Elise Bürger

Elise Bürger around 1805 as Cleopatra in August von Kotzebues Octavia .

Marie Christiane Elisabeth "Elise" Bürger , née Hahn (born November 19, 1769 in Stuttgart , † November 24, 1833 in Frankfurt am Main ), was a German writer and actress. She also published her works anonymously and under the pseudonym Theodora, pilgrim to her homeland . In 1790 she became the third wife of the writer Gottfried August Bürger .

Life

Elise Bürger was born in Stuttgart as the daughter of Christoph Eberhard Hahn and Christiane Elisabeth Aschoff. She was enthusiastic about Gottfried August Bürger's poetry and wrote him a 13-verse poem in 1789 at the age of 20, in which she declares her love for Bürger and asks him to become her husband. Among other things, she wrote:

My eye saw nothing else of you

Than just a copy of the poem

And yet - I love you!

Because your soul, pious and good,

And your songs strength and courage

Delighted me.

[...]

Because if a thousand suitors came

And if sacks of gold are heavy,

And you wanted my:

I refuse you neither heart nor hand;

Even for my dear fatherland

I exchange you.

Although Bürger initially took the poem as a joke, he answered her on the advice of his friends in the five-stanza poem An Elise .

What sings to me out of myrtle hedges

In the tone of the loving bride?

My heart hears with sweet horror

The unheard of flattery sounds.

O voice, do you just want to tease me

And laughing discover the deception

As soon as the vain heart trusts you ...

An exchange of letters ensued, as a result of which Bürger presented his previous life without a veil in a memorable letter.

Bürger traveled to Stuttgart during the Easter break in 1790 and in October 1790 led his “Swabian girl” Elise Bürger to the altar. It was Bürger's third marriage, but it soon turned out to be unhappy. Although their son Agathon was born on August 1, 1791, Elise Bürger cheated on her husband since the beginning of the marriage. She was seen as lavish, opinionated and addicted to diversion, while citizens only felt that she was being exploited as a “cleaning lady”. During one of her love affairs, she was posed by Bürger, who was watching her through a previously drilled door hole. He then pressed his wife from both a written admission of guilt and a statement that she had to waive financial divorce settlement. He also prohibited her from ever remarrying.

Elise Bürger left the house in February 1792 and was divorced from him on March 31st. She went to the theater shortly after the divorce and appeared as Lady Milford in Altona in October 1792 . Bürger's colleague at the time, Carl Ludwig Costenoble, wrote in his diary in July 1798:

“Elise Bürger was Major Selting. With every role given by this woman, I convince myself that she has no real acting profession. Her whole being is ornamentation and a hideous unnature. "

Further stations were Hamburg, 1799 Hanover and from 1804 to 1807 the royal Saxon court theater in Dresden. Between 1808 and 1810 she toured Europe (including Vienna, Munich, Augsburg):

“It gives the lover of the fine arts a great pleasure to hear the wedded Frau Prof. Bürger declamation. It is not possible to present the works of German poetry more beautifully than this master can. Anyone who demands taste and feeling will certainly not fail to hear them when they have the opportunity. "

The Augsburger Tageszeitung also gives an insight into its repertoire at the time, the length of its program and its income:

“The undersigned announces to the local audience a large musical = declamatory academy for Wednesday, February 17th in the Hochfürstl. Fuggerischen Saale. She will recite the following poems in the same: Von Schiller: The song of the bell, the words of faith and the words of madness, refiguration, the diver and the guarantee. Von Bürger: The song of the good man, the women of Weinsberg, the emperor and the abbot. Since she will only give this single declamation on her journey through, she invites all friends and patrons of art to be kind and hopes for her Trust to match. Tickets for 1  fl. 12 kr. are available daily in the [Golden] Grape. The start is at 6 a.m., the end after 8 a.m. Elise Bürger, bored rooster, widowed professor. ”.

In 1810 she played in Berlin, four years later in Munich and later traveled through Germany again as a declamatrice and plastic-mimic actress.

Since 1799 Elise Bürger was also successful as a writer and wrote dramas, novels and poems. She also wrote for newspapers. Elise Bürger became completely blind in old age and died in Frankfurt am Main in 1833.

Works

• Nobility, Countess von Teck. Knight play in 5 acts. Bookstore of the publishing company, Hamburg and Altona 1799. ( digitized )
• Appearance and truth. A dialogized story. Hanover 1799.
• Irrgaenge of the female heart. Bookstore of the new publishing company, Hamburg and Altona 1799. ( digitized )
• The bouquet. (in Complete Theatrical Works , 1801)
• The Married (in Complete Theatrical Works , 1801)
• The surprise. Family paintings in 1 act. As a prologue to the birthday of Sr. Majesty the Queen Charlotte. Pickwitz, Hanover 1801. ( digitized version )
• About my stay in Hanover against the unnamed author of the fate of a theatrical adventurer. Altona 1801. ( digitized version )
• My paperback. Dedicated to the friendly of my sex. 2 volumes. Friese, Pirna 1809
• Poems. As the first volume of her poems, travel sheets, art and life views. Müller, Hamburg 1812. ( digitized version )
• Songs, composed on the Rhine and dedicated to Germany's liberators. In November 1813 ( digitized version )
• Songs sung to the holy war for the salvation of the peoples. 1814. ( digitized version )
• Clare of Montalban. Drama in 5 acts based on Frau von Genlis from the age of Louis the 13th 1818.
• The Swabian farmer's wife. (no year, UA 1819)
• The ancient statue from Florence. Joke game from the unpublished Elise Bürger manuscripts in the possession of the Frankfurt City Library. Hauserpresse, Frankfurt 1929.
• The dream of my life. Poem. (undated) ( Google digitized version )

literature

• Carl Wilhelm Otto August von Schindel: The German women writers of the nineteenth century . Volume 1. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1823, pp. 84–87.
• Friedrich W. Ebeling: Gottfried August Bürger and Elise Hahn. A married, art and literary life . Wartig, Leipzig 1868.
• Hermann Hettner:  Citizen, Gottfried August . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, pp. 595-600. (Secondary entry)
• Philipp Stein: German actors: 1. The XVIII. Century . Society for Theater History, Berlin 1907, ( Writings of the Society for Theater History 9), p. 5f.
• Elisabeth Friedrichs: Lexicon of German-speaking women writers of the 18th and 19th centuries . Metzler, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-476-00456-2 , ( Repertories on the History of German Literature 9), p. 44.
• Susanne Kord: A look behind the scenes. German-speaking playwrights in the 18th and 19th centuries . Metzler, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-476-00835-5 , ( results of women's research 27), p. 345f.
• Kurt Schreinert:  Citizen, Gottfried August. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 744 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hermann children (ed.): Citizens love. Documents on Elise Hahn and Gottfried August Bürger's unfortunate attempt to marry . Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1981, 2nd edition 1987. Set work, Göttingen 1999
• Ulrike Weckel: Civil sophistication. On the well-staged marriage initiation of Elise Hahn and Gottfried August Bürger . In: Ulrike Weckel (Hrsg.): Order, politics and sociability of the sexes in the 18th century . Wallstein, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-89244-304-1 , pp. 143-167.
• Mary Helen Dupree: The Mask and the Quill. Actress-Writers in Germany from Enlightenment to Romanticism . Bucknell Univ. Press, Bucknell, PA 2011, ISBN 978-1-61148-024-5 , pp. 134-161.

Web links

• Literature by and about Elise Bürger in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Elise Hahn: Elise to citizens . In: Collection of the most excellent German classics . Seventieth volume (Bürger's poems, 1st volume). Bureau der deutschen Classiker, Carlsruhe 1823, pp. 138–141
2. ↑ Gottfried August Bürger: To Elise . In: Collection of the most excellent German classics . Seventy-fifth volume (Bürger's poems, 1st volume). Bureau of German Classics, Carlsruhe 1823, p. 142.
3. ^ Agathon died in Dresden in 1813. See ADB, p. 599.
4. ↑ NDB, p. 745.
5. ↑ Malaika Eschbaumer: Carl Ludwig Costenoble My curriculum vitae diaries 1769-1818 , Phil. Diss., Vienna 2013, vol. 2. p. 191.
6. ↑ Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung, Nro. 41, Wednesday, Feb. 17, Anno 1808, p. 1, as a digitized version
7. ↑ See ibid., Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung, Nro. 40, Tuesday, February 16, Anno 1808, p. 4, as a digital copy  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ No copy can be found
9. ↑ No copy, only theater slips can be proven
10. ↑ No copy can be found
11. ↑ No copy can be found