``Das Wochenblatt fuer's schoene Geschlecht'': A sociohistorical and literary analysis of an eighteenth century periodical for women.

Das Wochenblatt fur's schne Geschlecht was a literary-cultural journal for women edited by Charlotte von Hezel, nee Schwabe, of Ilmenau (near Weimar). Das Wochenblatt appeared from May through December, 1779, and Hezel's periodical stands out from the literary landscape of its time for several reasons: it was published by a young woman in a society where women were discouraged from writing; this first-time editor from a provincial town managed to attract subscribers from all areas of Germany; and in contrast to most contemporary authors, Hezel was a spirited advocate of the belief that the Enlightenment principles of reason and independent judgment were valid for women as well as men. The study examines Das Wochenblatt within the framework of literary life, i.e., the historical conditions involved in the production, distribution, and reception of the magazine. Specifically, how did eighteenth-century constructions of femininity and the concurrent literary movements of Enlightenment and Sentimentality affect the participation of Charlotte von Hezel and her readers in contemporary discourses, including discussions about the role of women in society and the creation of a national identity based on culture? The analysis reaches several conclusions regarding the contributions of women to eighteenth-century literary life and deliberations on the nature of femininity. For example, women writers gained access to the public sphere of publishing by employing defensive strategies to circumvent negative social attitudes about women authors. Some women insisted they had the right to exercise their powers of reason and judgment in intellectual matters and rejected the image of the domestic and emotional female propagated by many philanthropic and belletristic writers. Although gender served as source of collective identity for literate women, the economic and political conditions that enabled them to read accentuated their cultural differences from non- or minimally literate women. Furthermore, participation in the national literary culture was restricted to a small percentage of authors and readers from the lower nobility, patriciate, and the emergent Bildungsburgertum, and only males were perceived as authorities in matters of literary taste.Ph.D.European historyGerman literatureLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsSocial SciencesWomen's studiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129507/2/9527580.pd