Focus 2001.tif 16 Foots az German Studies Mittma.n'Yvr."L?Cat~g a Public Sphere: SOI11t Reflections on Writers and '-1}t1uUhkeu In the COR.M Ed. J. Gausen and S. Friedrichsme)'~r. I~m III Genmn Yanb:.of:: Fenui.sl SUM if CC7mn LileralJ~ air! OJUtTe 10 (1995): 19-37. O'Dohe~ P. 71x Pmr.ry.J if Jr.a Ul CDR Prcu F1t:tiCll AmstercUm' Rodop. 1997. 135-.fL . • Paul, G. "Uber VCl"S(;hwic:genes sprechen: Female Homosexu.uiryand the ~bhc zhe,c In the CDR before ;llld aftel' the IVC1.I:k." Wa'Ulmd \i7e;> S,?U EJJeas am OJuuai Rifkr;1xn cf cbe Gmnm U'o/U:.llIal Pro (31.' Prtxta:iD!1 if a ?:.f.erea Held bY Wan:'!lin Gcmm SlidJes 9-11 Sep. ~ 1.993 at rJ~F if l'i.azDfP.vn Ed'. E. 80011 and J. \X1h.mon .• ~nSlerdam: Opl, 199.;. __ 6-37. Schlcnstedt. g. "EntwickiungslirUen der neueren Liten.tuc in del' DDR" Rev. of Respektloser Umgang," by Helga Konigsdorf. Ed. A Otiarloni . e~.aJ. DII! LuemlllTder DDR 1916-/986. Pisa: Giardini 1988 19-54 ' Schmu2.- Koster, D. Trcb.uIon., Ifni Kasum:lm lod _ .. : \f/eilJld)13 Sd7re:kll ill . ~IDDR. Rev. of "Resf?Cktloser Umg:lOg,~ by Helga Konigsdorf \"o~gne:Paul RugenSteLn, 1989. 135--10. Stasuk, HJ, Er~~n_globa.ler ProbJeme:, Rev. of "Respekr.loser U an ," ~ HdgOi K.omgsdorf. Ed. S. Rorusc.h. DDR·LILem/l(T '87 lJJI~prJdJ JBerlln; \'(~UTl.lJ': ."ulfbe1ves on tbe i.JterJ.ry !lurket I) a result of their experience in the private sphere. Their exclusion from economics, politics and culture impiil!s IhJ.t oluthemic \\-urnen's iiter.:periences without explicitly challenging social expectations and incurring censorial punishment. Re\'entlow's choice of the epistolary novel, long regarded as a pa ,ticularly felmle genre, links her to earlier German women writers such as Sophie von la Roche. Yet her aim in invoking this tr.ldition is to subven it and presenl her own bold view of the reality of a woman's existence. She refuses to masquerade as an ideal, unblemished woman; inste.d.d, she cclebr.l.tes her tr.msgressive behavior and caUs \Xrllhelminian gender roles uno question. Through herpla,ful manipulation of language, both spoken .1Od unspoken, Revemlow uses A m:xfl3kenas a vehicle for self-fashioning and e;.,:ploring social constructions of gender, femminit)\ and idemity. When Anamsken, Re\'emlow's second novel, appeared in 1912, the author was already well-knO\\l1, but not for her \\1iting. InSleJ.d, she was knov.n for her .d.dv(!Ilturous life and se}.-wl emancipation. Bam into an anstocra[ic family in Schleswig-Holstein, Re~,'emlowrust became famous as "(die] Gouin derSchwabinger Boheme" around the tum of the century in ~Ilunich. She describes these early leaf'S of heady freedom in her first novel, £"en Of:5f}e17e, published in 1903. The novel draws e~'tensi\'e1yon Revemlow's diaries and lellers from he r teenage }tars in Lubeck, where she beg.lll to rebel ag.d.inst the repressive eJo,:pectatialls of her conservative;:: familr In EllenOf:5tjeme, Reventlaw desclibes her first encounter with the works of Henri.k Ibsen and the fever they inflamed in her, prompting her to nee to Munich in search of artistic and erotic em.mcipation. Her devotion to her illegitimate son. Roll earned Revemlaw the designation "eine heidnische Madonna" from Ludwig K lages and a cemral role in the A!UtlerkJJt of the Kal1'lkemnrie headed by Klages. At the same time, her se~-ua.l escapades, both for pleasure and for mone); eJ.rned the tiLie "die Skandalgriirm Schw.d.bings." in 1909, the destirute ~vemlow left ~funich for a \ltopim colony in Ascond, Switzerland, where she emered imo a marriage of convenience, arranged by Erich Miihsam, with the Jlcoholic Self-Fashioning and Gender Construction in A 1Ionc;kl!lI 19 Baltic Baron Rechenberg. According to their bargdin, she rec:ived half of the Baron's inheritance, but she 'W'.lS left penniless once .lgaUl .when [he bank failed soon after. Ten years after the publication o( her first novel, Revemlaw returned to writing, producing fOllr more novels ~forc her death in 1918 at the aoe of 47 from complications of In operation. Her colorful life h.d.s contin~ to attract the attention of historians and schohrs, who tend to concentrate primarily on her erOllc ddventure:; rJlherth.d.n on her Wliting. I Hofmllier's Although contemporary reviews such"a~ Josep 1 ~ 'n "Anmerkungen zu Blichern III the SlIddell(Scbell comments I . Mautslxft from July 1912, remark posiuvely on R:vemlow's ".anm~\U~e und geis tvo ll e Veneidigu ng del' all~ersten H'll i erhafl.l g~elt III allen Liebesdinoen," later critics tend to disregard te~'tual 'lIlal~,s III favor of lhi! author'sO scandalous b iography. This is due in pan to lhe large chronological gaps bet ween republications of her works. A lIoure;ken W.d.S included in Revemlow's Gesamrell£ H'i?:ke, published in 1925. ~Y L~gen Verlag, but nOt again lUllil1969, when Rm\'ohh produced ,m edItion reUlled Val Pald ZIf Pairo ab tal der Sdnuengeell., ,-utreur?71 .\lallll Zit /u.kn In l~e mid-1980s, Ullstein Verlag reissued nedfl~ aU of Reventlow's na\'els Ul paperback, combining Ven Pald ZII PaIro.Wllh I-/eml D.mcs A /(fietdJ/lJ~~'l!11 in 1987. Fi.nal1~ in 1994, M:m-us Verug pnllled an ekgant Iu.rtlcover edition under the origin.ll title_ In tlle meanlime, however, Rc\'entlo~ herself reappeared in V.lrious jOllm.llislic reincArn.ltions, a~ the el~bochment of the now-v.lnished SchwabU1ger Boheme ill the vanous Jrudes from the 19205, the quin\essential devoted mother in the N.d.Zl n~wspaper ecr:1l11 1l.1 in 1933 a model fo r the strong women needed to rebllLld GermanyUl Der TaSJ!Ssp~ in 1946, and the sexuall)~~ber.ned fen'liniSl ide~1 in a wide .may of Genn.1Il newspapers and teleVISion progrJlllS th roughout the .1970s and euly 1980s. Odol Sch,lefer, in a review of Re\'end(lw'~ .works til the DelltsdX! Zell1mg from August 27, 1958, speJks for most cnUCS whe,~ she comments mther apologeticallytllJ.t "sie [Reventlow] konme llursclm!lbe,~, WdS sie erlebt haue." In their haste to claim I~ventlow's life f.ar l.helr respective causes, the nuj~ril~af critics have averl~ked h~r canu~b.ut~alls to Gernun literature or dlSlTUSSed them as merely aUlOblographlcal . Ha-wever, ~veOllow's skillful use of Iangu.lge and far~. III A nonesken dispels the m)'th that her life \\~ ... s more v.'Orthy of cnuc~ anemion than her writing. \X'hile R.evenllow did have manyad\·entures. 11 is her ability to fashion hero~'ll experiences in '\'uch a WJYas lO present her 20 FootS (II German SlItt/ies emancipated lifestyle as a valid alternative to tradiuonal fem.ale roles that demonstrates her literary talent. The novel's strength is not its plOl line, which is minimal, but rather the W41.y in which it challenges convemional 3utobiogrJ.phical accountS. In her October 2, 1976 review of R.eventlow's novels in the FT"arkfimer A Ugmwr, Sibylle WlfSing sunuIL1nzes the plot in a few 'Mlrds: ruchts ancleres [kommt vcr], als daB die Enahlerin, die Verfasserin vertraulicher Briefe, eben das, was man einen Roman nenm, [Licht erleht, sich aber mil erolischen Impromptus liber diese Lucke hinweghilk Oem Leser 'Wird von den Liebeleien immer nur der Nachtrag mitgeteih, die Gefuhle vom Tag d.lr.luf. (~DdS geo;>.'agte Vergniigenn ) TIlese teasing glimpses, balanced by a heakh}' dose of self-critical i.ron~ make A l1utreSken memorable. TIle tone .lnd Structure of A 11cxnl!Sken is much more relaxed and daring than that o f Ellen at:igeme, due perhaps to Revemlow's esca pe from the res trictive patriarclul ce nsors hip of \VUheLui.nian German)'into the e<:centric freedom of pre-v,'3r Ascona. Reventlowdelibemtelychose an epislolaryforout fo r A nOfYBken, both for the uterarytr.1dition that It represents .1nd for the Spzelmmmh,n it allows, panicularly concerning the narrative status of the text. G erm.1Jl women writers have been associ.ned ",i1h the epistol,uy novel since the Enlightenmem, when the genre WAS viewed as a "safe" and peclagogicolUy effeCli\'e way for women to de"'e1op their minds. The eplSlobry novel is \\'ell-swted to Revendow's purposes for the way in which it blurs the distinctio n between private and public writing, giving her the freedo m to discuss topics of :l provocative nature in a public arena without appearing to flaunt her rebelliousness. \'{Ihile Schaefer assumes (hat Revemlow"w'ilihe die personlichste Form cler Aussage, das Ich in Brief lind TJ.gebuch" ("Schwibinger Gr~Jin"), Revemlow in filCI remains coy about whether or nO{ the Id} of the letters refers to herseU, preferring insteJ.d to play with the reader's expectations and sus picio ns. At no point in the text does Reventlowspecifywhether the text is hislOl'ical or fictio nal autobiognl ph)~ though many o f the narrato r's ane<:dOles correspond directly to experiences that Revenuow recorded in her diaries and lellers. Of course, as Smith pointS Out, the narrative IdJ in an 3mobiography necessJ.rily becomes a fi ctive persona s ince "the Self-Fashioning and Gender Constnlclio n in A 1Ioneketl 21 autobiographer can never captu re the fullness ~f her subjectivity" (-\6). Reventlow neatly sidesteps this debate by le.wmg the que~tLon o~ t~le narrator's identity lmclear. TIle letter's author never names herse. ' s t! does not s ign her letters , and no o ne addresses her by name Ul. t lC , h _po_< Bydefauh the author's nan~ becone assocmed conversatLons s e ... . .... , . f . I with the leller's author and her expe riences, apparently can IfIlung.~ Ie auto biographical tendencies of the novel. Yet although Revem low.prov' es no info rmatio n to contradict a reading o f the novel as ~n .tul~blog~ph)~ she does nOl explicitly label it as such, pres.erving the hber~tLng gUIse of r· - \VL' el ,. evnlainiog what v, ,. . ' f ki • thei r d es ire fo r the empowenng sei f-101crprc\aHo n 0 unmas nl) ' f bli . I' (4-1) autobioguphy Ali theyunlllJ.sked in their bve the deslfe or pu .Cll? . Revendow t ries to avo id such a.1l unmasking whiJ~ st ill clJUlll.ng l~lC t Of seU illlerpreutlon and seU-dCtenUlIl,lllon. She leJ.ses empowermen - . . . ' . the reader, both inside and outSide of the text, Wllh provocall\·e.op1IllOnS d 'ees but refuses eit her [0 disown them or to d um them. an expenen • . . I Instead, she fashions a seU within the teXltilJ.t both lS and. IS not ler OW1l, blending actual personal experience and literary fanta:. y tIl\.O a I.l e.",:, and bue self Stephen G reenblatt argues for the feasibility o f aut onomous pu . , d' this t)pe o f identity construCtion, noting Ih.It s~lf- fa.sluOlUng enves Its interest precisely fro m the faclthal it functions Wltl~out r,egJ.N fo r a sharp distinction between literature .• nd social life. It ll1VJl1dbly crosseS the 22 Focus aI German Studies boundaries benveen the creation of uterarycharacters, the shaping of one's own identity, the experience of being molded by forces outside one's control, the auempt to fashion other selves (3). I n A m:rmsken, Revendow blurs the boundaries between her own life and the experiences recounted by the narmor. She alludes to the rus[Qncal facts of her Me but does nOt supply them For example, the narrator is probably referring to Revemlow's shon-Ii .... ed ma rriage to Walter Llibke when she laments, "das eine Mal, we ieh dann doch heir.ltete, wurde der Mann erst eine gutc P.lnic, als ich schon wieder liber aUe Berge war (Sie wissen ja, "Wie lange meine Ehe gedauen hat)" (82), but she doesn't provide any more details than one can infer from her parenthet ical commem. On a linguistic level, Revent low assumes an equally slippery narrative Stance. As in Goethe's \iVenI~ the correspondence in A m:rrmkell remains one-sided, allowing the narrator complete control over what the reader can know about her. Her omissions are often as revealing as her admiss ions. The first lelle(' begins, ';j ol, nun sind Sie wieder fon, lieber Freund- Sic fehIen mit sehr, und ich denke mit einiger \X~hmUl an unser BOsammensein, vorallem an unsere 'Teegespriiche'zuruck" (;). TIlrough the introductory greeting "lieber Frelmd," the reader recognizes that the recipient of the letters is male, ~ttich suggestS the potential for se)."\.Ll1 tension v..'lth the female letter-writer, bm the exact nature of their relationship remains unclear. The namaor eventually .lddresses he r correspondent as "Do1.,or R," but since none of his replies .lie included in the novel, the reader is left to piece together an image of him from her compliments ,Uld chastisements. l-le comes to represent the patriarchal norm against which the narr,l.tor re.lcts and which she c1uUenges. She ftins with him, performing a son of verbal striptease in revealing and concealing the details of her activities and amorous adventures. For example, she asks him, as she begins to tell of a new lover, "5011 ich Ihnen 'alles' enahlen?- NellI, ich erzahle nie alles" (94). At the s,une time, she insists that he play by her rules, warning: "Siediirfen mir jet2l auch brieffich nicht zu seriBs \\'erden und mich nicht wieder als 'Problem' be.handeln­ ich bin keines- sonst propheziehe ich lInserer Korrespondenz einen fruhen Tod" (6). TIw he does not mend his pedantic ways is apparent from her ironic sell-critiques in later lene!'S. In one, she scolds him. SeU-Fashionino and Gender Construction III A l1JJtnT!Sken o 23 Ich bine Sie liebster Do1."1or, schellen Sie nicht schon wieder liber meitle Zers~reutheil- gerade Sie haben verhaluIismaBig wc:nig darunter zu leiden gelubt, ich verwechsle Sie scho n I ~ng~t mcht mehr mit ancleren Bekanmen- ich -weiB Ul'UTlfr, "" .. er SIC smd und wie wir miteinander stehen. (32) While seeming to apologize for her own sho n comings, the nJrrator ~uts Doktor R. down to size, making it clearthal she does nOl accept the socIetal expectations that he would apply to her. .. Despite her vaunted light louch, Revcndow l'eues hea\'llyon rhe­ torical devices in creating a text th,\l appe.lrs trivial enough lO lull conser­ vative contempora ry cril ics into dismiss ing A /IIQlfreskell lS ."ei~e scilineichierische Nichtigkeit," as M.M. Gehrke does in a 1918 ~vlew Ul lhe Frarkfinter Zellltllg, while actually questioning palri.lfdul diSCOUrses about gender. Reventlow uses familiar liter.,!'y lropes to create a f J.tse s~ns.e of seeunt)' in the complacent re adventure, changing it from a mere clandestine tl)SltO an J.dultero~ brcJ.ch of social convention, thereby confirming her awareness of ,lnd dlSrega~ for social norms: "-w seiner Frnu und seinen Kindem. U.chcl~ Sle nicht so niede rtr.ichtig, ich k.Inn doch nichts dJ.fiir, c!Jn JUe mog.hcl~en Leute Frau und Ki.nder habell. M,l.i\ darf schon froh sci.n, '),.'tml sle slch n.icht scheiden lassen 'WOllen, um einem 'fiirs Leben .lnz.ugehoren'" (7). Not only is she unrepentant abou~ ~er aff~ir with ~ nurned man, but she is also contemptuous of the prevJ.iling SOCIJ.! doctnnes of monogamy and fidelity. . .. Like many of the "Bohemians" Reventlow J.ssoclJted .Wlth III Schwabing and AsconJ., the narrator exhibits an al.most p;,nhologlCJ.1 fCJ.r 26 FoolS ctl Germa1l 5wdies of commitment. In Ascona in panicular, Revenuow was surrounded by people experimenting with a wide r.a.nge of relationships outside the parameters of monogamous marriage. \'(!hile Reventlow WAS familiar willl the various ideological camps, she did not belong to anyof them She Iud come to Ascon;.!, on Erich IVliihsam's advice to flUrry Baron Rechenberg and remained there primarily because she <;I.'tnan, but offers in exchange her own lighthearted, independent approach to eroticism: 'Man' tut doc.h schlieBlich in erster Linie, was eineo f rem, und weil es eineo f reut. Uod das ist natiirlich jedesnul erwas ancleres. Es bon wohl nunchmal Liebe und 'greBe Leidenschaft' sem, aber ein andernul- viele, viele andere Male isl es nur Plaisir, Abelllcuer, Situation, Hoflichkeit,- Momenl-, Langeweile und ;llles m6gliche. Jede einz.elne Spielan hat ihre besonderen Reize, und d.lS Ensemble aller dieser Reize diirfIe man wohl ErOlik nennen. (19) The narrator's assenion of her right to erotic freedom, not because she is a woman but because she is an individwl, is supponed by her use of the imperson.u pronoun "man." She refuses to be constrained byconvemional defmitions of love and eroticism, insisting instead on the necess ity of individual experience and expe rimemat ion fo r sexual and personJ.1 fulfillment. She doesn't .mempt lO establish a universal platform forpolitiea1 change or fem.inist agitation; she simply declares thaI the niles don't apply to her. Rather than theorizing about her position, Re .... entlowdemonstr.l.les it by invening the tnditional paradigm of male trade in women that Luce lrigaray anacks nearly seven decades later in her anicle "Commodities amongst Themselves." lriganyargues that, under this s)Stem, " \\'Oman e.'; dressed as "-einen gam sympathischen Knaben" (145). Revemlow herseU WilS fond of dressing as a man for parties, panicularlyduring the F~ch.ing revels in Schwabing. According to Butler, such imitation is "the kind of gender performance that will enaCt and reveal the performalivilY of gender itSelf in a way that destabilizes the naruralized c.uegories of idemitya.nd desire" established by Freud (139). TIlls lund of destabilization is exactly what results from the narrator's experimentation wilh cross· dressing. Reluctant to go back to her hOlel after the night Ollt and tOO lLred to return to her "voriger Zustand," she sleeps in John's bed in her men's clothes. When she awakens the next evening, Bobby informs her that Pedro has arrived. As Pedro Storms in, she reflects: "jeh rml~zugeben> daB der Schein gegen mich sprach- Bobb}~ Anwesenheit- Joluls Zim­ mer- der KnJ.benanzug- wld es loU mir furdnbar Leid, den armen Pedro so empfangen 2.U miissen" (1-16). The erotic confusion caused by her gender play calls the configurmion of desire belv.-een the nJ.rr,llor, Pedro, John, and Bobby into question, opening up new erotic possibilities for the future, which the n.lmIlOr, althe close of her laSt leller, IS eager to explore: "Die nachsle ProgrJ.llU11flummer wird hei.Ben: 'Bobb}'s lnsel'" (150). ll1e e-.lSe with which she can OlmipuLlte her relationships with the people around her simply by donning a nu.n's suit and some makeup exposes, and thus v-J.lidales, the fundamentJ.1 anificWlity of gender norms. This suppons Revemlow's o\·erJ.ll argumem that identity should not be determined by social construCtS and obsolete tnditions, blll by individuJ.1 desires and llltereslS. Gaiming this same freedom fromconvemion for herlilerJryworks, Reventlow uses A m')uresken as a vehicle for reflecting lIpon the choices th.l( have guided her in her 0,""11 seU-fashioning as well as to comrol the constnlction of her public self. She fdshions herself in t.he no\'el according to her own desires and on her own terms. Doing so requires her to break awoly from the trJ.dilion of seU-effacing female aUlOb iography th.1l conforms to pJ.triarchal e>.-pecrations and risk possibly devas t;}ting public censure and loss of reputation. Yet she defends herseU against such .m attack by using the literary tools of patriarchal society against it. To recall Smith's .,\,ords, she " takes a voice and audlOmes a public life" thai transgresses social norms, but her elusive language veils the extent of her rebelliousness ~iU1e she exposes her life. The narrator confesses to Sir John that "das Prim.ip nleines Lebens ist, daB alles umgekehn gelu" (151); ~\'endowdemonstrates this principle byusing apparemlYlriviJliz.ing the Sell-Fashioning and Gender Omslnlction in A lI"un-cken 3) . I· rei . P st the Willlelminian novel's radical message preclSe y 10 0 er to ~el It a . d' .hle censors 11le narrator's flirtatious language disarms the rea. ers poSSI. . . f d reot)nI>':. drawmg attention objections to her subversion 0 gen er Sle r-w ' instead to the absurdilyand anificiahtyof the stereot)pes tl~emselves. She .. I ·th the erollC adventunnO flaunts conservallve propnery outrageous y WI I 0 and lack of remorse that she documents in A ~O'~ket~ but s le gets aWAy with it because she recognizes no other authomYllllhe mJlter of her self- fashioning man herself. . f Reventlow's insistence on total freedom in the constnl~uon 0 her lilcnry self from both patriarchal and feminist concept~0~1S o~ fernininit y defies established norms and procbims the right of U~d\vldlla to determine their own idemities. AlLhmlgh she does not call for W1despre.ld political and social change, Revellliow's literary moves arc nonelhele~s revolutionar)l Al a tin1e when even socially impeccable women I~olrd.y d.lred publish accounts of their lives, Revemlow seems to revel pubhcly.Ul the transgressive life she has led. Yel although she IC.lSes the reader With l11n15 and llUll.lendoes about her esc;apades, her narrative pl.l),fulnes~.m~ the novel's fornul ambiguity make her imposSible to cJ.tegorue. She refuses to ;accept the l.ibels that society tries to ;apply to her .lod .lohe c;alls t1~~ v.llidilyof social conventions mto question, at least a.lo far as she. IS concerned. At the end of the novel, the narrAtor concludes, ~f la repo(lUlg on her adv~ntures with Pedro, Bobb)~ and Sir John, th.lt '·,eh we~e \"o~ jetz-t.tll nie mehrdas tun, was sieher das Beste w'.ire und das Geschelteste (152-53). Hercletermination 1O h\·e life and to ,",,,te autoblogrJ.phYOIl her own terms reminds the reader th.ll "das Beste [ ... ) und d.lS Gescheiteste," III life and in literature, is open to debate. HarUll"d UrU