Catherine Grimm | Miami University (original) (raw)
Published articles by Catherine Grimm
Literary Encyclopedia, 2007
New German Review: A Journal for Germanic Studies, 1994
When considering the vast bulk of scholarly research that has been produced in connection with an... more When considering the vast bulk of scholarly research that has been produced in connection with an author such as Franz Kafka, the claim that any one of his texts in particular has been overlooked may at first appear either hard to believe or beside the point. Nevertheless, when it comes to the editorial history of one of Kafka's stories entitled "Der Dorfschullehrer" ("The Village Schoolteacher") this claim does not seem altogether invalid. 1 Although there definitely have been some critics who have tried to include the story in their general assessment of Kafkian prose, (e.g. Wilhelm Emrich, James Rolleston, Margret Walther-Schneider and Herbert K.raft) 2 the same kind of lively debate has not developed around this text as it has in the case of other Kafka stories. 3 Consequently, despite these isolated attempts over the years to bring the story more into the critical limelight, there still have been surprisingly few studies that place this text at the center of their focus. 4 One feature that is particularly striking about this text, and one that has been consistently overlooked by the critics, is the way in which it is itself focused on issues of marginalisation and a certain resistance to interpretation. This story, which contains a description of how a phenomenon documented in a written text fails to gain critical recognition almost appears to have transported that content beyond the framework of the original where it has become a description of the story's own inability to call critical attention to itself. In this way the text seems to have predicted its own fate among the critical community: a text so obsessively devoted to the marginal, insignificant and 'overlooked' seems to have undergone the same treatment at the hands of the critics. This pronounced lack of cr itical interest in a story by an author most of whose other works have been scrutinized in great detail, might lead one to
Die Goethezeit: Werke, Wirkung Wechselbeziehungen . eine Festschrift für Wilfried Malsch, 2001
Rumor has it that King Friedrich Wilhelm III was not amused. After failing to comprehend the frag... more Rumor has it that King Friedrich Wilhelm III was not amused. After failing to comprehend the fragment collection Glauben und Liebe (Faith and Love) in the July issue of the Annals of the Prussian Monarchy (Jahrbücher der Preußischen Monarchie) he supposedly passed it on to Generaladjutant Köckeritz, who also could make neither head nor tail of it and therefore gave the text to yet another government official, Konsistorialrat Niemeyer who, after also failing to discern its meaning, jumped to the conclusion that "one of the Schlegels must have written it." i Niemeyer's guess was both very close and quite far from the truth. As the Minister soon discovered, neither of the Schlegel brothers had written this piece, but rather their intimate associate in all things new and daring: Friedrich von Hardenberg, or as he is better known, Novalis. ii
BYU Scholars Archive, 2017
was born on April, 2 1647 in Frankfurt am Main, one year before the signing of the Peace treaties... more was born on April, 2 1647 in Frankfurt am Main, one year before the signing of the Peace treaties of Westphalia and the end of the Thirty Years War. Her 55 year old father, the famous artist, engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian, died when she was three. About a year after his death, Maria's mother, Johanna Sibylla, remarried the painter and artdealer Jacob Marrel whose family had moved to Frankfurt from the town of Frankenthal when he was 10, and who also had lived for a number of years in Utrecht, before returning to Frankfurt in
Schwellenueberschreitungen. Politik in der Literatur von Frauen, 1780-1919. Ed. Caroline Bland and Elise Müler-Adams, 2007
Anhand einer Analyse der Naturdarstellung in Bettine von Arnims' drei Brieferrinnerungsbücher zei... more Anhand einer Analyse der Naturdarstellung in Bettine von Arnims' drei Brieferrinnerungsbücher zeigt diese Arbeit Ähnlichkeiten, zwischen Bettine von Arnims', Friedrich Schellings' und Johann Wolfgang Goethes Naturauffassungen auf. Alle drei Denker betrachten die Natur als etwas dynamisches und lebendiges, welches ein besonderes Verhältnis zur Subjektivität hat: Die Natur ist für alle drei ein Spiegel des Geistes. Die Arbeit geht die Gründe nach, warum es Sinn macht von Arnims Briefbücher als verspäteten, aber wichtigen Beitrag zur philosophisch ausgerichteten Frühromantik zu verstehen. Schließlich zeigt der Beitrag, da die von von Arnim so bevorzugte Pflanzenmetaphorik als eine radikal-antipatriarchalische Form weiblicher Subjektivität gedeutet wird, wie Bettine von Arnims Texte als Vorläufer eines philosophisch ausgeprägten Feminismus gelesen werden können und sollen.
Sophie A Digital Library of Works by German-Speaking Women, 2008
ettine von Arnim's Die Günderode is the second of her autobiographically inspired works of episto... more ettine von Arnim's Die Günderode is the second of her autobiographically inspired works of epistolary fiction, based on correspondences and memories of key figures from von Arnim's youth. i Published in 1840 the text is usually read as an idealized depiction of 19 th century female friendship and companionship. ii Lorely French states, for example, that "recent studies have recognized Die Günderode as the most communicational of Arnim's four epistolary books", while Edith Waldstein observes that "such cooperation, mutual respect, reciprocal enrichment and love are characteristic of the relationship between these two women and distinguish it from all other friendships portrayed in Bettine von Arnim's novels. iii The frank exchange between the two young women in Die Günderode is often contrasted with the more one-sided and hierarchical correspondence between a young von Arnim and an older Goethe in her first book Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde. For example, in her recent book Ulrike Growe writes the following about Die Günderode: "Dem ganzen Briefverkehr ist konstrastierend vor der Folie des drohenden Selbstmordes eine jugendliche Unbeschwertheit und Träumerei unterlegt, und eine Offenheit und Akzeptanz, die so im B 'Die Seele sehnte sich hinaus in den Schnee': The Meaning and Function of Outside Space in Bettine von Arnim's Die Günderode Sophie Journal
Conference Presentations by Catherine Grimm
Depictions of nature play significant and multifarious roles in both of Bettina von Arnim's first... more Depictions of nature play significant and multifarious roles in both of Bettina von Arnim's first two published works: Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde, (1835) and Die Günderode (1840). In these texts, nature generally functions as a benevolent, protective force to which the letter writer feels a deep, spiritual connection. What also becomes apparent is how the narrator often connects her depictions of nature to her overall understanding of society. Von Arnim lets her character Bettine use descriptions of natural phenomena to make political and social-critical points. Her style and use of language allow her to indirectly invoke an idea of what a more perfect world would look like. One basic reason the narrator enjoys being in nature is that she feels less constrained and confined when she is outside:" die Natur ist schöner und gütiger und grösser als alle Weisheit dieser Welt." Usually her musings concerning community, nation or Volk occur in conjunction with her either being in nature or contemplating some aspect of it. This is certainly the case in the first example I would like to look at more closely, in Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde when the Bettine character describes her reactions to the Tyrolean uprising against the Bavarians, who had been allies with Napoleonic France since 1805. (Forster 14). 1 Von Arnim's motives for writing about this topic are multifaceted. On the one hand the she was actually living in Munich in 1809 at the time of the uprising and witnessed the unrest related to it. In this
In my paper today I would like to examine how the representation of madness in Bettine von Arnim'... more In my paper today I would like to examine how the representation of madness in Bettine von Arnim's second published work, Die Günderode (1840) relates to the fictionalized friendship between the young Bettina and Karoline von Günderode: the complex relationship that is at the book's core. First, a few comments about von Arnim's writing method. In her 2001 study of von Arnim works Lisabeth Hock describes her mode of composition as follows: Arnim employs the events of this earlier period of her life as centerpieces around which she constructs a story of two personae, Bettine and Günderode, thus creating a montage of her past and her present, and of her real and imagined encounters with others, with the philosophical ideas of the first half of the nineteenth century, and with herself. 1
This paper is the second installment of a larger study devoted to Bettina von Arnim's first "Brie... more This paper is the second installment of a larger study devoted to Bettina von Arnim's first "Briefroman" "Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde." The first part of that study provides an overview of how the book was received when it was published in 1835, three years after Goethe's death. In it I describe a discrepancy between the way the book was read by its audience (i.e. as a semi-historical document surrounding Goethe's
Book Reviews by Catherine Grimm
German Studies Review, 2012
German Studies Review, Volume 35, Number 1, , 2012
Keats-Shelley Journal, 2009
Women in German online newsletter, 2009
Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2007
The German Quarterly, 2005
Colloquia Germanica, 2002
Literary Encyclopedia, 2007
New German Review: A Journal for Germanic Studies, 1994
When considering the vast bulk of scholarly research that has been produced in connection with an... more When considering the vast bulk of scholarly research that has been produced in connection with an author such as Franz Kafka, the claim that any one of his texts in particular has been overlooked may at first appear either hard to believe or beside the point. Nevertheless, when it comes to the editorial history of one of Kafka's stories entitled "Der Dorfschullehrer" ("The Village Schoolteacher") this claim does not seem altogether invalid. 1 Although there definitely have been some critics who have tried to include the story in their general assessment of Kafkian prose, (e.g. Wilhelm Emrich, James Rolleston, Margret Walther-Schneider and Herbert K.raft) 2 the same kind of lively debate has not developed around this text as it has in the case of other Kafka stories. 3 Consequently, despite these isolated attempts over the years to bring the story more into the critical limelight, there still have been surprisingly few studies that place this text at the center of their focus. 4 One feature that is particularly striking about this text, and one that has been consistently overlooked by the critics, is the way in which it is itself focused on issues of marginalisation and a certain resistance to interpretation. This story, which contains a description of how a phenomenon documented in a written text fails to gain critical recognition almost appears to have transported that content beyond the framework of the original where it has become a description of the story's own inability to call critical attention to itself. In this way the text seems to have predicted its own fate among the critical community: a text so obsessively devoted to the marginal, insignificant and 'overlooked' seems to have undergone the same treatment at the hands of the critics. This pronounced lack of cr itical interest in a story by an author most of whose other works have been scrutinized in great detail, might lead one to
Die Goethezeit: Werke, Wirkung Wechselbeziehungen . eine Festschrift für Wilfried Malsch, 2001
Rumor has it that King Friedrich Wilhelm III was not amused. After failing to comprehend the frag... more Rumor has it that King Friedrich Wilhelm III was not amused. After failing to comprehend the fragment collection Glauben und Liebe (Faith and Love) in the July issue of the Annals of the Prussian Monarchy (Jahrbücher der Preußischen Monarchie) he supposedly passed it on to Generaladjutant Köckeritz, who also could make neither head nor tail of it and therefore gave the text to yet another government official, Konsistorialrat Niemeyer who, after also failing to discern its meaning, jumped to the conclusion that "one of the Schlegels must have written it." i Niemeyer's guess was both very close and quite far from the truth. As the Minister soon discovered, neither of the Schlegel brothers had written this piece, but rather their intimate associate in all things new and daring: Friedrich von Hardenberg, or as he is better known, Novalis. ii
BYU Scholars Archive, 2017
was born on April, 2 1647 in Frankfurt am Main, one year before the signing of the Peace treaties... more was born on April, 2 1647 in Frankfurt am Main, one year before the signing of the Peace treaties of Westphalia and the end of the Thirty Years War. Her 55 year old father, the famous artist, engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian, died when she was three. About a year after his death, Maria's mother, Johanna Sibylla, remarried the painter and artdealer Jacob Marrel whose family had moved to Frankfurt from the town of Frankenthal when he was 10, and who also had lived for a number of years in Utrecht, before returning to Frankfurt in
Schwellenueberschreitungen. Politik in der Literatur von Frauen, 1780-1919. Ed. Caroline Bland and Elise Müler-Adams, 2007
Anhand einer Analyse der Naturdarstellung in Bettine von Arnims' drei Brieferrinnerungsbücher zei... more Anhand einer Analyse der Naturdarstellung in Bettine von Arnims' drei Brieferrinnerungsbücher zeigt diese Arbeit Ähnlichkeiten, zwischen Bettine von Arnims', Friedrich Schellings' und Johann Wolfgang Goethes Naturauffassungen auf. Alle drei Denker betrachten die Natur als etwas dynamisches und lebendiges, welches ein besonderes Verhältnis zur Subjektivität hat: Die Natur ist für alle drei ein Spiegel des Geistes. Die Arbeit geht die Gründe nach, warum es Sinn macht von Arnims Briefbücher als verspäteten, aber wichtigen Beitrag zur philosophisch ausgerichteten Frühromantik zu verstehen. Schließlich zeigt der Beitrag, da die von von Arnim so bevorzugte Pflanzenmetaphorik als eine radikal-antipatriarchalische Form weiblicher Subjektivität gedeutet wird, wie Bettine von Arnims Texte als Vorläufer eines philosophisch ausgeprägten Feminismus gelesen werden können und sollen.
Sophie A Digital Library of Works by German-Speaking Women, 2008
ettine von Arnim's Die Günderode is the second of her autobiographically inspired works of episto... more ettine von Arnim's Die Günderode is the second of her autobiographically inspired works of epistolary fiction, based on correspondences and memories of key figures from von Arnim's youth. i Published in 1840 the text is usually read as an idealized depiction of 19 th century female friendship and companionship. ii Lorely French states, for example, that "recent studies have recognized Die Günderode as the most communicational of Arnim's four epistolary books", while Edith Waldstein observes that "such cooperation, mutual respect, reciprocal enrichment and love are characteristic of the relationship between these two women and distinguish it from all other friendships portrayed in Bettine von Arnim's novels. iii The frank exchange between the two young women in Die Günderode is often contrasted with the more one-sided and hierarchical correspondence between a young von Arnim and an older Goethe in her first book Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde. For example, in her recent book Ulrike Growe writes the following about Die Günderode: "Dem ganzen Briefverkehr ist konstrastierend vor der Folie des drohenden Selbstmordes eine jugendliche Unbeschwertheit und Träumerei unterlegt, und eine Offenheit und Akzeptanz, die so im B 'Die Seele sehnte sich hinaus in den Schnee': The Meaning and Function of Outside Space in Bettine von Arnim's Die Günderode Sophie Journal
Depictions of nature play significant and multifarious roles in both of Bettina von Arnim's first... more Depictions of nature play significant and multifarious roles in both of Bettina von Arnim's first two published works: Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde, (1835) and Die Günderode (1840). In these texts, nature generally functions as a benevolent, protective force to which the letter writer feels a deep, spiritual connection. What also becomes apparent is how the narrator often connects her depictions of nature to her overall understanding of society. Von Arnim lets her character Bettine use descriptions of natural phenomena to make political and social-critical points. Her style and use of language allow her to indirectly invoke an idea of what a more perfect world would look like. One basic reason the narrator enjoys being in nature is that she feels less constrained and confined when she is outside:" die Natur ist schöner und gütiger und grösser als alle Weisheit dieser Welt." Usually her musings concerning community, nation or Volk occur in conjunction with her either being in nature or contemplating some aspect of it. This is certainly the case in the first example I would like to look at more closely, in Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde when the Bettine character describes her reactions to the Tyrolean uprising against the Bavarians, who had been allies with Napoleonic France since 1805. (Forster 14). 1 Von Arnim's motives for writing about this topic are multifaceted. On the one hand the she was actually living in Munich in 1809 at the time of the uprising and witnessed the unrest related to it. In this
In my paper today I would like to examine how the representation of madness in Bettine von Arnim'... more In my paper today I would like to examine how the representation of madness in Bettine von Arnim's second published work, Die Günderode (1840) relates to the fictionalized friendship between the young Bettina and Karoline von Günderode: the complex relationship that is at the book's core. First, a few comments about von Arnim's writing method. In her 2001 study of von Arnim works Lisabeth Hock describes her mode of composition as follows: Arnim employs the events of this earlier period of her life as centerpieces around which she constructs a story of two personae, Bettine and Günderode, thus creating a montage of her past and her present, and of her real and imagined encounters with others, with the philosophical ideas of the first half of the nineteenth century, and with herself. 1
This paper is the second installment of a larger study devoted to Bettina von Arnim's first "Brie... more This paper is the second installment of a larger study devoted to Bettina von Arnim's first "Briefroman" "Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde." The first part of that study provides an overview of how the book was received when it was published in 1835, three years after Goethe's death. In it I describe a discrepancy between the way the book was read by its audience (i.e. as a semi-historical document surrounding Goethe's
German Studies Review, 2012
German Studies Review, Volume 35, Number 1, , 2012
Keats-Shelley Journal, 2009
Women in German online newsletter, 2009
Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2007
The German Quarterly, 2005
Colloquia Germanica, 2002
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature (STTCL), 2005
David Kaiser's ambitious study analyzes how Post-Enlightenment theoreticians have approached the ... more David Kaiser's ambitious study analyzes how Post-Enlightenment theoreticians have approached the complex relationship between aesthetics and politics. Kaiser's motivations for writing this book stem from his frustration with the "extreme apolitical aestheticism of de Manian deconstruction" (8) but also his belief that new historicism has overlooked the political as an important category for Romantic thinkers. Kaiser makes it clear that he is "committed to retaining the concept of individual agency" (8-9) and that he is in agreement with Habermas inasmuch as "he appears to be the only major contemporary theorist who seeks to make a case for reforming rather than rejecting the central elements of the liberal tradition of subjectivity" (9). Kaiser focuses his study on the German and English traditions, though his sole representative for German Romanticism is someone who, in mainstream German scholarship, is not considered a Romantic; namely Friedrich Schiller. The study would have benefited from the inclusion of more representative German Romantic thinkers, such as the Schlegel brothers or Novalis. The first chapter introduces key concepts applied throughout the study. By summarizing several thinkers (Max Weber, Adorno, Habermas), Kaiser describes the post-Enlightenment definition of modernity and subjectivity. Although modernity began "with the goal of emancipating the individual subject," the "material processes of modernization, as they are institutionalized in modern economic, political, and scientific structures" (16) end up destroying the same structures necessary to sustain the individual subject. Romantic thinkers responded to this predicament by trying to fuse ideas about aesthetics with Enlightenment notions concerning the formation of the state based upon the autonomy of the subject. Kaiser introduces his final main concept, the symbol, in Chapter Two and invokes a dialectic that views it as simultaneously illustrating and embodying "the true." Kaiser outlines its importance in Coleridge's thinking and discusses the theological background of the symbol. He also discusses what he views as a distortion among some twentieth-century thinkers, such as Adorno and Benjamin, who constructed a political theory around the notion of the symbol as a model for totalitarianism. Chapter Three is an analysis of Schiller's Letters on Aesthetic Education and focuses on Schiller's estimation that aesthetic work harmonizes man's dual nature. For Schiller the sphere of aesthetics is one of freedom because it is here that the individual can reconcile the material world and the moral law. Kaiser's reading of Schiller is narrow in that he does not grant Schiller's theory any inherent validity beyond that it "provides an important framework through which we can understand and assess Habermas's theories of the public sphere and communicative action" (41). For Kaiser, Schil-ler seems to be worthy of consideration only because he helps elucidate Habermas. There is hardly any historical context in the chapter beyond aligning Schiller, perhaps too eagerly, with Kant. Nevertheless, Kaiser clearly draws out how Schiller can be understood as negotiating Enlightenment universalist values and Post-Enlightenment notions of cultural nationalism. Chapters Four through Six provide analyses of the art-state dialectic in the works of Coleridge, Arnold, and Ruskin. Although the focus is still quite specific, Kaiser does a better job here of sketching in the complex historical discourses from which these ideas emerged. The Coleridge chapter focuses on a late prose text that deals with issues concerning the desired role religion, as represented by the Church, should play in the State. Kaiser focuses on Coleridge's concept of Clerisy as central to the idea of aesthetic statism because the clerisy represents for Coleridge "an
Colloquia Germanica, 2000
This intriguing but somewhat disappointing study presents the literary correspondences of three w... more This intriguing but somewhat disappointing study presents the literary correspondences of three women who all played prominent roles in German Romanticism: Caroline Schlegel-Schelling, Rahel Varnhagen and Bettina von Arnim.
German Studies Review, 1999
