Marriage, Gender, and Desire in Early Enlightenment German Comedy by Edward T. Potter (review)

Considering the three principal terms in Potter's title—gender, German, and comedy—one observes that recent studies tend to treat only one or two of these. Potter, by contrast, links all three entities, focusing on one genre and one decade—German comic drama in the 1740s—in a literary-historical examination of one broad theme, the sentimental marriage. Defined as marriage for love rather than for financial, political, or otherwise utilitarian reasons, the sentimental marriage is in essence still the dominant form of marriage in the West today, although it has of course experienced multiple modifications. Potter's central aim is to elucidate the ramifications of this concept as portrayed in several comedies of the time: J.C. Gottsched's Atalanta (1741), C.F. Gellert's Die zärtlichen Schwestern (1747), J.E. Schlegel's Der Triumph der guten Frauen (1748), G.E. Lessing's Der Misogyne (1748), and Th.J. Quistorp's Der Hypochondrist (1745).

Most of the subjects Potter treats in his investigation of these early Enlightenment comedies take the form of dichotomies, above all, the relationship between the sentimental marriage and sexual desire, the tension between the sentimental marriage and financial considerations, and the conflict between the sentimental marriage and female autonomy. All of these have implications for the preservation of the social order. The role of money in marriage is illuminated, for example, in Gellert's Die zärtlichen Schwestern, in which the marital unions of two daughters succeed because of their own personal attributes despite the fact that their father lacks a dowry for them. Similarly, Lessing's Der Misogyne satirizes the economically driven marriage as well as marriages based solely on sexual desire. This last topic evokes a crucial function attributed to the sentimental marriage in this period: for Gottsched and Gellert, the sentimental marriage is the most effective means of maintaining morality and keeping order in the face of potential sexual chaos.

But among the forces opposing the sentimental marriage, Potter devotes the most attention to female autonomy. The title heroine of Gottsched's pastoral play Atalanta, resolutely averse to marriage, is repeatedly thwarted by the other characters in her attempt to retain her independence as a virgin huntress. As the didactic nature of these plays would have it, she is in the end "tamed" through the revelation of her true identity and moves into her proper position on the threshold of the altar. In a similar manner, the sister called Julchen in Gellert's Die zärtlichen Schwestern insists on her autonomy as an unmarried woman, preferring friendship to marriage. Because the mores of the time regard such views as subversive to the social order, however, she is ultimately manipulated into accepting marriage. Potter does not merely present the victory of this institution over the forces opposing it but acknowledges the ways in which the advocacy of the sentimental marriage reveals its repressive nature.

The sentimental marriage is perhaps most strikingly called into question in Quistorp's Der Hypochondrist, written in the context of eighteenth-century medical, literary, and popular discourse on the topic of hypochondria. The play posits that hypochondria is caused by homosexuality, both of which oppose marriage. In using hypochondria as a means of avoiding marriage and heterosexual relations, Quistorp's protagonist is able to strengthen his bond with his male servant, the object of his desire. Potter demonstrates the ways in which satirical comedy in this play is intended to effect moral reform in the audience by functioning as a corrective for nonnormative behavior, specifically homosexuality.

Potter's book makes use of various insights contributed by gender studies in recent decades. His chapter on cross-dressing in Lessing's Der Misogyne, for instance, examines the dichotomy between the constructed, performative nature of gender roles and the extent to which gender is grounded in the body. Yet this and other analyses might have profited from consideration of theorists on gender and performance, such as...