Jenny from Voigts

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Jenny from Voigts

Johanne Wilhelmine Juliane (called Jenny) von Voigts (born June 5, 1749 in Osnabrück , † December 29, 1814 in Melle ) was a German writer and daughter of Justus Möser . She cultivated numerous friendships with the intellectual and political elite of her time, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Luise von Brandenburg-Schwedt .

Live and act

Jenny von Voigt's father is the Osnabrück Secret Counselor Justus Möser, who reigned for the Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück, Friedrich August, Duke of York and Albany , who was initially underage and later continuously abroad . Her mother is Regina Juliana Möser, née Brouning. Friedrich Nicolai , publisher and friend of the house wrote about her: "... a rare woman, in spirit, heart and knowledge". The family belonged to the wealthy Osnabrück middle-class families and lived in a spacious rococo-style house at 10 Hakenstrasse in the center of Osnabrück. The Möser Realschule is housed here today. Neighbors were those of Bussche , von Nehem, von Morsey-Picard and von Stael-Wulften. Jenny's grandfather and great-grandfather were in the service of Elector Ernst August von Hanover , her great-great-grandfather had been Osnabrück's mayor.

Jenny had a brother who was a year younger than her. The Mösers later took two foster daughters into their house, Juliane von Lengerken and Friderike Friderici. The children grew up in a closed family circle. While the son was tutored by a private tutor, Jenny received lessons from her mother and a family friend named Lindemann, who later became the wife of the Osnabrück lawyer Graff. In addition to her language training in English, Italian and French, she also read English and French (Rousseau, Voltaire) works in the original. She also learned to play the piano.

In the summer of 1766, Jenny made a long trip to Braunschweig to see her relative, Abbot Jerusalem . At first she felt inhibited by the Jerusalemites, "since I had a lot of freedom in Osnabrück, I have to enjoy myself here". She soon opened up new perspectives, such as the visit to the opera, which she found enriching.

Since 1763 she had a pen friendship with the philosopher and historical-political writer Thomas Abbt , who had accepted the post of court and government councilor at the Schaumburg-Lippischer Hof in Bückeburg . Original plans to marry Abbt were shattered by his early death on November 3rd, 1766. At the request of the family, the engagement took place in January 1768 and on May 4th of the same year the marriage with the privy councilor Johann Gerlach Jost von Voigts (1741–1797) from Celle conditions. Voigts initially became director of the newly founded Osnabrück Lottery through the mediation of Justus Möser and received the council title. In 1776 he was appointed forest commissioner. Since their marriage, Jenny had lived with her husband on the family estate, the Haus vor Melle estate, which was north of the center of Melle in front of the city gate. She soon found the marriage, which remained childless, a burden, but gave in to her fate by taking in foster children and financing their upbringing.

House in front of Melle, where Jenny von Voigts lived from 1768 to 1796.

Often, especially during the winter, she stayed in Osnabrück, 25 km west of Melle, where her husband did not accompany her for more than 8 days. Her parents encouraged the frequent visits. Since her brother was killed in a duel as a student in 1773 and Justus Möser did not relate to the death of his only son, Jenny took the place of the brother.

After her mother's death in 1787, she ran the household for her father in Osnabrück. During numerous baths in Bad Pyrmont , to which she accompanied her father, she made the acquaintance of a number of writers. After her father's death in 1794, she separated from her husband by mutual agreement. Despite frequent mutual visits by the couple, Jenny ran her own household in the house inherited from her father on Hakenstrasse in Osnabrück. She died in Melle on December 29, 1814. The capstone of the grave that she shared with her father and mother is now in St. Marien (Osnabrück) .

Many of her correspondents and acquaintances were poets and writers: the anacreontists Ludwig Gleim and Johann Georg Jacobi , the enlighteners Friedrich Nicolai and Johann Erich Biester , the Hainbündler Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg , Heinrich Christian Boie , Anton Matthias Sprickmann , Christian Adolph Overbeck , Charlotte von Eine and Dorothea Wehrs , Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Jacobi , Matthias Claudius , Friedrich von Matthisson , Elisa von der Recke , Jens Immanuel Baggesen , Friedrike Bruns, Johann Gottfried Herder , who are close to the sensitivity and the Sturm und Drang , Gerhard Anton von Halem , Friedrich Bouterweck , Franz Michael Leuchsenring , Johann Joachim Eschenburg , Christian Clodius and August von Kotzebue , Princess Gallitzin and August Wilhelm Schlegel , as well as musicians: Johann Friedrich Reichardt and Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg .

Jenny von Voigts herself was only creatively active to a limited extent. Occasional poems, entries in the archives and song poems have survived. The lullaby to my heart attributed to her is now in the Deutsches Museum . Her literary assessments were sought after by her contemporaries. Her friend from Melle, Winold Stühle, called her "a friend of the learned world".

Works

Edited letters

  • 147 letters and poems to Luise von Brandenburg-Schwedt
  • Letters and poems to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Editorships

Voigts was best known as the editor of the Patriotic Fantasies, a collection of her father's writings. According to Justus Möser, Jenny made the selection and wrote a foreword to some of the volumes.

  • Justus Möser, Patriotic Fantasies , 4 volumes, Berlin 1775 and 1776, 1778, 1786, 1804.

Places named after Jenny von Voigts

literature

Archival material

  • Archive Oskar Fambach.
  • German Biographical Archive , Fiche 1314, Sp. 182–184.
  • Goethe Museum Düsseldorf , letters to Jenny von Voigts from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, March 4, 1782, manuscripts.
  • Municipal Museum Osnabrück, Jenny von Voigts oil painting, unknown painter.
  • Osnabrück University Library, Möser Documentation Center.
  • University and State Library Münster , Jenny von Voigts-Scherenschnitt, manuscript department, Sprickmann estate.

reference books

  • Samuel Baur: Germany's women writers. In the imperial printing house, King-Tisching (ie: Ulm) 1790.
  • Carl Wilhelm Otto August von Schindel: The German women writers of the nineteenth century. Volume 2: M - Z. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1825.
  • Georg Christoph Hamberger (first name): The learned Teutschland or lexicon of the now living German writers. Department 1: Johann Georg Meusel (Ed.): The learned Teutschland in the nineteenth century, along with supplements to the fifth edition of the one in the eighteenth. Volume 9 = Volume 21 (of the complete work): Johann Wilhelm Sigismund Lindner: T - Z. Edited by Johann Samuel Publ . 5th, increased and improved edition. Verlag der Meyerschen Buchhandlung, Lemgo 1827.
  • Adalbert von Hanstein : The women in the history of the German intellectual life of the 18th and 19th centuries. Volume 2: The women in the youth of the great educators and the great poets. Freund & Wittig, Leipzig 1900.
  • Karl Goedeke , Edmund Goetze: Outline of the history of German poetry from the sources. 3. Edition. Ehlermann, Leipzig 1916, Vol. 4, Section 1. P.  44http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3DGoedekeGrundrissZurGeschichteDerDeutschenDichtung-3-41~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3Dn55~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D44~PUR%3D .
  • Wilhelm Kosch : German Literature Lexicon. Biographical and bibliographical manual. Volume 4: Spartakus - Cyrl and supplements. 2nd, completely revised and greatly expanded edition. Francke, Bern 1958.
  • Wilhelm Schulte: Westphalian heads. 300 life pictures of important Westphalians. Biographical guide. 3rd, supplemented edition. Aschendorff. Münster 1984, ISBN 3-402-05700-X .
  • Rainer Hehemann: Biographical handbook on the history of the Osnabrück region (= series of publications Kulturregion Osnabrück of the Landschaftsverband Osnabrück eV, Vol. 3). Rasch, Bramsche 1990, ISBN 3-922469-49-3 .

Publications

  • CH Schmid: Directory of some women writers living now and their writings. In: Journal from and for Germany. 5th year, 1st piece, ZDB -ID 515169-7 , pp. 138-142, here p. 142, online .
  • General literary scoreboard. 3rd volume , No. 59, 1798, ZDB -ID 533709-4 , Sp. 615, online .
  • Justus Friedrich Günther Lodtmann: Genealogy of the Mösersche family. Self-published, Osnabrück 1866. Digitized
  • Ludwig Bäte : Jenny von Voigts. A forgotten friend of Goethe. Home publisher of J. Schnellschen Buchhandlung et al., Warendorf et al. 1926.
  • Ludwig Bäte: The spiritual Melle. In: Melle. A small German town. JF Selige, Melle 1924, pp. 39-43.
  • Maria Heilmann: Old Meller bourgeois families. A contribution to the economic and social history of the city of Melle in the 17th and 18th centuries. In: Archives for regional and folklore of Lower Saxony. Vol. 23, 1944, ZDB -ID 501757-9 , pp. 388-401.
  • Eberhard Crusius : The Friends of Jenny von Voigts, geb. Möser. New letters from her estate with a plaque. In: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen. Vol. 68, 1959, ISSN  0474-8158 , pp. 221-271.
  • Maria Heilmann: Important Mell personalities. In: Edgar Schroeder (Red.): Melle in eight centuries. Ernst Knoth Verlag, Melle 1969, pp. 221-232.
  • Manfred Schlösser, Günter Jäckel (Ed.): The people need light. Women at the time of departure 1790–1848 in their letters (= Agora series 22/23). 11-20 Thousands of the total print run, 1. – 3. Thousands of the significantly improved and expanded edition with an appendix. Agora, Darmstadt et al. 1970, ISBN 3-87008-013-2 .
  • William Sheldon, Ulrike Sheldon: In the spirit of sensitivity. Friendship letters from Möser's daughter Jenny von Voigt to the princess of Anhalt-Dessau 1780–1808 (= Osnabrück historical sources and research. Vol. 17, ISSN  0474-814X ). Wenner, Osnabrück 1971.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Literature Commission for Westphalia (ed.): Lexicon of Westphalian authors (1750–1950).
  2. ^ BR Abeken (Ed.): Justus Möser's all works. Volume 7: Friedrich Nicolai (Ed.): Mixed writings. Volume 1. Nicolai, Berlin 1797.
  3. Sheldon: In the Spirit of Sensitivity. 1971, pp. 1-9.
  4. Ludwig Bäte: Jenny von Voigts. 1926, p. 14.
  5. Sheldon: In the Spirit of Sensitivity. 1971, pp. 10-43.
  6. Winold chairs: About Möser and his services to the fatherland. Along with various remarks about the state constitution. Kissling, Osnabrück 1798.