Emilie von Berlepsch

Emilie von Berlepsch (painting by V. Sonnenschein)

Dorothea Friderika Aemilia von Berlepsch ( born von Oppel ; born November 26, 1755 in Gotha , † July 27, 1830 in Lauenburg ) was a German writer and early defender of women's rights. She wrote poetry, essays, travel literature and a play, was a close friend of Johann Gottfried Herder and was briefly fiancé of the writer Jean Paul .

Life

First marriage and beginning as a writer

Emilie von Berlepsch was the daughter of the Vice Chancellor and later Chancellor of Saxony-Altenburg and Saxony-Gotha and Württemberg secret councilor and governor of the County of Mömpelgard , Carl Georg August von Oppel (1725–1760), and his wife Amalie nee. Countess Dönhoff was born in Gotha. In 1771 she married the Hanoverian lawyer and councilor Friedrich Ludwig von Berlepsch . The marriage resulted in the daughters Caroline, Luise and the son Friedrich Carl Emil. Emilie von Berlepsch lived in Switzerland from 1793 to 1795. In 1795 she filed for divorce from her husband, with whom she had only lived for a short time during the years of their marriage. Friedrich Ludwig von Berlepsch then married her chambermaid Anna Dorothea Helene Siever in the same year.

Emilie von Berlepsch had already appeared as a writer in the 1780s. She first published anonymously travel reports in magazines and later poems in the Göttingen Musenalmanach . Her first major work was the collection of small writings and poetry , of which the first and only volume appeared in 1787. In 1791 her work On Some Qualities and Principles Necessary for the Happiness of Marriage caused a sensation, in which she reflected on love, marriage and the self-image of women:

“We have to learn to stand alone! We must make our way of thinking, our character so venerable in our own eyes that the judgment of others in our tested and just judgment cannot mislead us. "

- Emilie von Berlepsch : happiness in marriage

Jean Paul around 1798 at the time of his engagement to Emilie von Berlepsch.

So long before the first women's movement began at the end of the 19th century, she campaigned for female independence in marriage and the establishment of an autonomous female culture. Because of this, she became a role model for the emancipated Countess Linda de Romeiro in Jean Paul's novel Titan .

In the months after the divorce from her husband, Emilie von Berlepsch lived alternately in Hanover , Göttingen and Weimar . In 1797 she stayed briefly in Dresden and Franzensbad , where she met Jean Paul , whom she had known for several months. She followed him to Leipzig with plans to marry. An engagement to Jean Paul took place in January 1798, but was broken off in the following month.

Stay in Switzerland and the remarks

Emilie von Berlepsch lived in Switzerland for the following months. The occupation of the country by France in 1799 led her to write Some Comments on the Correct Assessment of the Forced Swiss Revolution and Jacques Mallet-du-Pan's story of the same , with which she took literary action against the political events. Jean Paul called her work the best in German language and soul that a German has ever written . Due to the political changes, Emilie von Berlepsch swore not to set foot on Swiss soil until the occupation was over. She left Switzerland and went to Scotland in 1799 .

Stay in Scotland and Caledonia

Cover of the first edition of Caledonia , 1802.

In the years 1799 to 1800 Emilie von Berlepsch made a trip to Scotland. She was partly accompanied by the clergyman James Macdonald, who was a confidante of Christoph Martin Wieland and her good friend Herder. They both spent the winter of 1799 in Edinburgh , and in the summer they toured the Highlands . The trip became the occasion for Emilie von Berlepsch's most important work Caledonia , which is considered to be the first description of Scotland by a German writer. It appeared in four volumes between 1802 and 1804. The travelogues are interspersed with the author's personal feelings, contain her long discussion with Mary Wollstonecraft , and were heavily influenced by the writings of the Scottish poet Robert Burns and the songs of Ossian , whose translation Emilie von Berlepsch planned but did not implement.

Caledonia is dedicated to Johann Gottlieb Herder, who admired Burns' works and Ossian very much. As a confidante of the author, he read an initial version of the work before it was published. Caledonia finally appeared with the indication "From the author of the summer hours" without additional names of authors - a type of publication by women authors that was common at the time. As recently as 1995, the work was described as one of the most important descriptions of Scotland in German, even if it was forgotten in the 19th century following the writings of Walter Scott due to other travel stories.

Second marriage and life in Switzerland

During her stay in Scotland Emilie von Berlepsch had courted her companion James Macdonald, who however refused to marry her. She returned to Germany disappointed, where on June 5, 1801 she married the councilor August Heinrich Ludwig Harms in Redefin near Schwerin . Three years later they both traveled to Switzerland and lived near Bern . Their Mariahalden winery near Erlenbach on Lake Zurich , which the couple bought in 1806, became a cultural meeting place in the following years. a. The French statesman Talleyrand frequented here . After financial problems, Emilie von Berlepsch returned to Germany with her husband in 1813 and lived in Mecklenburg, Hanover, Schwerin and Lauenburg. Mariahalden was sold in 1817, and Emilie von Berlepsch's last years were characterized by poverty.

The biographer Carl Wilhelm Otto August von Schindel summarized Emilie von Berlepsch in 1823 as a woman worthy of respect from the side of the heart and mind, who is one of the most ingenious and educated writers in Germany, both in her prosaic and poetic works.

Works

• Three theater speeches (published in Heinrich August Ottokar Reichardt's theater calendar for the year 1785 )
• Collection of smaller writings and poetry. (This includes her only drama Eginhard and Emma. ) Dieterich, Göttingen 1787.
• Poems (published in the Göttingen Musenalmanach ; 1791)
• About some characteristics and principles necessary for the happiness of marriage (published in Der Neue Teutsche Merkur ; 1791)
• Summer hours. 1st volume. (Poems.) Orell, Gessner Füssli, Zurich 1794. ( digitized version )
• A few remarks on the correct assessment of the forced Swiss revolution and Mallet du Pan's history of it. Dyk, Leipzig 1799. ( digitized version )
• Caledonia (1802-1804)

literature

• Carl Wilhelm Otto August von Schindel: The German women writers of the nineteenth century , volume 1. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1823, p. 189f.
• Elisabeth Friedrichs: The German-speaking women writers of the 18th and 19th centuries . Metzler, Stuttgart 1981, pp. 22f., ISBN 3-476-00456-2 .
• Maya Widmer: Berlepsch, Emilie von. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Susanne Kord: A look behind the scenes. German-speaking playwrights in the 18th and 19th centuries . Metzler, Stuttgart 1992, pp. 247f., ISBN 3-476-00835-5 .
• Ruth P. Dawson: “Navigating Gender: Georg Forster in the Pacific and Emilie von Berlepsch in Scotland.” In: David Gallagher (ed.): Weimar Classicism, Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, Wales, 2011. 39–64.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Her sister Caroline Auguste Franziska was born two years later.
2. ↑ 1777-1780
3. ↑ * 1774. She married August Ernst von Lichtenberg in 1798 .
4. ↑ called Fritz, 1775-1802
5. ^ Günter de Bruyn: The life of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1976, p. 195.
6. ↑ Emilie von Berlepsch: About some characteristics and principles necessary for the happiness of marriage . In: Christoph Martin Wieland (ed.): Der Neue Teutsche Merkur . Volume 2, Item 5, Weimar 1791, p. 89.
7. ↑ Andrea Albrecht : Cosmopolitanism. Discourses on global citizenship in literature, philosophy and journalism around 1800 . De Gruyter, Berlin p. 207.
8. ↑ Jean Paul to Emanuel, letter of April 9, 1809. Quoted from: Eduard Berend (Ed.): Jean Pauls Complete Works . 3rd department, 6th volume, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1952, p. 24.
9. ↑ See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography .
10. ↑ Ruth P. Dawson: “Navigating Gender: Georg Forster in the Pacific and Emilie von Berlepsch in Scotland.” In: David Gallagher (ed.): Weimar Classicism, Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, Wales, 2011, pp. 39-64 .
11. ↑ Nicholas Boyle, Holger Fliessbach: Goethe: The poet in his time . Beck, Munich 1995, p. 552.
12. ↑ Schindel, pp. 189f.