Female authorship in Weimar Classicism

This year’s Schiller Prize, awarded by the Schillerverein Weimar-Jena e. V., goes to literary scholar Delf Lützen (Kiel University). The award ceremony took place on 8 November at the University of Jena as part of the Schiller Days. The prize is awarded every two years for innovative theses on topics related to art, literature, philosophy and science around 1800. It is endowed with 500 euros.

Master’s thesis on the writer Amalie von Imhoff honoured

Lützen was honoured for his master’s thesis, in which he examined the hitherto little-researched writer Amalie von Imhoff and her intensive engagement with ancient subjects and the aesthetics of Weimar Classicism. In the thesis, he shows that women were far more involved in literary and theoretical discourses during Weimar Classicism than traditional research suggests. Using the example of Amalie von Imhoff’s works, including »Die Schwestern von Lesbos« (The Sisters of Lesbos) and »Der Maler« (The Painter), he demonstrates that the author deliberately breaks with genre-specific expectations and deals with classical themes from an independent, female perspective.

»In my master’s thesis, I focused on Amalie von Imhoff, a female writer of the otherwise almost exclusively male-dominated Weimar Classicism period, and examined her reception of antiquity and her reflections on art theory using exemplary texts«, explains award winner Lützen. »Her texts testify to a high level of aesthetic reflection and harbour great potential that has hardly been recognized in research to date.«

Women in literature set their own priorities

The jury of the Schiller Prize particularly praised the innovative approach to female authorship in Weimar Classicism and the precise text analyses: »The author develops the hypothesis that women had a significantly higher share in the literature of Weimar Classicism than is commonly assumed and that—in comparison with male authors—they set their own poetological and programmatic priorities.«

By opening up the view to the reception of antiquity and its significance for the literature written by women during the Classical period, Lützen, according to the jury, »makes an important contribution to the expansion of the literary-historical canon«.