Achim von Arnim–Bettine Brentano verh. von Arnim: Briefwechsel by Renate Moering (review)

Never before has the correspondence of these two major figures of the Romantic Era been published in its entirety. Previous editions are flawed by misreadings of the handwriting, “corrected” punctuation and orthography, omission of passages and entire letters deemed too intimate and personal. For the present complete edition, Renate Moering has newly edited 838 letters directly from manuscript, most of which are in the collections of the Goethe Museum in Frankfurt. The correspondence commences at the time they first met in 1802 and continues to the time of Arnim’s death in 1831. The only pauses in the exchange took place during the three years immediately following their marriage in 1811, a time when they were living together in Berlin or in Arnim’s family estate.

When called upon to explain the difference between the designation of the literary period and the popular use of the term “romantic,” we teachers may well communicate the impression that the Romantics were not very romantic. Beth Darlington, in her edition of The Love Letters of William and Mary Wordsworth (Cornell UP, 2009), collected thirty-one letters that William Wordsworth exchanged with his wife, Mary, not during the years immediately following their marriage in 1802, but eight and ten years later during William’s absences from home in 1810 and 1812. In her introduction and headnotes, Darlington describes the setting and biographical context for each letter. Among their topics, the Wordsworths discuss village life, Regency politics, poetry and painting, London gossip, family anecdotes, activities and antics of their five children. In addition to practical concerns, the letters turn as well to their physical and emotional needs for each other, expressing in tender passages the love and happiness they share. In this correspondence, Wordsworth is no longer the impetuous young man who had impregnated his French tutor before the fifth week of lessons commenced. Revealing how thoroughly Wordsworth shared his feelings and passions with Mary, Darlington’s edition provides a model of the Romantic love letter as a genre of comprehensive range.

Where else might we turn for examples of the genre? Lord Byron wrote letters of ardent desires and tumultuous passion, but few or none that express a deeper, abiding love. Even when collated with The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 3 vols., edited by Betty T. Bennett (The Johns Hopkins UP, 1980), The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 vols., edited by Frederick L. Jones (Oxford UP, 1964), reveal more of their mutual intellectual concerns, less of their shared passions. Mary Shelley had other experiences similar to Bettine von Arnim. Both wives gained a literary reputation as extensive as their husband’s; both turned to the novel as their preferred literary genre; both lost their husbands early; and both took on the responsibility of editing their husbands’ literary work. The correspondence of Arnim and Bettine stands apart from other collections of literary love letters, most especially in its sheer size—838 letters, in contrast to the fifteen letters from William to Mary and the sixteen from her to him, all of them sent during the periods of absence. The number of letters is significant, because love letters are seldom written or sent when the lovers are together. Unlike the Wordsworths, the Arnims were apart far more often than they were together.

As a student, Arnim studied physics first at Halle, then at Göttingen, publishing significant work in the newly emergent field of electricity and magnetism. His friendship with Clemens Brentano prompted his turn from science to literature. Brentano persuaded Arnim to visit the family home in Frankfurt am Main, where he introduced his friend to his sister. Bettine was the daughter of a well-established merchant; Arnim—the scion of Prussian nobility. Although the letters of October and November 1802 are playful and self-consciously literary, there was a shy reserve and a fear that their feelings were unnoticed, unreciprocated. Clemens, endeavoring to bring the two closer...