Lucie Domeier

Lucie Domeier (born Esther Gad , formerly Esther Bernard , also Lucie Bernard ; * 1767 in Breslau ; † October 1833 ) was a German writer and translator of Jewish origin. In addition to her travelogues, she was best known as the correspondent of Jean Pauls and Rahel Varnhagen von Enses .

Life

Lucie Domeier's Berlin friend Madame de Genlis, painted by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard in 1780.

Long-time pen friend Rahel Varnhagen von Ense, around 1800.

Lucie Domeier was born as Esther Gad in 1767 into a wealthy Jewish family. Her father was Raphael ben Gad from Glogau , who, as a Jew, was only allowed to stay in Wroclaw for a limited time and later, as a generally privileged Jew, was given permanent residence rights for himself and his family. Esther Gad's mother Nissel was a daughter of the chief rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz . Esther Gad already showed an urge for intensive education at a young age. Her brother Isaak Gad, who was already living in Dresden at the time , became a role model for her who gave her education. At the age of 13 she learned French and later Italian and English.

Esther Gad was married to the merchant Samuel Bernard from Frankfurt (Oder) in Breslau in 1791 and had three children in the following years. Already in 1796 she divorced Samuel Bernard and went to Dresden, where she lived in the house of the Oberhofkapellmeister Johann Gottlieb Naumann . a. associated with the writer Elisa von der Recke .

In order to give her son Jonas a good education, Esther Gad moved to Berlin in 1799, where she met Rahel Varnhagen von Ense personally, with whom she had already exchanged letters in the 1790s. She got into friendly contact with Dorothea Veit , Henriette Herz and Madame de Genlis and met her second husband Wilhelm Friedrich Domeier , who at the time was the doctor of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent . Esther Gad converted to Christianity in 1801 and took the first name Lucie . She followed Wilhelm Friedrich Domeier to Great Britain in the same year and married him on June 27, 1802. The son August Edward Domeier was born on February 20, 1804.

The years 1802 and 1803 were marked by longer stays in Portugal, which Lucie Domeier processed in her travel stories. She later lived in Malta for an extended period before settling in London, where her husband died in 1815. In the following years Lucie Domeier maintained contacts with Walter Scott and Lord Byron in London and went on numerous trips, including a. 1822 to Germany. In a letter to Rahel Varnhagen, she described herself as a “ much wandered female Ulisses”. In old age she went blind and lived remote from the world in London, where she possibly died.

The writer Lucie Domeier

Lucie Domeier first became active as a writer in 1791 when her poem Auf die Wilhelms-Schule in Breslau was published in the Lower Silesian Magazine . One of her best-known works is the pamphlet, some of which was in the form of letters, in 1798. Some statements about Mr. Kampe'n's allegations concerning female scholarship , with which she deals with Joachim Heinrich Campe's 1789 paper Father's advice for my daughter . In her work she opposed a reduction of women to their function as housewives and mothers and defended the right of women to higher intellectual education and learning, which earned her the name "German wool stone craft ". In the following years she became known to Silesian authors such as Christian Garve , Johann Gottlieb Schummel and Georg Gustav Fülleborn .

She also had literary success with her travelogues from England and Portugal, which appeared in 1802 and 1803. She worked as a translator from English and French and in the years 1800–1803 translated, among other things, the two mothers of her Berlin friend Madame de Genlis. The translation of Marcus and Monimia from English is regarded as her first literary attempt, also the translation of the Leucado, Letters from Spain, with a letter to Mr. Tieck comes from her.

Correspondence

Correspondence with Rahel Varnhagen von Ense

The correspondence between Lucie Domeier and Rahel Varnhagen von Ense began as early as 1795 and lasted until 1796. It was resumed for one year as early as 1800 and continued from 1815 to 1821. At the request of Karl August Varnhagen von Enses , Lucie Domeier declared in 1833 that he no longer had any letters from Rachel.

Lucie Domeier also had a lively correspondence with Henriette Herz, which, however, has not been passed down.

Correspondence with Jean Paul

Jean Paul around 1797 when he first met Lucie Domeier

Lucie Domeier and Jean Paul first met in July 1797 in Franzensbad , where the poet visited the writer Emilie von Berlepsch . Countess Schlabrendorf, who was a follower of the poet, took over the mediation. The pen friendship was started by Lucie Domeier, who had read Jean Paul's writing Hesperus or 45 Hundposttage several times. The correspondence in 1797 only lasted six months, during which Jean Paul rarely responded to Lucie Domeier's letters. Correspondence was only resumed in 1800, as Jean Paul was staying in Berlin, where Lucie Domeier also lived. Lucie Domeier introduced Jean Paul to various salons and discussion groups, e. B. in the Feßler Wednesday Society . In a letter to Jean Paul she confessed:

“I know of no other writer, older or more recent, so generally loved by women as you. Your biographer must not forget to mention this. "

- Lucie Domeier to Jean Paul : letter of September 16, 1800

One of the last surviving letters from Lucie Domeier to Jean Paul was written in April 1801. The last surviving letter from Jean Paul to Lucie Domeier has only survived as a concept and is dated March 3, 1804. A total of 14 letters by Lucie Domeier have survived, but only a few letters and notes from Jean Paul. Nevertheless, it must be assumed that both remained in contact until Jean Paul's death. Shortly after his death, Lucie Domeier wrote to Rahel Varnhagen von Ense:

“And so Jean Paul is also dead. it always strikes me as strange when people with so much spirit die. The stupid are always half dead! "

- Lucie Domeier to Rahel Varnhagen von Ense : letter of April 23, 1826

Works

• Some remarks about Mr. Kampe'n's claims concerning female scholarship (1798)
• Something about Schiller's Piccolomini (1799)
• News from the Dresden Museum (1799)
• Lisbon (1802)
• E. Bernard born Gad: Letters to a friend during my stay in England and Portugal (part 1, 1802)
• Lucie Bernard born Gad: New trip through England and Portugal. In letters to a friend (part 2, 1803)
• The Portuguese women (1803)
• [Lucie Domeier]: Critical examination of several passages in Frau von Staël's book about Germany. With an attribution to Mr Jean Paul Richter. Translated from English by the author of the original (1814)
• An appendix of the description of Paris (1820)

Lucie Domeier published other smaller prosaic and poetic works in journals and collections, e. B. the Berlin monthly . She also wrote a novel called The Siblings , which was conceived in two volumes, but was probably never completed. The first part of the novel, which Jean Paul had appreciated, was offered to various Berlin publishers in the autumn of 1800, but none of them decided to print. The novel was lost.

Quotes

"The law of half the human race is the highest object of morality, which must be considered from all sides in order to finally become it from the right [...]"

literature

• Peter Beer: Esther Bernard, née Gad. A biographical sketch . In: Sulamith . 5, 1817, pp. 252-258.
• Carl Wilhelm Otto August von Schindel: The German women writers of the nineteenth century , first part AL. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1823.
• Meyer Kayserling : The Jewish Women in History, Literature and Art . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1879; Reprint Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 1991, pp. 234-236, ISBN 3487094258 .
• Bernhard Brilling: Eibenschütziana . In: Hebrew Union College Annual . 35, 1964, pp. 255-273. JSTOR 23506619
• Karin Rudert: The rediscovery of a “German wool stone craft”: Esther Gad Bernard Domeier for equal rights for women and Jews . In: Quaderni . 10, 1988, pp. 213-257.
• Barbara Hahn: "Most beloved writer". Esther Gad's correspondence with Jean Paul . In: JbJPG . 16, 1990, pp. 7-42.
• Barbara Hahn: Under a false name. The difficult authorship of women . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991.
• Shirley Brückner: Religion and Gender. On the educational idea of ​​Jewish women around 1800 . Master's thesis, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle-Wittenberg 2003.
• Dorothea Böck, Eduard Berend (ed.): Jean Paul's complete works: historical-critical edition . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2004, pp. 861f., ISBN 3050037725 .
• Monika Meier: Esther Gad - Lucie Domeier: "a much wandered female Ulisses" in and about Berlin . Lecture October 2007 at the conference Berlin 1800–1830: Emancipation of a cultural metropolis .
• Domeier, Lucie. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 5: Carmo – Donat. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-22685-3 , pp. 487-489.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Some sources give 1770 as the year of birth.
2. ↑ The exact date of death has not been determined, in some cases the information “after 1833” can also be found in the accessible literature. The year of death 1820 is incorrect, as Lucie Domeier's letters from 1833 have been preserved.
3. ↑ around 1745–1808
4. ↑ As a so-called “Fix-Entrist”, he had to pay an annual fee called “Fix-Entrée”, which extended his stay in Wroclaw.
5. ↑ around 1741–1793
6. ↑ 1690-1764
7. ↑ Meyer Kayserling gives 1792 as the year of the marriage, again other sources assume 1795.
8. ↑ son Jonas, * around 1791 (Hahn: under a false name also calls him "Johann Robert" on p. 45); Daughter Rebekka, born December 18, 1792, † 1794; Daughter Jeanette, called Nettchen , * around 1795
9. ↑ Lucie Domeier to Rahel Varnhagen, letter of February 9, 1816, cited above. after Hahn: under a foreign name . P. 43.
10. ↑ See Schindel, p. 104.
11. ↑ Quoted from Hahn: Under a false name . P. 36.
12. ↑ Quoted from Hahn: Under a false name . P. 36.
13. ↑ Hahn, p. 39.
14. ↑ Lucie Domeier (at that time still Esther Gad): Some remarks about Mr. Kampe'n's assertions concerning female scholarship . In: Christian Daniel Voss (ed.): The cosmopolitan. A monthly to promote true and general humanity . tape 3 . Hall 1798, S. 577 .