Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists Paderborn University, Germany Death In Karoline Von Günderrode (1780–1806) Anna Ezekiel University of York Karoline von Günderrode was born in Karlsruhe on February 11, 1780 and died by suicide in Winkel am Rhein on July 26, 1806. She and her siblings were educated by a household tutor; after moving to a Damenstift in Frankfurt at the age of 17 she continued to study philosophy, Greek and Latin with the help of wealthy and educated friends who ensured she had access to books. Death is a central topic in Günderrode’s philosophical and literary work, frequently appearing as the site of union with a lover who is out of reach(dead or forbidden) during life. Partly as a result, this theme is often interpreted in relation to Günderrode’s suicide following the end of her affair with the married Georg Friedrich Creuzer. On this interpretation, Günderrode’s thinking on death is close to Christian and Early German Romantic models of death as enabling the reunion of the individual with loved ones as well as with the divine or the whole of nature or the universe, from which the individual is seen as alienated while alive. Günderrode’s concept of death does resemble these models, particularly in the idea that the living individual is a fragment of a larger whole that returns to this whole after death. However, Günderrode modifies this picture through an idea of reincarnation, which she reconceives to fit within her unique metaphysics. On Günderrode’s account, individual entities, including human beings, are created from groupings of indestructible“elements” which break apart at the death of the individual and then rejoin in different constellations as new entities. For example, a character in Günderrode’s dialogue“The Manes” explains that“Death is a chemical process, a separation of forces, but no annihilator.” As a result, unlike in Christian and Early German Romantic accounts in which the transition from life to death/union is unidirectional, on Günderrode’s model the dissolution of the individual in the whole is temporary and followed by new life in different forms. Death is viewed as a natural process that is essential to the continuation of life, while the individual lives on, in a sense, after death as part of the unfolding of the whole of existence. https://hwps.de/ecc/ 1/3

Primary Sources: Günderrode, Karoline von 1990–1991. Sämtliche Werke und ausgewählte Studien. Historisch-Kritische Ausgabe. 3 Vols. Walter Morgenthaler(ed.). Basel, Frankfurt am Main: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern. Hopp, Doris& Preitz, Max 1975. Karoline von Günderrode in ihrer Umwelt. III. Karoline von Günderrode’s“Studienbuch.” In: Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts, 223–323. Preitz, Max 1962. Karoline von Günderrode in ihrer Umwelt. I. Briefe von Lisette und Christian Gottfried Nees von Esenbeck, Karoline von Günderrode, Friedrich Creuzer, Clemens Brentano und Susanne von Heyden. In: Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts, 208–306. Preitz, Max 1964. Karoline von Günderrode in ihrer Umwelt. II. Karoline von Günderrodes Briefwechsel mit Friedrich Karl und Gunda von Savigny. In: Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts, 158–235. Weißenborn, Birgit(ed.). 1992“Ich sende Dir ein zärtliches Pfand.” Die Briefe der Karoline von Günderrode. Frankfurt am Main: Insel. Secondary Sources: Becker-Cantarino, Barbara 2010. The“New Mythology”: Myth and Death in Karoline von Günderrode’s Literary Work. In Clare Bielby and Anna Richards(eds.): W omen and Death 3: Women’s representations of death in German culture since 1500, 51–70. Rochester, NY: Camden House. Burdorf, Dieter von 1993.“Diese Sehnsucht ist ein Gedanke, der ins Unendliche starrt.” Über Karoline von Günderrode – aus Anlaß neuer Ausgaben ihrer Werke und Briefe, in: Wirkendes Wort 43.1, 49–67. Burwick, Roswitha 1980. Liebe und Tod in Leben und Werk der Günderode., in German Studies Review 3.2, 207–223. Christmann, Ruth 2005. Zwischen Identitätsgewinn und Bewußtseinsverlust. Das philosophisch-literarische Werk der Karoline von Günderrode(1780–1806). Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Dormann, Helga 2004. Die Kunst des inneren Sinns. Mythisierung der inneren und äußeren Natur im Werk Karoline von Günderrodes. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann. Ezekiel, Anna C. 2016. Introduction to“Piedro,”“The Pilgrims,” and“The Kiss in the Dream”, in: Karoline von Günderrode, Poetic Fragments, 87–105. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Foldenauer, Karl 1981. Karoline von Günderrode(1780–1906). In: Kostbarkeiten. Essays https://hwps.de/ecc/ 2/3

und Laudationes zur Literatur des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, 81–111. Waldkirch: Obermeier, Karin 1995. Private Matters Made Public: Love and the Sexualized Body in Karoline von Günderrode’s Texts. Dissertation. Westphal, Wolfgang 1993. Karoline von Günderrode und„Naturdenken um 1800“. Essen: Die Blaue Eule. Keywords: death, early german romanticism, life, love, Naturphilosophie, reincarnation, union https://hwps.de/ecc/ 3/3