Voices of Rebellion

The German Revolution of 1848-49 offered a significant literary opportunity for all those interested in politics in general and the progress of women in society in particular. This book explores the work of a number of women who took up the challenge of breaking into the decidedly male preserve of political writing in this period. The focus is on women with very different concerns: Malwida von Meysenbug, the aristocrat who supported the democratic cause, the assimilated Jew Fanny Lewald; the housewife, musician, composer and teacher Johanna Kinkel; and the radical feminist Louise Aston. The work examines the strategies these women employed to negotiate potentially explosive issues such as the politics of the day, class, religion and gender, as well as the way traditional images like the father-child relationship are exploited to express new thoughts. Using a combination of close textual reading and thematically based analysis the book illuminates the authors’ individual works and explores underlying issues that are common to all.

The Authors: Ruth Whittle is a lecturer at Birmingham University where she teaches Gender Studies and modern German women’s literature. In 2001 she held a Leverhulme Fellowship which enabled her to do the research and archive work for this book. She has published a number of articles on the subject of rebellious nineteenth-century women.
Debbie Pinfold is a lecturer at Reading University where she teaches courses on post-war literature and modern German history. She has published on the use of the child’s perspective to present the Third Reich and on nineteenth-century women writers.