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The Emotional Side of Men in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany (Theory and Example)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Anne-Charlott Trepp
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Insitute for History Göttigen

Extract

For a long time, the emotional, more intimate and private spheres of life have not been taken seriously by historians. Only the public side of life has been considered to be a legitimate subject for scholars. Disregard of “the private” is as yet not a practice of the past, in particular when traditional historians are concerned. In spite of the “new, wide-ranging anthropological orientation” of historiography in the last few years, the marginalization of private life is, (in contrast to French and Anglo-American historical research) still the norm in Germany. The reasons for this disinterest in the private are numerous, but lie primarily in the tenaciously held, often not openly expressed, assumption that the nature of the private is in itself ahistorical. In contrast to the public, (a correlation considered to be dualistic) the private is seen as an anthropological constant, “timeless” and universal, simply a part of “nature.” The private, used synonymously for the spheres of marriage, family, and household, thus was placed beyond history, and therefore beyond historical change. This more than anything else determined that women had no “history” (Geschichtslosigkeit)—their inherited place was, after all, to be found within the context of family and household. Against this background, the binary concept of public and private appeared to be a promising heuristic tool for tracing women in history for quite sometime.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1994

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References

Translated by Ursula Marcum.

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* At the end of the eighteenth century, the word Sentimentalitiit (sentimentality) was also used for Empfindsamkeit.-TRANS.

23. Hausen, “Frauenräume,” 15.

24. One remembers especially the works of Steinhausen, Georg or Kluckhohn's, Paul, Die Auffassung der Liebe in der Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts und der deutschen Romantik (Halle, 1922);Google Scholar see also Brunschwig, Henri, Gesellschaft und Romantik in Preussen im 18, Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main, 1976).Google Scholar Further the article by the sociologist Tenbruck, Friedrich H., “Freundschaft: Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie der persönlichen Beziehungen,” Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 16 (1964): 431–46.Google Scholar

25. “Only independent femininity, only tender manliness, is good and beautiful.” Schlegel, Friedrich, Über die Diotima (1795), reprinted in Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, 35 vols., ed. Behler, Ernst (Munich, 1960ff)Google Scholar; vol. 1, Studien des klassischen Altertums (1979), 70–115, esp. 93.

26. Steinhausen, Georg, Geschichte des deutschen Briefes, 2 vols. (original printing 1889, Dublin 1968), 279;Google Scholar see also Gebauer, Curt, Geistige Strömungen und Sittlichkeit im 18. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur deutschen Moralgeschiche (Berlin, 1931), 72;Google Scholarcf., Tenbruck, Friedrich H., “Bürgerliche Kultur,” in Kultur und Gesellschaft, ed. Neidhardt, Friedhelm/Lepsius, M. Rainer et al. , (Opladen, 1986), 262–85, esp. 277.Google Scholar

27. The “tendency toward Empfindsamkeit” appears in Germany for the first time in 1740 and 1750. Its high point is placed in the second half of the century, especially with the publication of Goethe's the Leiden des jungen Werther and Johann Martin Miller's novel Siegwart. In spite of later works, see Sauder, Gerhard, Empfindsamkeit, vol. 1, Voraussetzungen und Elemente (Stuttgart, 1974); for periodization, 227ff.Google Scholar

28. Honegger, Claudia, Die Ordnung der Geschlechter. Die Wissenschaften vom Menschen und das Weib, 1750–1850 (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), 31.Google Scholar

29. One is reminded that with the letter, Empfindsamkeit in a certain sense created its own vehicle of communication. Werther's flight into his inner self, by contrast, showed a radicalism, that “tested Empfindsamkeit, so to speak, as far as the asocial,” and in that form, it was difficult to accept for bourgeois society. Schmidt, Siegfried J., Die Selbstorganisation des sozialen Systems Literatur um 18. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), 94;Google Scholarcf., also Schön's, Erich research into reading habits: Schön, ErichDer Verlust der Sinnlichkeit oder die Verwandlungen des Lesers. Mentalitätswandel im 1800 (Stuttgart, 1987), esp. 223ff.Google Scholar He does not find any hints of consciously withdrawn reading. The eighteenth century is, after all, the ultimate century of socialibility; see also Hof, Ulrich im, Das gesellige Jahrhundert. Gesellschaft und Gesellschaften im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Munich, 1982).Google Scholar

30. Sauder, Gerhard, “‘Bürgerliche’ Empfindsamkeit,” in Bürger und Bürgerlichkeit im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, ed. Vierhaus, Rudolf (Heidelberg, 1981), 149–64, esp. 152;Google Scholarcf., Pikulik, Lothar, Leistungsethik contra Gefühlskult: Über das Verhältnis von Bürgerlichkeit und Empfindsamkeit in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1984), esp. 241ff.Google Scholar

31. Schmidt, Die Selbstorganisation, 93; numerous facets of the concept “total man” are shown in the recently published collection by Schings, Hans-Jürgen, Der ganze Mensch. Anthropologie und Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert. DFG-Symposium 1992 (Stuttgart, 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. Tenbruck, “Bürgerliche Kultur,” 272ff.

33. Schmidt, Die Selbstorganisation, 104.

34. Brunschwig, Gesellschaft und Romantik, esp. 345ff.

35. For the following, see Trepp, “Sanfte Männlichkeit.”

36. Engelhardt, Ulrich, “Frauen in der Sozialgeschichte,” in Sozialgeschichte in Deutschland: Entwicklungen und Perspektiven im internationalen Zusammenhang, vol. 4, Soziale Gruppen in der Geschichte, ed. Schieder, Wolfgang and Sellin, Volker (Göttingen, 1987), 156–78, here 171.Google Scholar

37. This included activities for public benefit.

38. For the modern idea of self-development, see Schmidt, Die Selbstorganisation, 84ff., 127. Luhmann, Niklas, Liebe als Passion. Zur Codierung von Intimität, 4th ed., (Frankfurt am Main 1984), 171.Google Scholar

39. At that time, unconditional devotion to one's career was not yet a necessity, being known still counted more than achievement; cf., Crone, Patricia, Die vorindustrielle Gesellschaft. Eine Strukturanalyse (Munich, 1992), 42.Google Scholar

40. For the most often raised thesis that, for the man, the private life constituted really only a compensating function as opposed to career and public world which was experienced as hostile, see among others Duden, Barbara, “Das schöne Eigentum. Zur Herausbildung des bürgerlichen Frauenbildes an der Wende vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert, “Kursbuch 47 (1977); 125140, esp. 132ff.;Google ScholarRosenbaum, Heidi, Formen der Familie. Untersuchungen zum Zusammenhang von Familienverhältnissen, Sozialstruktur und sozialem Wandel in der deutschen Gesellschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main, 1982), 288ff., 301ff.Google Scholar Heide Rosenbaum cannot do justice to the extraordinary high value placed on familial happiness (von Knigge, Adolf Freiherr, Über den Umgang mit Menschen (first published 1788), ed. Ueding, Gert (Frankfurt am Main 1977), 161)Google Scholar, especially since it falsely posits a sharp separation between job and family, between the public and family world. On this point, cf., also Pikulik, Leistungsethik, 109ff.

41. See especially von Knigge, Über den Umgang, 1977. Even more than Hippel, von Knigge was able to appeal to his contemporaries with his idea of marriage; see also Hausen, ‘“eine Ulme,’” 89ff., for Hippel's attitude in this question see also Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, 151. Gottlieb von Hippel, Theodor, Über die Ehe, (first edition Berlin 1774);Google Scholar already in 1794 a fourth, newly revised and enlarged edition appeared.

42. Cf., Klukhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe; Luhmann, Liebe als Passion.

43. The concepts of love held during the Middle Ages were quite different from this concept of marriage for love. See Dinzelbacher, Paul, “Sexualität/Liebe im Mittelalter,” in idem ed., Europäsche Mentalitätsgeschichte, (Stuttgart, 1993), 7089.Google Scholar Love appears less as a direct motive for marriage than as its desirable result; see Weigand, Rudolf, Liebe und Ehe im Mittelalter (Goldbach, 1993), 42ff.Google Scholar Starting in the middle of the fifteenth century in the higher bourgeoisie, attraction begins to gain in importance in choosing a partner: Beer, Mathias, Eltern und Kinder des späten Mittelalters in ihren Briefen. Familienleben in der Stadt des Spätmittelaters und der frühen Neuzeit mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Nürnbergs (1400–1550) (Nürnberg, 1990), 81ff.Google Scholar For a different view, see Volker-Rasor, Anette, Bilderpaare-Paarbilder. Die Ehe in Autobiographien des 16. Jahrhunderts (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1993), esp. 245ff.Google Scholar For the development of the institution of marriage see van Dülmen, Richard, Kultur und Alltag in der Frühen Neuzeit, vol. 1, Das Haus und seine Menschen (Munich 1990), 157ff.Google Scholar, Wunder, “Er ist die Sonn,” 65ff.

44. Flandrin, Jean-Louis, “Das Geschlechtsleben der Eheleute in der alten Gesellschaft. Von der kirchlichen Lehre zum realen Verhalten,” in Die Masken des Begehrens und die Metamorphosen der Sinnlichkeit. Zur Geschichte der Sexualität im Abendland, ed. Ariès, Philippe and Bèjin, André (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), 147–64;Google Scholar Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, 137; less drastic, Weigand, Liebe und Ehe, 42ff.

45. Dülmen, Van, Kultur und Alltag, 236ff.;Google Scholar Wunder, “Er ist die Sonn,” 88.

46. Rosenbaum, Formen der Familie, 263ff.; Sieder, Reinhard, Sozialgeschichte der Familie (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 30ff.Google Scholar

47. Sieder, Sozialgeschichte der Familie, 130.

48. See for example Borscheid, Peter, “Geld und Liebe. Zu den Auswirkungen des Romantischen auf die Partnerwahl im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Ehe, Liebe, Tod, ed. idem and Teuteberg, Hans-Jürgen (Münster, 1983), 112–34, esp. 121ff.;Google ScholarFrevert, Ute, Frauen-Geschichte. Zwischen bügerlicher Verbesserung und neuer Weiblichkeit (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), 40f.;Google Scholar Prokop, Die Illusion, 34; Schraub, Ingrid, Zwischen Salon und Mädchenkammer (Hamburg, 1992) 7ff.;Google Scholar more differentiated Hansen, “‘…eine Ulme,’” 92; similar in its tendency Petschauer, Peter, “Mädchenjahre deutscher Frauen im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Kinderleben in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Büttner, Christian and Ende, Aurel (Weinheim, 1984), 177–94, esp. 192;Google Scholar also Gay, Die zarte Leidenschaft, 101ff.

49. Trepp, “Sanfte Männlichkeit” part 1.

50. Schmidt, Die Selbstorganisation des sozialen Systems Literatur, 125; also Luhmann, Liebe als Passion; Rosenbaum, Formen der Familie, 262f.

51. Gay, Peter, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, vol. 2 The Science of Freedom (London, 1970), 34;Google Scholar cf., Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, 142ff.

52. Any intellectual relationship required a substantially wider education of the woman than had so far been the case, an education that essentially should correspond to the man's horizon. To better female education and upbringing became a central goal of the enlighteners, not least for the above reason. Differently accented cf., Becker-Cantarino, Barbara, Der lange Weg zur Mündigkeit. Frau und Literatur (1500–1800) (Tübingen, 1987), 259ff.;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Frevert, Frauen-Geschichte, 37.

53. Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, 190.

54. The Sturm und Drang linked up with Goethe's individualistic and passionate presentation of love, which, contrary to Empfindsamkeit, allowed the sensual element of love to dominate the spiritual; see Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, 275.

55. Schmidt, Die Selbstorganisation, 94.

56. Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 128; Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, 158ff.

57. See especially Gay, Die zarte Leidenschaft, 57ff.; Stone, The Family, 282ff.; Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, 343ff.

58. Schlegel, Friedrich, Lucinde. Ein Roman (Jena, 1907), 244ff.Google Scholar

59. Schmidt, Die Selbstorganisation, 156f. Only when sexuality was accorded higher value could romantic love triumph; Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 172f.

60. Cf., ibid., 185. “At the end of the eighteenth century the unity of love marriage and marital love is recognized as the principle for the natural perfection of human beings.”

61. Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (Leipzig, 1875), 2, 327.Google Scholar As to his person, see Buek, Friedrich Georg, Die Hamburgischen Oberalten (Hamburg, 1857), 387–90.Google Scholar

62. Kopitzsch, Franklin, Grundzüge einer Sozialgeschichte der Aufklärung ir Hamburg und Altona, 2d. ed. (Hamburg, 1990), 195ff.Google Scholar

63. Altogether 15 Oberalte presided over the civic councils; see Kopitzsch, Grundzüge, 158f.

64. The diary is so far available only in the original (handwritten) manuscript. Staatsarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (StA Hbg.), Bestand 6522–1, Familienarchiv (Fa.), Beneke C 2, 26 Mappen, Tagebuch mit Briefen, Gedichten und Skizzen und anderen Einlagen von Ferdinand Beneke, 1792–1848.

65. Corbin, Alain, “Kulissen,” in Perrot, , ed., Von der Revolution zum Grossen Krieg, 419629, esp. 466;Google Scholar for the subject of the diary as historical source, see also von Greyerz, Kaspar, Vorsehungsglaube und Kosmologie. Studien zu englischen Selbstzeugnissen des 17. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1990), esp. 15ff.;Google ScholarKapp, Volker, “Von der Autobiographic zum Tagebuch,” in Selbstthematisierung und Selbstzeugnis: Bekenntnis und Geständnis, ed. Hahn, Alois and Kapp, Volker (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 924;Google Scholar still helpful Boerner, Peter, Tagebuch (Stuttgart, 1969), esp. 42ff.;CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a source critique, see also Trepp, “Sanfte Männlichkeit,” Introduction.

66. Which, to be sure, in no way can be separated from his public life, for instance when some of his colleagues in the Monday Society also count as his closer friends.

67. Here the close connection between keeping a diary and Pietism becomes evident: see Niggl, Günter, “Zur Säkularisierung der pietistischen Autobiographic im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Die Autobiographie. Zu Form und Geschichte einer literarischen Gattung, ed. idem (Darmstadt, 1989), 367–91, esp. 384ff.;Google ScholarWallmann, Johannes, Der Pietismus (Göttingen, 1990), 7.Google Scholar

68. These and all further emphases are in the original.

69. StA Hbg., Fa. Beneke, C 2, “Vorbericht zu meinem Tagebuch—abgeschrieben, und verändert am 18. November 1794.”

70. In the years after 1800 he developed into—also typical—“one of the first bearers of national— and nationalistic—thoughts, into a ‘patriot’ influenced by idealism and a renewed turn to Christianity”; Kopitzsch, Grundzüge, 92.

71. Cf., ibid., 67f. (the characteristic of the eighteenth century).

72. Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, 246.

73. Citation in Böschenstein, Hermann, Deutsche Gefühlskultur. Studien zu ihrer dichterischen Gestaltung, vol. 1, Die Grundlagen, 1770–1830 (Bern, 1954), 361.Google Scholar

74. Cf., Kopitzsch, Grundzüge einer Sozialgeschichte, 495.

75. StA Hbg., Fa. Beneke, C 36, Briefe an Jean Paul Richter und von diesem.

76. This expression apparently appeared for the first time in Wieland, Christoph Martin, Gandalin oder Liebe um Liebe; Klelia und Sinibald (1796)Google Scholar, in Wieland, Christoph Martin, Sämmtliche Werke. Nachdruck der Ausgabe Leipzig 1794–98, ed. Stiftung, Hamburger zur Förderung von Wissenschaft und Kultur (Hamburg, 1984), vol. 7;Google Scholar cf., Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 175.

77. Cf., among others Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 174f.; Schmidt, Die Selbstorganisation, 128f.

78. Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, esp. 384ff., 444.

79. Böschenstein, Deutsche Gefühlskultur, esp. 362.

80. With all his love for Jean Paul, Beneke does not represent a true image of his idol and/or of any of the latter's fictional characters. Beneke's attitude toward sensuality, for example, is different: it is obviously positive. He also differs from Jean Paul's perceptions of marriage, because, in contrast to Jean Paul's perceptions of marriage as they are stated in his literary work (although he is quite often contradictory), for Beneke love is the precondition for marriage, as will be shown below.

81. StA Hbg., Fa. Beneke, C 2, 10 August 1806.

82. Ibid., 13 October 1797; cf., his first great love in 1793, whom at times he even thinks of marrying.

83. Ibid., 15 February 1797.

84. Ibid., 4 September 1797. Cicisbeo comes originally from the Italian and means an escort and companion of a married woman; also known as family friend.

85. StA Hbg., Fa. Beneke, C 2, 4 October 1798.

86. Ibid., 16 November 1798.

87. Ibid., 19 October 1801.

88. Ibid., 5 February 1800.

89. It was not typical that married people had known one another closely since childhood, nor is the other extreme correct, namely, that people betrothed to one another had hardly ever even seen each other, as for instance Hoock-Demarle, Marie-Claire pictures it: Die Frauen der Goethezeit (Munich, 1990), 220f.;Google Scholar so also Schraub, Zwischen Salon, 10; Frevert, Frauen-Geschichte, 42.

90. Hajnal, John, “European Marriage Patterns in Perspective,” in Population in History, ed. Glass, D. V. and Eversley, D. E. C. (London, 1965), 101–46.Google Scholar

91. The signs of economic ruin had multiplied for years. In addition to his parents, Johann Christoph Beneke (1741–1803) and Justina Dorothea, née Frederking (1749–1817), this also affected his sister Regina Dorothea (1770–1826) and his younger brother Johann Friedrich (1787–1865), the only ones still alive in the mid–nineties. On his family see Hamburger Geschlechterbuch (Limburg an der Lahn, 1910), 53.Google Scholar

92. Lindemann, Mary, Patriots and Paupers in Hamburg, 1712–1830 (New York, 1990), 35;Google ScholarSchramm, Percy Ernst, Neun Generationen. Dreihundert Jahre deutscher Kulturgeschichte im Lichte der Schicksale einer Hamburger Bürgerfamilie (1648–1948), 2 vols. (Göttingen, 19631964), 1, 262.Google Scholar

93. StA Hbg., Fa. Beneke, C 2, especially the entry for 13 September 1799.

94. Ibid., 15 October 1799.

95. Material interests and emotional needs are of course not necessarily incompatible; see Medick, Hans and Sabean, David, eds., Emotionen und materielle Interessen, Sozialanthropoligische und historische Beiträge zur Familienforschung (Göttingen, 1984).Google Scholar

96. StA Hbg., Fa. Beneke, C. 2, 8 September 1800.

97. Ibid., 12 September 1800.

98. Catarina had been a friend in Bremen. She had died young.

99. StA Hbg., Fa. Beneke, C. 2, 12 September 1800.

100. Ibid., 16 September 1800.

101. Ibid., 30 September 1800.

102. Ibid., 21 November 1800. As was the usage of the time, he writes the word “Wohlstand” in the sense of what we call “Wohlanständigkeit.” The women mentioned were Karoline Rudolphi, who operated a well-known school for girls in Hamm near Hamburg, and Sophie Reimarus, whose tea table was a meeting place of note, not only for local people.

103. Ibid., 22 November 1800.

104. Ibid., 2 July 1800.

105. Ibid., 23 August 1800.

106. Ibid., 21 April 1800.

107. Ibid., 4 January 1801.

108. Ibid., 8 January 1801.

109. Ibid., 13 January 1801.

110. Ibid., also 10 March 1801.

111. Ibid., 13 March 1801.

112. Ibid., 20 March 1801.

113. Ibid., esp. 23 March and thereafter; also June 14 until the end of the month. The other side of this extreme is that for days, he is unable to write anything in his diary, as he admits in an entry of 15 June 1801.

114. One thinks of Therese Huber, who more than once in her life stood between two men and who used these conflicts in her works; also well-known is Gottfried August Bürger's Doppelehe. Especially for the Stürmer and Dränger this being torn became a problem; cf., Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe, esp. 210ff, 286ff; also for discussions of these three-sided relationships of the early romantics see Hoock-Demarle, Die Frauen der Goethezeit, 176ff.

115. StA Hbg., Fa. Beneke, C. 2, 24 March 1801.

116. Ibid., 25 April 1801, esp. also 8 June 1801.

117. Ibid., 8 May 1801.

118. Ibid.

119. He reads Die Leiden des jungen Werther for the first time on 15 September 1803. Although he sees “on the one hand obvious similarities between W's and [his] fate,” he is able to write in the end: “The differences in both tales, on the other hand, helped me to the soothing, my self-esteem reviving conviction: I am stronger, better, nobler than W, and with how much triumph I can say it! C. is much, much more valuable, warmer, and more empathetic than W's C.”

120. Ibid., 8 May 1801.

121. Ibid., 14 June 1801.

122. Ibid., 11 October 1801.

123. Ibid., 14 December 1801.

124. Ibid., 29 October 1801; he later reconciled with Rambach.

125. During no other year has he filled so many pages as in this: around 350. In other years he wrote approximately 200.

126. Ibid., 31 December 1805.

127. Ibid., 2 December 1806.

128. Ibid., 24 March 1801. The relationships in Jean Paul's Hesperus come to mind. Beneke should have known this novel, although he does not mention it in his diary.

129. Ibid., 31 December 1805.

130. Ibid., 25 April 1806.

131. Ibid., 15 April 1806.

132. Ibid., 29 April 1806.

133. Ibid., 1 July 1806.

134. de Stäel, Germaine, Über Deutschland, trans. Habs, Robert, ed. and introduction by Metken, Sigrid (Stuttgart, 1980), part 1, chap. 3, 69.Google Scholar

135. Engelhardt, “Frauen in der Sozialgeschichte,” 171.