'Aus Blut und Schmerz geboren': Maternal Grief and the Poetry of Frida Bettingen

TY - JOUR

T1 - 'Aus Blut und Schmerz geboren': Maternal Grief and the Poetry of Frida Bettingen

AU - Smale, Catherine

PY - 2008/7

Y1 - 2008/7

N2 - This article analyses the impact of maternal grief on the literary creativity of the Expressionist poet Frida Bettingen (1865–1924). Examining the depiction of maternal love which emerges in Bettingen's later poems and her ambivalent attitude towards writing as a form of therapy, it argues that her verse offers an alternative to the responses to loss outlined by Freud in his essay on mourning and melancholia. Finally, the article explores the ways in which Bettingen's ambivalence leads her to experiment with the poetic medium. She engages with and adapts contemporary discourses in order to situate her grief within the collective response to the losses of the First World War whilst still retaining a sense of the private significance of her son's death.

AB - This article analyses the impact of maternal grief on the literary creativity of the Expressionist poet Frida Bettingen (1865–1924). Examining the depiction of maternal love which emerges in Bettingen's later poems and her ambivalent attitude towards writing as a form of therapy, it argues that her verse offers an alternative to the responses to loss outlined by Freud in his essay on mourning and melancholia. Finally, the article explores the ways in which Bettingen's ambivalence leads her to experiment with the poetic medium. She engages with and adapts contemporary discourses in order to situate her grief within the collective response to the losses of the First World War whilst still retaining a sense of the private significance of her son's death.

U2 - 10.1111/j.1468-0483.2008.00428.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1468-0483.2008.00428.x

M3 - Article

SN - 0016-8777

VL - 61

SP - 328

EP - 343

JO - German Life and Letters

JF - German Life and Letters

IS - 3

ER -