This study presents a selection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German women dramatists and their works. The texts were not located within what we know as literary history, but rather within the context of the contemporary German theatre and the social conditions governing the writing and publishing of plays by women. The majority of these dramatists are unknown today. Research in this area is made more difficult by the widespread anonymity of female playwrights throughout both centuries (of 242 authors, 191 used pseudonyms). This is one of the reasons why a study of their work has yet to be conducted, and the reason why there is more need for a broad and general introduction than for investigations focusing on single authors. Although most of these authors and plays have been forgotten, many can still be located. In my research, I have located approximately 1,600 plays by 242 female playwrights; half of these texts were available through the Interlibrary Loan System in the United States. I have chosen to analyze texts by selected authors in the categories of comedy, drama, tragedy, historical plays, dramas about artists, mythological and biblical plays, dramatic fairy tales and allegories, and children's theatre. The plays are presented in chronological order in each chapter and described with an emphasis on thematic development within the genre. As a point of departure, I have included a description of the conditions of theatre performance in both centuries. The appendices contain biographical information about the fifty dramatists whose works are introduced here (Appendix A) and a complete list of female dramatists, with names (including pseudonyms, stage- and maiden names), dates, dramatic works, and the location of the works (Appendix B). Where applicable, I have supplemented my investigation with related materials by the playwrights themselves or their contemporaries, retaining the emphasis on the dramatists and their plays, since my aim is to make them accessible to our thinking, and to provide future researchers with biographical and bibliographical material on them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-7885 |
| Date | 01 January 1990 |
| Creators | Kord, Susanne Theresia |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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