent representation of the patient/narrator as a superficial aristocratic woman who is simultaneously a critical observer of society and an adept satirist with literary ambitions. The narrator's apologetic statements and excessive literary allusion in Aus Franzensbad are revealed as attempts to counter her anxiety concerning her reception as a woman writer. Rose subsequently links these trends to Ebner-Eschenbach's own struggles as a female author. The use of classical allusion denotes a tension permeating all of Ebner-Eschenbach's writing between her indebtedness to the patriarchal cultural heritage and its inadequacy for the female artist" (51). In the next chapter Rose examines the effect of Ebner-Eschenbach's unsuccessful attempts to gain acceptance as a dramatist on her development as a writer, noting that Ebner-Eschenbach internalized the values and terms of her male critics. To Rose the author's choice of Schiller as protagonist in Doctor Ritter demonstrates both Ebner-Eschenbach's indebtedness to the classical poet she most admired as well as her identification with the theme of the artist's struggle between life and art. Book Reviews207 Rose's analysis of Lotti, die Uhrmacherin in the third chapter calls attention to the diminution evident in the text and to the dissonance of the apparently harmonious happy ending. Although she reads the diminution and reduction perceptible in the characters and plot structure of Lotti as signs of the author's self-imposed modesty, she also suggests that EbnerEschenbach 's self-deprecation is undermined by her emphasis on the small vital components of life and nature. "Critics extolling Ebner-Eschenbach's modesty are wont to overlook the self-importance and assertiveness underlying her upgrading of smaller powers" (98). Rose interprets the conclusion of the novella as an illustration of Ebner-Eschenbach's accommodation to conservative social pressures. By emphasizing that Lotti's choice of marriage and motherhood is based on resignation and self-sacrifice, Rose exposes the supposedly happy ending as forced and unfulfilling. Rose's emphasis throughout the book on female artists in EbnerEschenbach 's works is complicated by the fact that, as noted in the text, there are very few works after Ebner-Eschenbach's...