Elizabeth Stoddard

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Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, 1901

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard (born May 6, 1823 as Elizabeth Drew Barstow in Mattapoisett , Massachusetts , † August 1, 1902 in New York City ) was an American writer and poet. Today she is best known as the author of the novel The Morgesons , first published in 1862 , which was also translated into German in 2011 by Susanne Sacrificemann and Helmbrecht Breinig under the title The Morgesons . In addition to two other novels, she has written numerous short stories , short stories for children, poetry, travel literature, essays and columns , which have been published in well-known magazines such as The Aldine , Harper's Monthly , Harper's Bazaar and The Atlantic Monthly .

Life

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard was born in 1823 in the former small whaling port of Mattapoisett on the American east coast, the second of nine children to a long-established boat builder. Despite her father's various business failures, she grew up in a well-to-do family. In 1837 she attended the Wheaton Female Seminary , one of the oldest private institutions of higher education for women in the United States, and after an interruption again from 1840 to 1841 , received a good school education according to the circumstances at the time and made several trips to New England and as a young woman to New York City .

There she met the poet Richard Stoddard in 1851, whom she married in 1852. After the marriage, Elizabeth and Richard Stoddard moved to New York, where they lived in rather limited financial circumstances, although Nathaniel Hawthorne , a distant relative of Elizabeth, had found Richard a lucrative job at the customs office. Elizabeth Stoddard had three children, two of whom died in childhood.

Binding of the 1895 book edition of Elizabeth Stoddard's Poems

The couple belonged to the inner circle of the literary and artistic scene in New York at the time; Up- and-coming artists, actors and members of the so-called genteel circle often met in the literary salon in her apartment . Her youngest son Lorimer, who died before his mother in 1901, continued this family literary tradition as an actor and playwright.

Elizabeth Stoddard began to publish her own poems and literary sketches as well as her short prose in renowned magazines such as Harper's Monthly or The Atlantic Monthly during the 1850s . As a setting and background for her characters, she often used the barren landscape on the east coast of New England, familiar to her from childhood and youth. From 1854 to 1858 she wrote a column every two weeks for the Daily Alta California , the oldest daily newspaper in San Francisco. In these "Letters" she reported in a witty, but also very critical and sharp-tongued form about different aspects of cultural life in New York such as newly published books, fashion trends or other developments in literature, music and painting. In her columns, she often questioned the predominant religious and ideological ideas, values ​​or ideals of her time, which were shaped by Puritanism , but above all the contemporary social conventions that almost exclusively limited the role of women to the domestic sphere as housewife and mother.

In her literary criticism, she questioned this cult of female self-fulfillment in household and family alike; In a mostly mocking form, she turned against the form of the romantic-sentimental family novel ( domestic novel ), which was widespread in women's literature at the time, and disdained the ethic of self-renunciation by women and the postulate that marital ties could not be revoked. Accordingly, she oriented her own literary works more on the model of George Sands or Brontës than on contemporary American authors.

In the 1860s, Elizabeth Stoddard wrote three novels; Her first novel, The Morgesons , appeared in 1862, followed by Two Men in 1865 and Temple House in 1867 . Although all three novels were positively received by literary critics, they did not meet the expectations and tastes of the contemporary reading public and did not bring great sales success. The later two new editions of the novels 1888–1889 and 1901 during Elizabeth Stoddard's lifetime also met with only comparatively little response from a larger readership, despite again favorable reviews. Like Herman Melville , Elizabeth Stoddard gave up the novel genre, but not writing. By the turn of the century she published around 80 short stories and essays. A number of Stoddard's short stories appeared in various magazines in the 1860s. In 1874 she published a collection of stories for children under the title Lolly Drinks' Doings, with an unusual mixture of bizarre events and strange characters.

Because of her tight financial situation, Elizabeth Stoddard was then increasingly forced to work as a wage clerk. This not only led to her bitterness and doubts about her own abilities, but alienated her from many of the couple's friends. After a long illness, Elizabeth Stoddard died on August 1, 1902.

Work and meaning

Three decades before the publication of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) and Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening (1899, German title: Das Erwachen ), which are now considered two feminist classics in American literary history, Elizabeth Stoddard tried in her prose work and especially in her first novel The Morgesons, to re-examine the conditions of female self-realization in the puritan society of New England in the 19th century and to fundamentally reshape the image of women conveyed through literature.

Well-known critics and authors such as William Dean Howells , George Ripley or Nathaniel Hawthorne praised Elizabeth Stoddard's stories and novels and compared them with the works of Turgenev , Balzac , the Brontës or Thomas Hardy . Nevertheless, her work fell into oblivion for a long time after her death with the advancing masculinization of the literary business. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that the status of her work and, in particular, the literary historical significance of her debutromance The Morgesons were seen again and increasingly became the subject of literary research.

From today's perspective, The Morgesons is considered to be one of the first truly realistic novels in American literary history, both in terms of its psychological differentiation and its strictly secular , anti-religious and anti- metaphysical perspective and perspective. At the center of the novel is a married woman who looks back on her life. The development of the protagonist Cassandra Morgeson, who seeks and crosses borders at an early age, is portrayed as a development process that can be mastered without religious guidance or a fatherly mentor. The conflict between the social conventions of life in a small New England town and her own supposedly unfeminine passion forces the protagonist to find a way that does not lead to the abandonment of her autonomy and individuality.

In a far more unconventional and radical form than in Louisa May Alcott's novel Moods (1864), the shackles of social conventions that stand in the way of the self-realization of women in the puritanical world are addressed. In terms of style and structure, Stoddard's novel, in a formally quite predictive way, bursts out of itself the scheme of the previous female development novel ; the narrative style is characterized by omissions, abrupt transitions and the absence of authorial comments; In style, realistic detailed descriptions alternate with elliptical forms of representation. This rapid change in narrative mode and the omission of emotional or dramatic climaxes give the novel a rather distancing effect structure. The search for ways to articulate wishes and needs that actually seem inexpressible at the time can be seen above all at the interfaces of social interaction in the sudden transition, but also in the silence or in the lingering sentence.

Stoddard's debut novel depicts the protagonist's “insubordinate” desire at the same time as the romantic-sentimental constellations of the nineteenth-century novel. However, although adultery almost occurs, it does not end with the shame of the heroine. In addition, the emergence of sentimental effects is prevented by a mixture of romantic and realistic narrative strategies.

With her protagonist Cassandra Morgeson, Elizabeth Stoddard creates in her novel a new image of women and the possibilities of female self-realization in American literature, which in a certain way can be regarded as a literary counterpart to Margaret Fuller's intellectual ideas and postulates that these in 1850 published her treatise The Woman in the Nineteenth Century as a manifesto of a transcendentalist feminism.

In the metaphor of the novel, the ocean becomes the leitmotif of female liberation; unlike later in Chopin's The Awakening , Stoddard's protagonist does not flee into the sea to drown herself, but believes that even the sea could be hers.

In current research in the history of literature, Stoddard is counted among the "most innovative and important American authors of the 19th century"; Her novel The Morgesons is considered to be one of the best American novels of its time, which makes the author appear as one of the most original voices in American literature of this century, alongside Hawthorne and Melville.

Editions of works (selection)

  • Elizabeth Stoddard: The Morgesons . Penguin Books, New York 2014, ISBN 0-14-043651-0 .
    • Elizabeth Stoddard: The Morgesons . Translated into German by Susanne Opfermann and Helmbrecht Breinig, Helmer Verlag, Sulzbach / Taunus 2011, ISBN 978-3-89741-328-3 .
  • Elizabeth Stoddard: The Morgesons and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished. Edited by Lawrence Buell and Zandra A. Zagarell, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1984, ISBN 0-8122-7924-7 .
  • Elizabeth Stoddard: The Selected Letters of Elizabeth Stoddard . Edited by Jennifer Putzi and Elizabeth Stockton, University of Iowa Press, Iowa 2012.
  • Elizabeth Stoddard: Two Men . Edited by Jennifer Putzi, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 2008.
  • Elizabeth Stoddard: Poems . Indy Publishing, Boston (Mass.) 2007.
  • Elizabeth Stoddard: Stories . Edited by Susanne Opfermann and Yvonne Roth, Northeastern University Press, Boston (Mass.) 2003, ISBN 1-55553-562-3
  • Elizabeth Stoddard: Temple House: A Novel , Johnson, New York 1971 (reprinted 1901 Philadelphia edition).

Literature (selection)

  • Claudia Lillge: The Brontë Method: Elizabeth Stoddard's Transatlantic Genealogy and the Victorian Imaginary . Winter Verlag, Heidelberg 2009 (English Research, Issue 400).
  • Lynn Mahoney: Elizabeth Stoddard and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Culture . Routledge, New York 2004.
  • Robert McClure Smith and Ellen M. Weinauer: American Culture, Canons, and the Case of Elizabeth Stoddard . University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa 2014 (first published in 2003).
  • Regula Giovanni: "I believe I shall die an impenetrable secret": The Writings of Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard . Lang Verlag, Bern et al. 2003, ISBN 3-906770-41-9 .
  • James H. Matlack: The Literary Career of Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard . Yale University, New Haven 1968.
  • Elizabeth Stockton: "A Crusade against Duty": Property, Self-Possession and the Law in the Novels of Elizabeth Stoddard . In: The New England Quarterly 79.3 (2006), pp. 413-438.
  • Sybil Weir: The Morgesons: A Neglected Feminist Bildungsroman . In: New England Quarterly 49 (1976), pp. 427-439.

Web links

Wikiquote: Elizabeth Drew Stoddard  - Quotes
Wikisource: Elizabeth Stoddard  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the information on Oxford Bibliographies Online , ed. by Oxford University Press , Elizabeth Stoddard and on the Poetry Foundation Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard , accessed March 27, 2015. See also Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow (1823-1902) . From Lehigh University , accessed March 27, 2015. See also the detailed biographical information of Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell in the introduction to their new edition of the Morgesons: Biographical and Critical Introduction . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , pp. XI-XXV, available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [1] .
  2. ↑ See the information on Oxford Bibliographies Online , ed. by Oxford University Press , Elizabeth Stoddard and on the Poetry Foundation Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard , accessed March 27, 2015. See also Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow (1823-1902) . At Lehigh University , accessed 2015. See on 27 March. Well Biographical and Critical Introduction . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , pp. XV-XII, available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [2]. See also Susanne Opfermann: Stoddard, Elizabeth [Barstow]. In: Bernd Engler and Kurt Müller (eds.): Metzler Lexicon of American Authors. Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-476-01654-4 , p. 637 f.
  3. ↑ See the information on Oxford Bibliographies Online , ed. by Oxford University Press , Elizabeth Stoddard and on the Poetry Foundation Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard , accessed March 27, 2015. See also Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow (1823-1902) . At Lehigh University , accessed March 27, 2015. See also the detailed biographical information of Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell in the introduction to their re-edited Morgesons: Biographical and Critical Introduction . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , pp. XIII-XV, available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [3] .
  4. ↑ See Hubert Zapf (Ed.): American Literary History . J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01203-4 , p. 162. See also the illustration on Oxford Bibliographies Online , ed. by Oxford University Press , Elizabeth Stoddard and Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow (1823-1902) . At Lehigh University , accessed on 27 March 2015. See also Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell. Biographical and Critical Introduction . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , pp. XV-XVII, available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [4] .
  5. ↑ See the information on Oxford Bibliographies Online , ed. by Oxford University Press , Elizabeth Stoddard and Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow (1823-1902) . At Lehigh University , accessed on 27 March 2015. See also Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell. Biographical and Critical Introduction . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , pp. XV-XXII, available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [5] . See also Susanne Opfermann: Stoddard, Elizabeth [Barstow]. In: Bernd Engler and Kurt Müller (eds.): Metzler Lexicon of American Authors. Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-476-01654-4 , p. 637 f.
  6. ↑ See the review by Julika Griem: Elizabeth Stoddard: The Morgesons - I was all waist, my hands were red . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 23, 2012, accessed on March 28, 2015. See also Hubert Zapf (Hrsg.): Amerikanische Literaturgeschichte . J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01203-4 , p. 162. Cf. also Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell: Biographical and Critical Introduction . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , pp. XV-XXII, available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [6] .
  7. ↑ See the information on Oxford Bibliographies Online , ed. by Oxford University Press , Elizabeth Stoddard and Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow (1823-1902) . At Lehigh University , accessed March 27, 2015. See also Hubert Zapf (Ed.): American Literary History . J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01203-4 , p. 162. Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell give a detailed overview of the history of the reception of Elizabeth Stoddard's work in the introduction to their new edition of the Morgesons. See Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell: A Guide to Writings by and about Elizabeth Stoddard . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , pp. XV and XXVII - XXIX, available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [7] .
  8. ↑ See Hubert Zapf (Ed.): American Literary History . J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01203-4 , p. 162. See also Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell: A Guide to Writings by and about Elizabeth Stoddard . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , pp. XVII ff., Available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [8]
  9. ↑ See more detailed Lawrence Buell and Sandra A. Zagell: A Guide to Writings by and about Elizabeth Stoddard . In: Stoddard, Elizabeth: "The Morgesons" and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished . University of Pennsylvania Press 1984, ISBN 978-0-8122-0560-2 , p. XIX, available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [9]
  10. ↑ Cf. Julika Griem: Elizabeth Stoddard: The Morgesons - I was all waist, my hands were red . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 23, 2012, accessed on March 28, 2015.
  11. ↑ See Susanne Opfermann: Stoddard, Elizabeth [Barstow]. In: Bernd Engler and Kurt Müller (eds.): Metzler Lexicon of American Authors. Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-476-01654-4 , p. 637 f.
personal data
SURNAME Stoddard, Elizabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barstow, Elizabeth Drew (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Mattapoisett , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1902
Place of death New York City