Gabriele Reuter
Encyclopedia
Gabriele Reuter was a German writer
.
Gabriele Reuter, who was widely-read in her lifetime though now is almost forgotten, was known for her novel From a Good Family (Aus guter Familie) (1895), subtitled "the Passion of a Girl", which described a typical young woman of the Wilhelmine era
. Other bestsellers were her novels Ellen of the Meadows (Ellen von der Weiden) (1900), the short story collection Women's Souls (Frauenseelen) (1901) and the novel The Americans (Der Amerikaner) (1907).
, where her father was an international merchant in the textile trade sector. She was a great-granddaughter of the poet Philippine Engelhard. She spent her childhood partly with her mother's relatives in Dessau
(1864–69), partly in Alexandria (1869–72). After the family's return to Germany in 1872, her father died. Reuter attended finishing school for a year, but then the family lost its entire fortune, due to the general recession in the international trading system and fraud in the dissolution of her father's business, and they moved to a small apartment in Neuhaldensleben.
The responsibility for younger brothers and her increasingly depressive mother led to Gabriele Reuter becoming unusually independent at an early age. The financial problems also led to her, as a young woman, using her writing talent as a source of income. In 1875/76 her first literary publications appeared in local newspapers. These were followed by conventionally written novels with an exotic flavour. The money Reuter earned from these publications funded the family move to Weimar
in 1879, where she tried to establish herself as a young writer. Toward the end of the 1880s or early in the 1890s, she first travelled independently to Berlin, Vienna and Munich, to various writers conferences, and made acquaintance with other artists of the time, among them the anarchist and poet John Henry Mackay
, with whom she had a long-standing friendship, and Henrik Ibsen
.
In 1890 Reuter moved with her mother to Munich wishing to become part of the literary Bohemian movement
. She attended the founding ceremony of George Michael Conrad’s "society for modern life." According to her autobiography, From Child to Adult (1921), Reuter here came up with the idea for her successful novel From a Good Family. In 1891 her mother fell ill, and Reuter was forced to return with her to Weimar. There, she established in the following years a new circle of friends (including Hans Olden and his wife Grete, Rudolf Steiner
and Eduard von der Hellen), and read the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche
, Arthur Schopenhauer
and Ernst Haeckel
. She became acquainted with the organisation "Free Stage" in Berlin and the Friedrichshagener Circle and others including Gerhart Hauptmann
, Otto Erich Hartleben
, Ernst von Wolzogen
and, through Mackay, the publisher Samuel Fischer, who, at the end of 1895, published her novel From a Good Family.
The novel was a huge success and sparked a heated debate in literary magazines and feminist pamphlets. Reuter became famous overnight. That same year she moved with her mother back to Munich, as one of her brothers had begun practising as a doctor there. On 28 October 1897 Reuter gave birth in Erbach (Württemberg) to her illegitimate daughter Lili (the father is not known). The circumstances of her pregnancy and childbirth may have informed her novel The House of Tears.
In 1899 Reuter moved to Berlin. In the thirty years she lived there, she published numerous novels, short stories, children's books and essays that took up the theme of gender and generational conflict. Gabriele Reuter has been praised for her fine psychological depictions and was seen as a 'poet of the fenale soul'. Her novel The House of Tears (1908), in which she described the rather drastic conditions in a home for unmarried pregnant women, caused a new scandal. After the end of the First World War she worked as a columnist for the Neue Freie Presse and in her last years as a reviewer for the New York Times. In 1929 she returned to Weimar as a septuagenarian, where she died on 16 November 1941.
's novel The Yard (1896) she set the pattern for many other female confessional or self-determination novels of the era. The debate about the novel initially focused on the question of whether the work is a 'Tendenzroman', that is, a novel with a particular purpose or message. Reuter’s attitude to the contemporary women's movement was ambiguous, if not aloof. The women's rights campaigner Helene Stöcker
praised the work of Reuter several times. Hedwig Dohm
's comments on the occasion of the publication of The House of Tears were rather skeptical. 'Antifeminists' accused Reuter of having an overly one-sided female perspective. Reuter did not allow herself to be swayed by either one side or the other. From a Good Family has often been compared with Goethe
’s The Sorrows of Young Werther
because of the way the protagonist was representative of a social trend.
Thomas Mann
interpreted the novel as a contemporary artist novel.
.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
.
Gabriele Reuter, who was widely-read in her lifetime though now is almost forgotten, was known for her novel From a Good Family (Aus guter Familie) (1895), subtitled "the Passion of a Girl", which described a typical young woman of the Wilhelmine era
Wilhelminism
The Wilhelmine Period comprises the period between 1890 and 1918, embracing the reign of Wilhelm II and the First World War. By Wilhelminism is not meant a conception of society associated with the name Wilhelm, and traceable to an intellectual initiative of the German Emperor...
. Other bestsellers were her novels Ellen of the Meadows (Ellen von der Weiden) (1900), the short story collection Women's Souls (Frauenseelen) (1901) and the novel The Americans (Der Amerikaner) (1907).
Biography
Gabriele Reuter was born on 8 February 1859 in AlexandriaAlexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, where her father was an international merchant in the textile trade sector. She was a great-granddaughter of the poet Philippine Engelhard. She spent her childhood partly with her mother's relatives in Dessau
Dessau
Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:...
(1864–69), partly in Alexandria (1869–72). After the family's return to Germany in 1872, her father died. Reuter attended finishing school for a year, but then the family lost its entire fortune, due to the general recession in the international trading system and fraud in the dissolution of her father's business, and they moved to a small apartment in Neuhaldensleben.
The responsibility for younger brothers and her increasingly depressive mother led to Gabriele Reuter becoming unusually independent at an early age. The financial problems also led to her, as a young woman, using her writing talent as a source of income. In 1875/76 her first literary publications appeared in local newspapers. These were followed by conventionally written novels with an exotic flavour. The money Reuter earned from these publications funded the family move to Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
in 1879, where she tried to establish herself as a young writer. Toward the end of the 1880s or early in the 1890s, she first travelled independently to Berlin, Vienna and Munich, to various writers conferences, and made acquaintance with other artists of the time, among them the anarchist and poet John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay was an individualist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of Die Anarchisten and Der Freiheitsucher . Mackay was published in the United States in his friend Benjamin Tucker's magazine, Liberty...
, with whom she had a long-standing friendship, and Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
.
In 1890 Reuter moved with her mother to Munich wishing to become part of the literary Bohemian movement
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
. She attended the founding ceremony of George Michael Conrad’s "society for modern life." According to her autobiography, From Child to Adult (1921), Reuter here came up with the idea for her successful novel From a Good Family. In 1891 her mother fell ill, and Reuter was forced to return with her to Weimar. There, she established in the following years a new circle of friends (including Hans Olden and his wife Grete, Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
and Eduard von der Hellen), and read the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
and Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
. She became acquainted with the organisation "Free Stage" in Berlin and the Friedrichshagener Circle and others including Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...
, Otto Erich Hartleben
Otto Erich Hartleben
Otto Erich Hartleben was a German poet and dramatist from Clausthal, known for his translation of Pierrot Lunaire.-Childhood, Education and Marriage:...
, Ernst von Wolzogen
Ernst von Wolzogen
Ernst von Wolzogen Ernst von Wolzogen Ernst von Wolzogen (April 23, 1855 - August 30, 1934 was a cultural critic, a writer and a founder of Cabaret in Germany.-Biography:Wolzogen came from a noble Austrian family; he studied Literature, Philosophy, and the history of art in Strasbourg and Leipzig. ...
and, through Mackay, the publisher Samuel Fischer, who, at the end of 1895, published her novel From a Good Family.
The novel was a huge success and sparked a heated debate in literary magazines and feminist pamphlets. Reuter became famous overnight. That same year she moved with her mother back to Munich, as one of her brothers had begun practising as a doctor there. On 28 October 1897 Reuter gave birth in Erbach (Württemberg) to her illegitimate daughter Lili (the father is not known). The circumstances of her pregnancy and childbirth may have informed her novel The House of Tears.
In 1899 Reuter moved to Berlin. In the thirty years she lived there, she published numerous novels, short stories, children's books and essays that took up the theme of gender and generational conflict. Gabriele Reuter has been praised for her fine psychological depictions and was seen as a 'poet of the fenale soul'. Her novel The House of Tears (1908), in which she described the rather drastic conditions in a home for unmarried pregnant women, caused a new scandal. After the end of the First World War she worked as a columnist for the Neue Freie Presse and in her last years as a reviewer for the New York Times. In 1929 she returned to Weimar as a septuagenarian, where she died on 16 November 1941.
Characterization
Reuter's successful novel From a Good Family is one of the first works written by a woman, it is influenced by the innovative literary movements of the late 19th Century, such as Realism and naturalism. Together with Helene BöhlauHelene Böhlau
Helene Böhlau was a German novelist.-Biography:She traveled much in the East, married Omar al-Raschid Bey at Istanbul, and settled down in Munich. In 1888 her sketches of Weimar brought her a large measure of fame...
's novel The Yard (1896) she set the pattern for many other female confessional or self-determination novels of the era. The debate about the novel initially focused on the question of whether the work is a 'Tendenzroman', that is, a novel with a particular purpose or message. Reuter’s attitude to the contemporary women's movement was ambiguous, if not aloof. The women's rights campaigner Helene Stöcker
Helene Stöcker
Helene Stöcker was a German feminist, pacifist and sexual reformer. Stöcker was raised in a Calvinist household and attended a school for girls which emphasized rationality and morality...
praised the work of Reuter several times. Hedwig Dohm
Hedwig Dohm
Marianne Adelaide Hedwig Dohm born Schlesinger, later Schleh was a German feminist, and author. She was one of the first feminist thinkers to see gender roles as a result of socialization and not biological determinism.-Family:She was born in Berlin to Jewish parents, as a daughter of Wilhelmine...
's comments on the occasion of the publication of The House of Tears were rather skeptical. 'Antifeminists' accused Reuter of having an overly one-sided female perspective. Reuter did not allow herself to be swayed by either one side or the other. From a Good Family has often been compared with Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
’s The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787...
because of the way the protagonist was representative of a social trend.
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
interpreted the novel as a contemporary artist novel.
Novels
- Happiness and Money. A novel from Today's Egypt, (Glück und Geld. Roman aus dem heutigen Egypten Leipzig (W. Friedrich) 1888)
- Colonists., (Kolonistenvolk Leipzig (W. Friedrich) 1891 edition: Berlin (S. Fischer), 1897)
- From a Good Family, (Aus guter Familie. Leidensgeschichte eines MädchensBerlin (S. Fischer) 1895)
- Frau Bürgelin and her Sons. Novel, (Frau Bürgelin und ihre Söhne. Berlin (S. Fischer) 1899)
- Ellen of the Meadows. A diary, (Ellen von der Weiden. Ein TagebuchVienna (Geyer) 1900, Berlin (S. Fischer) 1901)
- Margaret's Mission, (Margaretes Mission. Roman2 vols, Stuttgart and Leipzig (DVA) 1904)
- Liselotte von Reckling, (Liselotte von Reckling. Roman. Berlin (S. Fischer) 1903)
- The Americans, (Der Amerikaner. Roman Berlin (S. Fischer) 1907)
- The House of Tears, (Das Tränenhaus. Roman Berlin (S. Fischer) 1908)
- Spring frenzy, (Frühlingstaumel. Roman 1911)
- Into the new country, (Ins neue Land Berlin and Vienna (Ullstein) 1915)
- The youth of an idealist, (Die Jugend eines Idealisten Berlin (S. Fischer) 1917)
- The Mistress, Die Herrin 1918)
- Benedicta, (Benedikta 1923)
- Daughters. The novel of two generations, (Töchter. Der Roman zweier GenerationenBerlin (Ullstein) 1927)
- Irmgard and her Brother, (Irmgard und ihr Bruder. RomanBerlin (DBG) 1930)
- From the Girl who Could Not Love, (Vom Mädchen, das nicht lieben konnte Berlin (Ullstein) 1933)
Novellas and Short Stories
- Episode Hopkins. Too late. Two studies, (Episode Hopkins. Zu spät. Zwei Studien Dresden (E. Pierson) 1889)
- The art of living, (Der Lebenskünstler. Novellen Berlin (S. Fischer) 1897)
- Women's Souls, (Frauenseelen. Novellen Berlin (S. Fischer) 1901)
- Gunhild Kersten, (Gunhild Kersten. Novelle Stuttgart and Leipzig (DVA) 1904)
- Whimsical love', (Wunderliche Liebe. Novellen Berlin (S. Fischer) 1905)
- One of the Dead Return and other short stories, (Eines Toten Wiederkehr und andere Novellen Leipzig (Reclam) 1908)
- From the female heart, (Vom weiblichen Herzen. Novellen 1917)
- The House on Antoniuskirch Street, (Das Haus in der Antoniuskirchstraße, (Erzählung) 1928)
Essays and autobiographical writings
- John Henry Mackay. A literary study, (John Henry Mackay. Eine litterarische Studie in: Society 7 (1891), 1304-1314)
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, (Berlin and Leipzig (Schuster & Loeffler) 1904)
- Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, (Berlin (B. Marquardt) 1906)
- The Problem of Marriage, (Die Probleme der Ehe 1907)
- Love and Suffrage, (Liebe und Stimmrecht Berlin (S. Fischer) 1914; excerpts reprinted in Emancipation and Literature. Text for discussion. A female reader, ed. by Hans Jürgen Blinn, Frankfurt am Main (S. Fischer) 1984, ISBN 3-596-23747-5, p. 204-210
- War and Girls", (Der Krieg und die Mädchenin: Scherls Jungmädchenbuch, ed. Lotte Gubalke. Berlin: Scherl o.J [1914], p. XI-XX)
- From Child to Adult. The Story of My Youth, (Vom Kinde zum Menschen. Die Geschichte meiner JugendBerlin (S. Fischer) 1921)
- Green Vines in Old Pictures, (Grüne Ranken um alte Bilder. Ein deutscher FamilienromanBerlin (G. Grote) 1937)
Stories for Children and Young People
- The Evil Princess (Das böse Prinzeßchen. Märchenspiel für Kinder (1904; music Margaret Marshal))
- Gentle Heart. A Book for Young Girls, (Sanfte Herzen. Ein Buch für junge Mädchen Berlin (S. Fischer) 1909)
- What Helmut Experienced in Germany (Was Helmut in Deutschland erlebte. Eine Jugendgeschichte with drawings by Rudolf Sievers Brunswick, Gotha (FA PerthesFriedrich Christoph PerthesFriedrich Christoph Perthes was a German publisher, nephew of Johan Georg Perthes.Perthes was born at Rudolstadtin Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. At the age of fifteen he became an apprentice in the service of Adam Friedrich Bohme, a bookseller in Leipzig, with whom he remained for about six years...
) 1917) - Big City Girl, (Großstadtmädel. Jugendgeschichten Berlin (Ullstein) 1920)
- Grete's Bliss, (Grete fährt ins Glück Berlin and Leipzig (G. Weise) 1935)
Estate
The estate of Gabriele Reuter is in the Goethe and Schiller Archive of the Weimar Classics Foundation in WeimarWeimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
.
Literature
- Faran Alimadad-man: Gabriele Reuter. Portrait of a Writer. (Gabriele Reuter. Porträt einer Schriftstellerin Bern (P. Lang) 1984th ISBN 3-261-03418-1)
- Gisela Brinker-Gabler: Prospects of Transition. Female Consciousness and Early Modernity, ( Perspektiven des Übergangs. Weibliches Bewußtsein und frühe Moderne in: Gisela Brinker-Gabler (ed.),German Women's Literature, HC Beck, Munich 1988, vol 2, p. 169-205.)
- Cornelia Pechota Vuilleumier: O father let us go! (O Vater, laß uns ziehn! Literarische Vater-Töchter um 1900. Gabriele Reuter, Hedwig Dohm, Lou Andreas-Salome. Olms, Hildesheim 2005) ISBN 3-487-12873-X