Mathilde Blind

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Lucy Madox Brown : Mathilde Blind (no year)

Mathilde Blind (born March 21, 1841 in Mannheim ; † November 26, 1896 in London ) was an English writer of German origin who is particularly known for her poetry volumes , biographies and translations .

Life

Blind was born in Mannheim as Mathilde Cohen, but took on the name of her stepfather, the revolutionary Karl Blind , as a child . Her biological father, a Jewish banker, died shortly after she was born. When Mathilde Blind was eight years old, the family had to flee first to Belgium and then to London due to Karl Blind's involvement in the revolution of 1848/49 . Revolutionary thinkers such as Louis Blanc , Joseph Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi regularly frequented the House of Blinds in London , which had a lasting impact on Mathilde Blind; she herself published feminist writings, her brother Ferdinand Cohen-Blind carried out an assassination attempt on Otto von Bismarck in 1866 . Mathilde Blind appeared as a critic of faith in her youth and was expelled from school on charges of atheism . She autodidactically acquired a wide range of knowledge in many areas. When she was eighteen she traveled alone through Switzerland; at thirty she left home. Throughout her life she made numerous trips, including to Egypt , Scotland and continental Europe , which she also processed in her work. Blind never married and maintained social contacts, especially with women. She always remained closely connected to feminism. After her death, she bequeathed her fortune to an institution that cared for the education of women.

plant

Blind admired romantic poetry all his life , especially Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron . She contributed a foreword to each of these two book editions. Her first own poem from 1859 is entitled Ode to Schiller . She later wrote the biographies of George Eliot and Madame Roland, whom she admired and translated, among others, David Friedrich Strauss ' The Old and the New Faith into English. She is also the author of numerous poems, some of which she published under the pseudonym Claude Lake. During his lifetime the volumes The Prophecy of St. Oran (1881), The Heather on Fire (1886), The Ascent of Man (1888), Songs and Sonnets (1893) and Birds of Passage (1896) were published. The Ascent of Man is considered Blind's most ambitious work. It is an epic poem that deals with the theory of evolution , a subject that it dealt with several times. Her only novel, Tarantella , did not have much success in her time. In addition to literary works, Mathilde Blind also wrote literary criticism and gave lectures . Today she is one of the lesser-known writers of her time. Her work is received primarily in the field of feminist literary theory . It combines typical characteristics of the literature of the Romantic and Victorian Age .

bibliography

  • Poems by Claude Lake (1867)
  • The Old Faith and the New (1873, translation of David Friedrich Strauss' The old and the new faith )
  • The Prophecy of St. Oran (1881)
  • George Eliot (1883)
  • Tarantella: a Romance (1885)
  • The Heather on Fire (1886)
  • Madame Roland (1886)
  • The Ascent of Man (1889)
  • Dramas in Miniature (1891)
  • Songs and Sonnets (1893)
  • Birds of Passage: Songs of the Orient and Occident (1896)

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Lorna Sage (Ed.): The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English , Cambridge University Press: Cambridge (1999), p. 68
  2. ^ A b Paul and June Schlueter (eds.): An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers , Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick / London (1998), p. 60
  3. ↑ a b Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, Isobel Grundy (Ed.): The Feminist Companion to Literature in English , Batsford: London (1990), pp. 105f.

literature

  • A Selection From The Poems Of Mathilde Blind , Kessinger (2008), ISBN 0548973059
  • The Poetical Works Of Mathilde Blind , Kessinger (2008), ISBN 1437273696
  • James Diedrick: Mathilde Blind: late-Victorian culture and the woman of letters , Charlottesville; London: University of Virginia Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-8139-3931-5

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Blind, Mathilde
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cohen, Mathilde (maiden name); Lake, Claude (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English speaking writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 1896
Place of death London