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Hearing Woman's Voices in Heinrich von Ofterdingen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Alice Kuzniar
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Abstract

In his novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen Novalis eroticizes and idealizes the female voice as unmediated poetic utterance expressing the body. Women write from the breast, with their own fluids for ink. Personifying poetry, the female character puts the burgeoning male author into an impossible position: he cannot master what she represents unless he switches gender. The mother-beloved herself undergoes constant transformation in the novel, turning into flowers, trees, and other characters. Female metamorphosis challenges androcentric Bildung, as Heinrich progressively draws on female qualities. The migratory female voice finds its way into two other German Romantic tales, Heinrich von Kleist's “Die heilige Cäcilie” and E. T. A. Hoffmann's “Rat Krespel.” In contrast to Heinrich von Ofterdingen, these works travesty the attempt to mimic the female voice.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 107 , Issue 5 , October 1992 , pp. 1196 - 1207
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1992

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