'Erwachende Frauen': Grief as Protest in Expressionist Women's Poetry from the First World War

TY - CHAP

T1 - 'Erwachende Frauen'

T2 - Grief as Protest in Expressionist Women's Poetry from the First World War

AU - Smale, Catherine

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - This chapter examines the depiction of bereavement and grief in the work of three expressionist women poets from the First World War: Frida Bettingen (1865-1924), Claire Goll (Claire Studer, 1890-1977) and Berta Lask (1878-1967). It focuses in particular on the ways in which these writers use depictions of grieving women as a means of articulating expressions of protest against the war. Through their exploration of female suffering, their poems assume a political dimension which resonates with the calls for reform made by the international pacifist movement in this period. Furthermore, the chapter argues that the figure of the grieving woman is used to call into question entrenched views of female passivity and protest against women’s exclusion from positions of authority. Through the visions of ‘awakening women’ evoked by these writers, their work adapts the ‘rituals of activism’ characteristic of expressionist verse, lending a gendered dimension to the movement’s programme of social critique and anti-war sentiment.

AB - This chapter examines the depiction of bereavement and grief in the work of three expressionist women poets from the First World War: Frida Bettingen (1865-1924), Claire Goll (Claire Studer, 1890-1977) and Berta Lask (1878-1967). It focuses in particular on the ways in which these writers use depictions of grieving women as a means of articulating expressions of protest against the war. Through their exploration of female suffering, their poems assume a political dimension which resonates with the calls for reform made by the international pacifist movement in this period. Furthermore, the chapter argues that the figure of the grieving woman is used to call into question entrenched views of female passivity and protest against women’s exclusion from positions of authority. Through the visions of ‘awakening women’ evoked by these writers, their work adapts the ‘rituals of activism’ characteristic of expressionist verse, lending a gendered dimension to the movement’s programme of social critique and anti-war sentiment.

KW - Expressionism

KW - World War I

KW - Women's Writing

KW - Wilhelmine Germany

KW - Mourning

KW - Grief

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9780854572410

T3 - London German Studies

SP - 185

EP - 204

BT - Protest and Reform in Wilhelmine German Culture (1871-1918)

A2 - Woodford, Charlotte

A2 - Weiss-Sussex, Godela

PB - Iudicium; Institute of Germanic Studies, University of London

CY - Munich

ER -