"Beautiful Souls" and "Misfashioned Sons": Raphael's Transfiguration in the Context of Friederike Helene Unger's Bekenntnisse einer schönen Seele von ihr selbst geschrieben

This essay argues that Unger's Bekenntnisse einer schönen Seele creates a textual frame for Raphael's "Transfiguration" that shifts the focus of the painting away from its dominant male figures and religious themes and realigns it with the problem of a woman's development within restrictive patriarchal social structures. Using Goethe's Bekenntnisse einer schönen Seele as the implied first point of reference, Unger's novel interrogates the literary construction of ideal femininity as represented in Goethe's "beautiful soul" characters. Raphael's Transfiguration functions as the second point of reference and serves to challenge Goethe's representations, and reinterpret their meaning. Ultimately, Raphael's painting assumes the unlikely role of depicting Unger's alternative feminine ideal. (CPB)