We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
In this chapter, Clara and Robert are shown to have embraced the Androgyne principle in their romantic relationship and marriage. Theorized by Jakob Boehme and adopted by the Jena romantics, the Androgyne ideal promoted the fusion of marital partners as well as gender-fluid behaviours in the name of spirituality. Of particular interest are Clara’s deeds in the period following Robert’s institutionalization in March 1854. Instead of decreasing her commitment to idealized matrimony, she deliberately strengthened it and maintained that outlook, even after Robert’s death in July 1856, until the end of her own life in 1896. This chapter investigates several questions: Why? What informed and motivated Clara’s actions? Were they simply displays of female heroism and/or conjugal fidelity? Whose interests were being served? What did her decisions imply about her perceptions of gender and gendered conduct? And why were her choices accepted, socially and culturally? The Schumanns’ correspondence and diary entries, published statements issued by Clara, and reviews of her playing are analysed in social-historical context. In her role as Robert’s posthumous Androgyne, Clara brought together diverse strands: their bond, certainly, but also philosophical-literary beliefs about perfect love, set within a Lutheran Pietist cultural framework that promoted female strength.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.