Gender Transitivity in Three Dramatic Works by

Gender Transitivity in Three Dramatic Works by Robert Schumann: the Szenen aus
Goethes Faust (WoO 3), Genoveva Op. 81, Das Paradies und die Peri Op. 50
By
Claudine Jacques
Department of Music
McGill University, Montreal
February 2011
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the
requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
© Claudine Jacques 2011
ABSTRACT
This dissertation is a study of gender transitivity as I see it at work in three of Robert
Schumann’s dramatic works: the Szenen aus Goethes Faust, WoO 3, the opera Genoveva op. 81,
and the oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri op. 50. In this study, I use the term gender
transitivity to refer to the fluid movement along feminine and masculine subject positions. While
on the surface Schumann created seemingly passive, Gretchen-like female characters in his
dramatic works, he also worked with pluralistic ideas about gender drawn from his extensive
knowledge of early nineteenth-century literature and philosophy. He explored alternative
femininities and masculinities for fictional characters in his works, acknowledging the transitive
or fluid nature of gender concepts as theorized by Romantic writers. I argue that Clara
Schumann, at once a strong woman active in the public sphere and yet reiterating stereotypes of
proper feminine behaviour, blurred categories of gender and thus, provided for her husband a
fitting model for the three female characters discussed below.
For my analysis, I use a wide range of critical theories on gender such as psychoanalysis
and the semiotic chora (Julia Kristeva), literary constructions of gender (Barbara BeckerCantarino), androgyny (Sara Friedrichsmeyer), bi-gendrism (Mary R. Strand), bisexuality (Alice
Kuzniar), specular reciprocity and gender hybridity (Tacey A. Rosolowski), feminine writing
(Luce Irigaray, Martha Helfer), gender synergy (Lawrence Kramer, Elizabeth Morrison), the cry
(Michel Poizat) and the narrative voice (Carolyn Abbate, Paul Robinson). What I call gender
transitivity is enabled by these concepts, which have been developed by scholars of feminist and
gender studies to analyze the blurring, flexibility and mobility of gender boundaries in sources
from the first half of the nineteenth century.
ii
The first part of this dissertation consists of two chapters. Chapter One provides a
literature review and my methodological apparatus, drawn from contemporary feminist critiques
of German romantic philosophy and literature. Next, I focus on Schumann’s views on gender in
his writings and other sources from the mid-1820s to his death in 1856. The remainder of this
chapter finally critically examines three common literary archetypes: women as redemptive
figures, women as suffering images of the Virgin Mary, and women as angelic figures.
Ultimately, these archetypes are male fabrications, presenting women as passive and idealized.
However, they have strength and power in their own ways. Chapter Two studies the figure of
Clara Schumann, her multiple roles as pianist, composer, mother, wife and muse. I argue that
Clara, who on one level embodied for her husband a deeply romanticized, idealized Goethean
archetype of the “Eternal feminine,” was also a strong, assertive woman active in the public
sphere, who assumed unconventional gender roles. Schumann modified the stereotype by toning
down (but without omitting altogether) some of its more stereotypical elements.
The three chapters in the second part of my dissertation are intended as case studies that
demonstrate how Schumann’s dramatic works reflect his multifaceted views on gender as
expressed in his letters, diaries and criticism. I present close literary and musical analyses of
three dramatic works, focusing on important scenes in each. I read three female characters
(Gretchen, Genoveva, and the Peri) through the lenses of gender transitivity in order to convey
their complexity in these works, as well as to provide insights into little-investigated aspects of
their psychological development.
iii
RÉSUMÉ
Cette thèse est une étude de la transitivité du genre dans trois œuvres dramatiques de
Robert Schumann: les Szenen aus Goethes Faust, WoO 3, l’opéra Genoveva op. 81, et l’oratorio
Das Paradies und die Peri op. 50. J’emploie le terme transitivité du genre en référence à un
mouvement fluide entre une position féminine et masculine du sujet. Bien que Schumann
semble avoir créé des personnages féminins passifs, à l’image de Gretchen, dans ses œuvres
dramatiques, il fut également influencé par une conception pluraliste du genre, de par sa
connaissance étendue de la littérature et de la philosophie du 19e siècle. Il a exploré pour ses
personnages fictifs des féminités et masculinités alternatives, en tenant compte de la nature
transitive et fluide du genre, telle que mise en théorie par divers auteurs romantiques. Je suggère
que Clara Schumann fut à la fois une femme forte et active dans la sphère publique, et réitérant
les stéréotypes pour une conduite féminine convenable, mêlant les catégories du genre et ainsi,
procura à son mari un modèle approprié pour les trois personnages féminins discutés plus bas.
Pour mon analyse, j’ai utilisé un large éventail de théories concernant le genre telles que
la psychoanalyse et le sémiotique (Julia Kristeva), la construction littéraire du genre (Barbara
Becker-Cantarino), l’androgynie (Sara Friedrichsmeyer), le bi-gendrisme (Mary R. Strand), la
bisexualité (Alice Kuzniar), la réciprocité spéculaire et l’hybridité du genre (Tacey A.
Rosolowski), l’écriture féminine (Luce Irigaray, Martha Helfer), la sygergie du genre (Lawrence
Kramer), le cri (Michel Poizat) et la voix narrative (Carolyn Abbate, Paul Robinson). Ce que je
nomme transitivité du genre est facilité par ces concepts, développés par les études féministes et
du genre afin d’analyser la flexibilité et mobilité des limites du genre dans les sources de la
première moitié du 19e siècle. Ces théories féministes, en faisant fi des oppositions binaires du
genre, aident à mettre au jour le pouvoir féminin dans les œuvres artistiques et théoriques.
iv
La première partie de cette thèse comprend deux chapitres. Le premier présente une
revue de la littérature et le cadre méthodologique, provenant de théories féministes
contemporaines concernant la philosophie et la littérature allemandes. J’examine ensuite la
pensée de Schumann sur le genre présente dans ses écrits et diverses sources, de 1825 jusqu’à sa
mort en 1856. J’examine ensuite trois archétypes littéraires: la femme en tant que figure
rédemptrice, incarnation de la Vierge Marie, et figure angélique. Ces archétypes, issues de
l’imaginaire masculin, présentent les personnages féminins comme passifs et idéalisés. Pourtant,
elles possèdent également force et pouvoir. Le chapitre deux étudie Clara Schumann et ses roles
multiples (pianiste, compositrice, mère, épouse et muse). Clara, qui incarne aux yeux de son
mari l’idéal Goethéen romantique de l’éternel féminin, fut également une femme active dans la
sphère publique, qui a remis en question le stéréotype oppressif en assumant des roles non
conventionnels. Grâce à son influence, Schumann a modifié le stéréotype en modifiant certains
de ses éléments les plus oppressifs.
La deuxième partie de cette thèse sont trois études de cas, démontrant de quelle
manière les œuvres dramatiques de Schumann reflètent sa vision complexe du genre. Je présente
une analyse musicale et littéraire approfondie de trois œuvres dramatiques, en mettant l’emphase
sur les scènes importantes de chacune. J’analyse les trois personnages féminins (Gretchen,
Genoveva, la Péri) à travers le prisme de la transitivité du genre, pour rendre compte de leur
complexité, contribuer à une meilleure compréhension de certains éléments peu discutés de leur
développement psychologique.
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As I look back at the last 7 years I have spent at McGill, I reminded of all the wonderful
scholars, teachers, and individuals that I have been fortunate to meet along the way and who
have been of great support, scholarly, moral, financial, or otherwise, throughout these fruitful
seven years. I would like to take the occasion to thank them here.
I would like to thank, first and foremost, my advisor Prof. Roe-Min Kok. Her thoughtful
advices, masterly command of the primary sources pertaining to the life and work of Robert
Schumann and her committment to high quality research have been an immense source of
inspiration along the way. I am immensely grateful to her invaluable insight and patience in all
the stages involved in the writing of this dissertation. My most heartfelt thanks must also go to
Prof. Lloyd Whitesell, who as a reader of this work has provided thorough criticism and
suggested many avenues for further inquiries and improvement.
I have also been inspired by the many conferences and workshops given at the McGill
Institue for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies (led by Marguerite Deslauriers), as well as
the many insightful discussion which I have had with scholars from various fields of study and
which, in turn, have enriched my work during a Women Studies seminar taught by Carrie
Rentschler during the Fall of 2008. Among fellow comrades in feminist crime, I would like to
thank: Xiangzhen Wang, Rosel Kim, Julie Leroux and Sarah Berry, in particular.
I have also been deeply influenced and inspired by the work and the human qualities of
my fellow friends and collegues in the music department: these include Brian Tuttle, Jane Hatter,
Dana Gorzelany-Mostak, Dan Donnelly, Mike Ethen, Ellen Bakulina, and many, many others
whom I have been most fortunate and blessed to meet along the way, and with whom I have had
vi
intense and stimulating discussions. They have made me laugh and think deeply, but most
importantly to me their passion about their own work has fuelled my own musicological drive.
I am also heavily indebted to Erin Helyard and Duncan Schouten. Their help in devising
the musical examples for this dissertation has been most appreciated, and it has been a
tremendous relief to be able to count on their invaluable help, at times on very short notice.
I would also express my most heartfelt thanks to my parents, Josée Archambault and
Michel Jacques, who have supported me in so many ways, emotionally and financially,
throughout the years. I could not have done it without their help: this dissertation is dedicated to
them, with my utmost appreciation and gratitude.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
Résumé
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
ii
iv
vii
viii
Section One
1- Introduction
I – Introduction and Thesis Statement
II – Organization of the Dissertation
III – Literature Review
IV – Feminist Theories, Methodologies and Tools Used
Semiotic Chora
Literary Constructions of Gender
Androgyny
Hovering
Voice
Gaze
Gender Synergy
V – Three Feminine Archetypes and Qualities
Feminine Archetypes: Redemptive Figures and Feminine Love
Feminine Archetypes: the Suffering Virgin Mary
Feminine Archetypes: Angelic Figures
VI – Conclusion
1
1
8
9
15
16
17
21
22
24
28
30
32
32
42
50
56
2 – Clara Schumann as Blending Gender Attributes
Clara as Redemptive Figure
Clara as a Suffering Archetype of the Virgin Mary
Clara as an Angelic Figure
Schumann and Gender: the Social Sphere
Clara as Performer
Clara as Composer
Conclusion
59
60
71
77
83
92
107
115
Section Two
3 – Julia Kristeva’s Concept of the Semiotic Chora
The Kristevan Semiotic Chora
Goethe’s Faust and the Archetypal Figure of Gretchen
Schumann’s Reading of Faust: Literary Evidence for Gretchen’s Gender Transitivity
Musical Evidence for the Workings of the Semiotic Chora
Goethe’s Last Scene and Gretchen’s Influential Love
viii
116
121
127
133
143
166
4 – Genoveva: The Social Construction of Gender, the Gaze, and the Virgin Mary
The Public/Private Spheres and Traditional Gender Stereotypes
The Gaze: Genoveva’s Assumption of Margaretha’s Power
Genoveva’s Evolution: From Eve to the Virgin Mary
188
194
233
256
5 – The Peri, the Cry, and Her Control of the Quest
The Bildungsromane and the Scheme of the Quest
Struggle between the Feminine and Masculine Spheres: Light and Water Imagery
Michel Poizat’s Psychoanalytical Concept of the “Cry”
276
280
296
315
Conclusion
Work cited
336
344
ix
x
SECTION ONE
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
I-INTRODUCTION AND THESIS STATEMENT
Between the years 1827-1833, more than 35 women are mentioned in Schumann’s
diaries. These include women Schumann met on a daily basis, women he met only briefly,
women he never met but whom he idealized, female characters in literary works he set to music,
and women (real or imagined) as covert presence in his instrumental works. Some were passing
acquaintances, some were friends, a few acted as mentors (Agnes Carus, his sisters-in-law
Therese and Rosalie Schumann), others were his sweethearts (Liddy Hempel, Clara von Kurrer,
Ernestine von Fricken, Clara Wieck), or creative artists (the poetess Elizabeth Kulmann). These
women assume a wide range of roles: mother, friend, beloved, wife, protector, and muse. They
stood in his writings as archetypal images of femininity and Schumann’s metaphorical
language to describe them, redolent of early romantic literary works, is deeply gendered. In this
dissertation, I explore Schumann’s representations of feminine identity in his dramatic works
against a backdrop of early-to-mid-nineteenth-century philosophical and literary debates on
gender. Scholars have observed that in this period, eighteenth-century gender stereotypes,
attributes and values previously conceived as fixed and stable were challenged, redefined and
redrawn.1 Authors such as Goethe, Jean Paul, Novalis, and Friedrich Schlegel treated gender as
1
Martha B. Helfer notes how Friedrich Schlegel tended to “break down strict gender dualisms and instead
merges the masculine and feminine in his theoretical construction of an ideal, complete humanity.” Helfer,
“Gender Studies and Romanticism,” in The Literature of German Romanticism, ed. Dennis F. Mahoney
(Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004), 234.
a pluridimensional concept: they theorized the blurring of gendered attributes and overcoming of
stereotypical norms for femininity and masculinity.
I shall argue that while on the surface Schumann created seemingly passive, Gretchenlike female characters in his dramatic works, he also worked with pluralistic ideas about gender
drawn from his extensive knowledge of early nineteenth-century literature and philosophy. He
explored alternative femininities and masculinities for fictional characters in his works (such as
Genoveva, Gretchen and the Peri), acknowledging the transitive or fluid nature of gender
concepts as theorized by Romantic writers. My evidence, drawn from Schumann’s exchange of
letters with Clara Wieck during the 1830s (their courtship years) and 1840s (after they married),
reveals that he saw her as a woman, wife, and mother in whom both feminine and masculine
traits mingled. In his mind, she embodied among other things the idealized archetype of Ewigweibliche (the womanly ability to lead men to higher, transcendental spheres with their love)
from Goethe’s Faust, epitomized by the character of Gretchen. Yet the real Clara, by her
strength, stamina, entrepreneurial skills and determination, effected a positive change in
Schumann’s perception and use of the archetype. I intend to show how his portrayal of female
characters in the three chosen dramatic works is indebted to the figure of Clara, both real and
idealized, at once reiterating and challenging the Goethean discourse on gender.
During the nineteenth century, a less polarized conception of subjectivity arose:
the subject is transformed into a fluid being, a paradoxical process of exchange with
Otherness, both within and outside the self, which for Mary R. Strand entails both
passivity and activity. 2 While relying on fixed referents for masculinity and femininity,
2
“The I is transformed into a paradoxical, fluid being that engages both actively and passively with the
foreignness it sees both within and outside of itself. Novalis refers to the ‘Wechselwirkung des Ich in sich
selbst,’ indicating that the paradoxical process of exchange with otherness occurs within the subject as well
2
the early Romantics refute eighteenth-century views, particularly those of Wilhelm von
Humboldt and Johann Gottlob Fichte, which upheld strict gendered opposition between
an active, reasoning masculine subject and passive, receptive feminine object.3 They
recognized that the definition of subjectivity did not rest on stable foundations but on the
contrary was always in flux. The fluidity of gender boundaries in early romantic literary
works has been discussed by Novalis in aphorisms and fragments, in which he calls for
feminine submissiveness and confines women to the private sphere. However, Novalis
also believed that both men and women shared qualities of the opposite sex, an opinion
Friedrich Schlegel also voiced in three major essays of the 1790s.4 One of the strongest
comments regarding the blurring of fixed boundaries of gender is voiced by Novalis:
“Man is to some extent also a woman, as woman is man.”5 Friedrich Schlegel contends:
“[G]ender is less significant and more a matter of chance; it is only an external factor of
human existence and in the end really nothing more than a sound arrangement made by
as between it and its others (2: 133).” Mary R. Strand, I/You: Paradoxical Constructions of Self and Other
in Early German Romanticism (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 51-52.
3
Schlegel and Novalis go against the views of Friedrich Schiller (his poem “Würde der Frauen” of 1795
was ridiculed by the Jena circle), Heinrich Jacobi (whose novel Voldemar, from 1794, Schumann read), and
especially Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who in his novel Émile (1762) viewed women solely in terms of their
usefulness for men and praised their submissiveness. Furthermore, Wilhelm von Humbold, in his “Über
den Geschlechtunterschied und dessen Einfluss auf die organische Natur” (“On the Difference between the
Sexes and Its Influence on Organic Nature,” 1794) and “Über die männliche und weibliche Form” (“On
Masculine and Feminine Forms,” 1795), defines men and women mental characters according to the
physical roles they play in sexual intercourse. Men are active, energetic, and have greater faculties of
reason than do women; women are receptive, passive, and less capable of abstract and analytic thought than
are men. See Martha B. Helfer, “Gender Studies and Romanticism,” 234.
4
These are: “Über die weiblichen Charaktere in den griechischen Dichtern” (“On the Feminine Characters
in the Greek Poets,” 1794), “Über die Diotima” (“On Diotima,” 1795) and “Über die Philosophie. An
Dorothea.” (“On Philosophy: To Dorothea,” 1799). All three are reprinted in: Friedrich Schlegel, Theorie
der Weiblichkeit, ed. Winfried Menninghaus (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1983).
5
Novalis: “Der Mann ist gewissermaaβen auch Weib, so wie das Weib Mann (…).” German original in
Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 169. English translation in Theory as Practice: A Critical Anthology of Early
German Romantic Writings, ed. Jochen Schulte-Sasse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997),
389. Throughout this dissertation, published English translations have been used whenever available: their
sources are indicated accordingly in footnotes. When none was available, I have supplied my own.
3
nature.”6 He further argues that the characteristics of gender (he mentions masculine
domination and feminine devotion) should not be exaggerated: “[O]nly gentle
masculinity, only independent femininity is proper, true, and beautiful. If it is so, one
must by no means further exaggerate the characteristics of gender, which is nothing more
than an innate and natural profession, but rather seek to temper it through strong
counterbalances so that individuality may find a potentially unlimited space and freely
move about the entire realm of human existence according to its fancy.”7 An early
attempt by the romantics to overturn traditional dichotomies is their definition of the
subject as feminine and the object as masculine. 8 For Novalis: “Man conforms to his
nature as object – woman, to her nature as subject.”9 Martha Helfer argues that Novalis
6
Friedrich Schlegel: “[D]ie Geschlechtsverschiedenheit ist nur eine Aeusserlichkeit des menschlichen
Daseyns und am Ende doch nichts weiter als eine recht gute Einrichtung der Natur (…).” German original
in Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 91. English translation in Theory as Practice, 423.
7
Friedrich Schlegel, in “On Philosophy. To Dorothea”: “Nur sanfte Männlichkeit, nur selbständige
Weiblichkeit sey die rechte, die wahre und schöne. Ist dem so, so muss man den Charakter des
Geschlechts, welches doch nur eine angeborne, natürliche Profession ist, keineswegs noch mehr
übertreiben, sondern vielmehr durch starke Gegengewichte zu mildern suchen, damit die Eigenheit einen
wo möglich unbeschränkten Raum finde, um sich nach Lust und Liebe in dem ganzen Bezirke der
Menschheit frey zu bewegen.” German original in Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 92. English translation in
Theory as Practice, 423-424. See also a similar passage from “Über die Diotima”: “Aber eben der
herrschsüchtige Ungestüm des Mannes, und die selbstlose Hingegebenheit des Weibes, ist schon
übertrieben und hässlich. Nur selbständige Weiblichkeit, nur sanfte Männlichkeit, ist gut und schön.”
(“But it is precisely the domineering vehemence of men and the selflessness devotion of women that are
already exaggerated and ugly. Only independent femininity, only tender masculinity are good and
beautiful.”) German original in Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 60-61. English translation in Theory as Practice,
408. And finally from “On Philosophy. To Dorothea.”: “In der that sind die Männlichkeit und die
Weiblichkeit, so wie sie gewöhnlich genommen und getrieben warden, die gefährlichsten Hindernisse der
Menschlichkeit, welche nach einer alten Sage in der Mitte einheimisch ist und doch nu rein harmonisches
Ganzes seyn kann, welches keine Absonderung leidet.” (“Masculinity and femininity, as they are
commonly regarded and practiced, are indeed, the most dangerous obstacles to achieving humanity, which,
according to an old myth, is located in the middle and yet can only be a harmonious whole that suffers no
division.”) German original in Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 91. English translation in Theory as Practice,
423.
8
Helfer affirms that “Schlegel and Novalis call into question the primacy of the male subject in the
Western philosophical tradition when they define the subject as ‘feminine’ and the object as ‘masculine’ in
their own works.” See her “Gender Studies and Romanticism,” 236.
9
Quoted in Roetzel, “Introductory Essay: Feminizing Philosophy,” 383.
4
thus “breaks down strict gender dualisms and instead merges the masculine and feminine
in his theoretical construction of an ideal, complete humanity.” 10
According to feminist literary scholars, Schlegel’s view of women’s role within the
context of nineteenth-century society is both regressive, relying upon a binary opposition
prescribing women’s subordination, and progressive, in which the crossing of gender boundaries
is encouraged. In some literary works of the period, the rich combination of gendered metaphors
renders the archetype more complex and subtle, blurring gender boundaries by the presence of
fluid, open, and unpredictable characters.11 Female characters may assume a variety of roles,
acting as priestesses, muses, and beloved in the private sphere (Schlegel’s Lucinde), but also as
leaders (Goethe’s Gretchen) and teachers (Hölderlin’s Diotima and Novalis’ Zulima), running
the gamut of the gendered spectrum.12 Others, such as Goethe’s Eugenie (in his play Die
10
Helfer, “Gender Studies and Romanticism,” 234.
Ellis Dye speaks of “Goethe’s complex, ambiguous estimation and manipulation of the meaning of
gender throughout his writings.” Dye, “Figurations of the Feminine in Goethe’s Faust,” in A Companion to
Goethe’s Faust, ed. Paul Bishop (Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2006), 97. Dye also points out Goethe’s
fascination for polarized, dual, gender ambiguous figures. Furthermore, Eric Blackall affirms: “What
interest there should be in a plot would seem for Jean Paul to derive not from unpredictability of events or
predictability of characters but from unpredictability of characters. This throws light on the preference we
have seen in his novels for characters uncertain of themselves – the unformed, fluid seekers.” Blackall, The
Novels of the German Romantics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 97. Emphasis added.
12
Lucinde, Gretchen, Diotima and Zulima are ambiguous female figures, who at once reassert and thwart
fixed conceptions of gender. The character of Lucinde has been the subject of extensive critical attention
by literary scholars. She is essential to her male lover Julius: as the last woman he encounters in the course
of his psychological progression, she appears to be granted some influence over his psychological mindset.
Because both she and Julius exchange sex roles during intercourse, the novel has been viewed as
emancipatory for women, a breaking of gender boundaries leading both into an androgynous sphere. This
exchange is pointed out by Sara Friedrichsmeyer in her The Androgyne in Early German Romanticism:
Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis and the Metaphysics of Love (New York: P. Lang, 1983), 154. However,
Richard Littlejohns remains suspicious of interpretations that present Lucinde as truly emancipated, and
affirms: “The novel argues that, emotionally and intellectually, women should be equal partners in
relationships, but ultimately it is another Bildungsroman centered on a male protagonist.” See his “Early
Romanticism,” in The Literature of German Romanticism, ed. Dennis F. Mahoney (Rochester, NY:
Camden House, 2004), 69. Margarete Kohlenbach affirms that while Lucinde is a muse, she is a muse that
must be kept at home: “Lucinde, thus, is both muse and housewife, but she is a muse kept available at
home.” See her “Women and Artists: E.T.A. Hoffmann's Implicit Critique of Early Romanticism,” Modern
Language Review 89 (1994), 672. Gretchen’s role as a leader, leading Faust to higher spheres at the end of
Goethe’s Faust, is discussed more fully in Chapter Four below. Diotima, an ancient Greek philosopher,
appears in Plato’s Symposium, in which she is considered to have taught Socrates the philosophy of love.
She appears in the writings of Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Hölderlin. Concerning her place in early
11
5
natürliche Tochter) and Schiller’s Joan of Arc are active figures within the public sphere,
assuming values of courage, leadership and heroism typically coded as masculine. 13 Such female
characters, as fashioned by nineteenth-century male authors, frequently display attributes
appealing to nineteenth-century society and perform a wide range of roles which outwardly
brought them fulfillment.
Bernhard R. Appel has demonstrated Schumann’s extensive knowledge of literature: from
his perusal of primary sources he notes that the composer read more than 600 items, from the
ancient Greeks to Goethe, Schiller and Jean Paul. 14 Schumann’s complex and ambiguous
construction of gender, at once progressive and regressive, partakes of early Romantic theories
and their multi-faceted, conflicted relationship to femininity. A similar network of gendered
codes recurs in his writings and dramatic works. The blending of these gendered codes creates
tension between novel approaches to the feminine and the persistence of established gender
romantic thinking, particularly Novalis and Schlegel, Mary R. Strand affirms: “Using the figure of the
prophetess Diotima as a model for their ideal of bigendrism, they [Novalis and Schlegel] re-envision
masculinity and femininity, advocating the exchange of gendered characteristics. Contradictions in their
thinking arise as they discursively construct women as both mothers, contained within the private realm,
and philosophers, expressing themselves in the public sphere. Images of wild femininity are contrasted
with subdued, motherly figures.” Strand, I/You: Paradoxical Constructions of Self and Other in Early
German Romanticism (New York: P. Lang, 1998), 3-4. She later affirms: “In a radical textual practice for
his time, he presents the image of Diotima as a model for women who are trying to move beyond the
restrictions imposed on them because of their gender.” Ibid., 77. Discussing the oriental figure of Zulima
in Novalis’ novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Strand argues that Zulima expands Heinrich’s horizons. She
is depicted both “as a passive, female other who is a victim (…) and as an active subject, asserting her own
point of view.” Ibid., 53. She affirms: “The female, Oriental other in Novalis’ novel is not silenced, as
others often are, but rather, on the contrary, is allowed to speak, albeit via the voice of a Western, male
writer.” Ibid., 54.
13
Such women fall under Julie D. Prandi’s category of “spirited women heroes,” which I discuss more fully
below. All show some resistance to being an object. See her Spirited Women Heroes: Major Female
Characters in the Dramas of Goethe, Schiller and Kleist (New York: Peter Lang, 1983), 46. Johanna is
politically active within the public sphere, acting as the leader of the French army in defending her country
against the English. Eugenie, too, harbours political aspirations in times of war: she is also educated,
confident, and has learned to ride and to hunt. Furthermore, for her expressing her identity goes hand in
hand with spurning marriage, which she fears would be detrimental to her expression of free will. Ibid., 52.
As Prandi points out: “Thinking in terms of an active, public, ‘knightly’ life, the princess Eugenie is
attracted, not intimidated by the dangers of horsemanship, the threat her legitimate half-brother represents,
and the volatile political situation.” Ibid., 65.
14
For a full discussion of Schumann’s readings, see Appel, “Robert Schumann als Leser,” in Robert
Schumann und die Dichter: ein Musiker als Leser, ed. Bernhard R. Appel and Inge Hermstrüwer
(Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1991), 12-16.
6
politics and stereotypical gendered attributes. Schumann’s female figures display attributes and
values such as freedom, strength, independence, assertiveness, and boldness (gendered
masculine) as well as childishness, softness, tenderness, religiosity, sacrifice, devotion and
submission (associated with femininity). By avoiding polar opposites, the coexistence of these
qualities in female characters enables a rethinking of stereotypical notions of gender.
Like the early Romantics, Schumann seems to have questioned conceptions of the
feminine as object and the masculine as subject, drawing on the potential of such inversions in
undermining gender binaries. The feminine subject, as envisioned by Schumann in the three
works under discussion, assumes both male and female subject positions along the gendered
continuum. Schumann allowed it to question a pre-potent androcentric position: all three female
figures do respond to and exercise power by resisting their idealization and affirming their
individuality. I argue that in so doing, this female subject’s influence is operative within the
psychoanalytical concept of the semiotic chora: a maternal, pre-Oedipal higher sphere which
feminist theorist Julia Kristeva views as both feminine and beyond gender. As I understand it,
the chora closely approximates Mary R. Strand’s concept of “sphere of hovering” in her
discussion of the literature and philosophy of the early Romantics. In musical terms, it
approximates what Lawrence Kramer has called gender synergy, which collapses the polarized
structures of gender, allowing a single individual to occupy both a feminine and masculine
subject position. Common to these concepts is a blurring of spatial and temporal boundaries, in
which female love plays a crucial role. However, two important qualifications to female agency
must be made. The first is that such strength concerns idealized women in literary or musical
works: it has little to do with the vast majority of real women who lived during Schumann’s
time. The second is that female power remains under male control, that of the author or
7
composer. Limits are set to the characterizations of female figures, and once granted, power can
be taken away at will when it becomes menacing or threatens to spin out of male control.
II-ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION
My dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part consists of two chapters. Chapter
One provides a literature review and my methodological apparatus, drawn from contemporary
feminist critiques of German romantic philosophy and literature. Next, I focus on Schumann’s
views on gender in his writings and other sources from the mid-1820s to his death in 1856. The
remainder of this chapter finally critically examines three literary archetypes common in
Schumann’s days: women as redemptive figures, women as suffering images of the Virgin Mary,
and women as angelic figures. Ultimately, these archetypes are male fabrications, presenting
women as passive and idealized. However, they have strength and power in their own ways.
Chapter Two studies the figure of Clara, her multiple roles as pianist, composer, mother, wife
and muse. I argue that Clara, who on one level embodied for her husband a deeply romanticized,
idealized figure, the Goethean archetype of the “Eternal feminine,” was also a strong, assertive
woman active in the public sphere, who challenged the oppressive stereotype by assuming
unconventional gender roles. Under Clara’s influence, Schumann modified the stereotype by
toning down (but without omitting altogether) some of its more stereotypical elements, as seen in
female dramatic characters examined in this study.
The three chapters of the second part are intended as case studies that demonstrate how
Schumann’s dramatic works reflect his multifaceted views on gender as expressed in his letters,
diaries and criticism. I present close literary and musical analyses of three late dramatic works,
focusing on important scenes in each. The three works chosen are Genoveva Op. 81, Das
8
Paradies und die Peri Op. 50, and the Szenen aus Goethes Faust WoO 3. I read the female
characters through the lenses of gender transitivity in order to account for their complexity in
these works, as well as to provide insights into little-investigated aspects of their psychological
development.
III-LITERATURE REVIEW
The following paragraphs review several studies of Robert Schumann’s dramatic works,
focusing on findings which in turn inform my own research. There exist two large-scale studies
of Genoveva. Steven Miles Billington’s 1987 doctoral dissertation first places Schumann’s opera
in its social context, then examines the genesis of the libretto and its literary sources, and finally
provides a psychological description of various characters in the dramas of Ludwig Tieck,
Friedrich Hebbel and Schumann while making links with other contemporary operas such as Carl
Maria von Weber’s Euryanthe.15 Drawing upon the scholarship of Hermann Abert (1910), the
first scholar to discuss Schumann’s use of motives in Genoveva, Billington discusses the
psychological bases of various musical motives, but without assessing their possible gendered
implications. 16 Expanding on both Abert’s and Billington’s work, my master’s thesis (2004)
showed how in Genoveva, motives encode gender in flexible ways. 17
More recently, Hansjörg Ewert’s monograph (2003) looks at the compositional history of
the work and its extant sources from a nationalistic perspective. 18 He situates Genoveva within
the aesthetic, social and political contexts of the development of German opera between 1820
15
Steven Miles Billington, “Robert Schumann’s Genoveva: A Source Study” (PhD diss.: New York U.,
1987).
16
Hermann Abert, “Robert Schumann’s Genoveva,” Zeitschrift der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft 11/9
(1910), 177-190.
17
Claudine Jacques, “La Caractérisation des personnages féminins dans l’opéra ‘Genoveva’ de Robert
Schumann” (M.A. thesis: Université de Montréal, 2004).
18
Hansjörg Ewert, Anspruch und Wirkung: Studien zur Entstehung der Oper Genoveva von Robert
Schumann (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2003).
9
and 1840, including operas by other German composers such as Weber and Marschner. Ewert
argues that in this period a new opera aesthetic was in place, one that integrated text and music,
lyricism and drama, declamation and melody in a coherent whole.19 For Ewert, Genoveva
constitutes a self-portrait of the artist as a striving human being, uncovering significant points of
contact between the plot and the composer’s biography, notably the place occupied by both Clara
Schumann and the composer’s mother in his operatic endeavours. He also notes that Genoveva,
like Wagner’s Elsa, exemplified the archetype of the passive and redemptive woman, found in
several works of the 1840s.20
Laura Tunbridge’s dissertation (2002) tackles the problem of Schumann’s late style
(which in her view Manfred Op. 115 and the Szenen aus Goethes Faust encapsulate) as well as
possible links between biography and musical style.21 She notes that the works seem to shy
away from the theatrical; instead they are conceived as a succession of poetic tableaux, a sort of
“imaginary theatre.” I would like to suggest that this relative lack of dramatic action has a strong
impact on the female characters, for the action is played out in a transcendental realm. In
particular, Tunbridge discusses how the Szenen aus Goethes Faust project the concept of
“Schein” which, as August Wilhelm Schlegel and Friedrich Schelling have noted, accentuates
the subjectivity of the viewing process and privileges evanescent, immaterial qualities such as
light.22 Another evanescent quality is sound, which Tunbridge links to light in its capacity to
make the listener see things: the powers of the visual and the musical are thus intertwined.
Although not explicitly mentioned by Tunbridge, I would argue, in line with the French
19
Ibid., 23-26.
Ibid., 17.
21
Laura Tunbridge, “Euphorion Falls: Schumann, Manfred and Faust” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University,
2002).
22
Tunbridge defines “Schein” as “an attention to artistic semblance that both accentuates the subjectivity or
relativity of the viewing process (perceiving as Schein) and privileges the immaterial, evanescent qualities
of landscape, such as light, which registers Schein.” Ibid., 99.
20
10
feminists’ concept of écriture féminine, that these evanescent qualities (light, sound) allow
female characters to lead male ones to a transcendental higher realm in which characteristics of
gender blend.
Two studies on Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust have appeared recently, by
Kathrin Leven-Keesen (1996) and Edda Bürger-Güntert (2006).23 Leven-Keesen’s source study
closely examines, number by number, the early version of the Szenen aus Goethes Faust found in
the 65-page “Wiede manuscript.” The earliest document available on the genesis of the work, it
provides useful information on the early compositional stages of Schumann’s oratorio. BürgerGüntert’s study is in two parts: she first examines Schumann’s interest in Goethe’s works,
particularly Faust and the late works. The concept of melancholia, particularly as it is linked
with the angelic, childlike and androgynous figure of Mignon, who expresses herself only in
songs, is a recurrent topic. Bürger-Guntert argues that this romantic figure, with regressive
tendencies towards childhood, struck a chord in Schumann’s inner being, particularly apparent in
his letters to Clara: she provides an archetype which Bürger-Güntert links to both human beings
such as the young poet Elizabeth Kulmann, and dramatic or literary characters like Rose (the
flower who became human in the oratorio Der Rose Pilgerfahrt op. 112), the Peri and Gretchen.
She thoroughly investigates Schumann’s complex response to Goethe’s works, a response which,
she argues, has been under-researched considering its depth. New developments in both
Schumann and Goethe studies, one of the most important being the current revaluation of
Schumann’s late works, seem to call for such a detailed study. Bürger-Güntert first examines
Goethe’s relationship with music, then investigates how Schumann’s understanding of the drama
fits into the more general nineteenth-century reception: in particular, his strong interest in the
23
Kathrin Leven-Keesen, Robert Schumanns “Szenen aus Goethes Faust” (WoO3): Studien zu
Frühfassungen anhand des Autographs Wiede 11/3 (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 1996). Edda BürgerGüntert, Robert Schumanns ‘Szenen aus Goethes Faust’ (Freiburg: Rombach Verlag, 2006).
11
second part of Faust during the 1830s and 1840s appeared as highly untypical. She looks into
the details of Schumann’s lifelong interest in Goethe’s works, using sources such as the diaries,
letters and Dichtergarten für Musik. Her work is thus extremely helpful in creating a better
understanding of the literary and musical decisions Schumann made at various stages of the
oratorio’s genesis. Next, Bürger-Güntert provides her own detailed analysis of the entire Szenen
aus Goethes Faust, a work which she not only considers seminal to Schumann’s oeuvre, but also
regards as a document central to the musical reception of Goethe’s works in the nineteenth
century.
Secondary literature on Schumann and gender has focused on lieder and short piano
works. Melinda Boyd (1999) examines musical and textual gender ambiguities in the RückertLieder of Robert and Clara Schumann. 24 Looking at letters and diary entries, Boyd first outlines
the compositional history of the cycle, noting that the idea of collaboration is a recurrent thread,
to the point that for Schumann, both he and Clara should be regarded as “one heart and one
soul.”25 She argues that the love theme present in Rückert’s poems, in particular, may have
attracted both composers. Turning her attention to the songs themselves, Boyd claims that while
Rückert’s poems seem to present the point of view of a male poet addressing his female beloved,
the gender identity of the poetic voice is in fact ambiguous. She argues that gender identity in
the songs may be explicit, implicit, or neutral. Her argument, stemming from a literary
perspective, is similar in its approach to the one I am making in this dissertation: she examines
how certain attributes, images and metaphors (such as activity, passivity, purity, beauty, love,
sun, flowers, tears, water and nature) carry gendered connotations which musically inflect the
songs. Those attributes, images and metaphors also recur in Schumann’s dramatic works. Her
24
Melinda Boyd, “Gendered Voices: The ‘Liebesfrühling’ Lieder of Robert and Clara Schumann,” 19thCentury Music 23 (1999), 145-162.
25
Quoted in ibid., 146.
12
study opens the way for “a more reciprocal, flexible, and less binaristic relationship” as well as a
more fluid conception of gender by blurring the distinctions between masculine and feminine
categories, and fixed gender roles in the songs.26
Two articles by Ruth A. Solie and Kristina Muxfeldt analyze the song cycle Frauenliebe
und Leben Op. 42 from a gendered perspective. Solie (1992) interrogates the social context
surrounding Schumann’s cycle, in order to investigate how gender as “meaning” resides in it.27
Starting with the premise that these songs are “the impersonation of a woman by the voice of
male culture,” her article focuses on the gaze and, more importantly, temporality. 28 She argues
that while the main protagonist appears to speak for herself, she is in fact an idealized object
under the scrutiny of the male gaze and controlled by it, because her portrayal reflects male
social norms and desires. Her discussion of temporality is indebted to Kristeva’s concept of
“woman’s time,” which stresses the endless repeatability of women experiences. Associated
with cyclic temporality, women retain only “a ritualized, mythic existence,” the specificity of
their individual experiences deemed irrelevant.29
Muxfeldt’s article (2001) responds to Solie’s and refutes some of her arguments in an
attempt to paint the cycle in a more positive light. Contrary to Solie, who points out the negative
side of the idealization of women in the cycle, Muxfeldt takes a different perspective and takes a
close look at the historical context surrounding both the literary work and Schumann’s
interpretation of it, as well as its various performances throughout the nineteenth century
(notably those by male singers such as Julius Stockhausen). She argues that Schumann does not
appropriate for himself women’s life experiences, but rather shows remarkable empathy towards
26
Ibid., 158.
Ruth A. Solie, “Whose Life? The Gendered Self in Schumann’s Frauenliebe Songs,” in Music and Text:
Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven Paul Scher (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 219.
28
Ibid., 220.
29
Ibid., 228.
27
13
his female protagonist. In particular, she challenges Solie’s position on gender and temporality.
While Muxfeldt does not reject Solie’s concept of woman’s time, she argues that the events in
the cycle are not generic, but the perceptions and experiences of one individual. 30 For Muxfeldt,
the cycle’s piano postlude represents not the cyclical temporality of women’s experiences but
rather a brief moment of interiority as the widow recalls in her memory past events, evinced by
the melody sinking into a lower, middle-voice in the piano.31
Kramer’s article “Rethinking Schumann’s Carnaval: Identity, Meaning, and the Social
Order” (2002) looks at gender in Schumann’s well-known piano cycle (Op. 9). Using theories
put forth by literary critic Naomi Schor, who argues that the miniature and the art of details are
coded feminine, Kramer groups the 21 miniatures into larger sections and contends that the cycle
can be viewed as a modified sonata form, following “a traditionally ‘masculine’ paradigm: the
standard of mastery in which details are structured into a unified whole.” 32 The unity is achieved
by “a sonata-like recapitulation of themes drawn from the opening.”33 Kramer sees Op. 9 as “an
effort to affirm unrestricted gender mobility” that constitutes the “mainspring of the cycle’s
musical action.”34 He further argues that the presence of both Eusebius and Florestan, as the
“composers” of the cycle, exemplify a bi-gendered “split self” within Schumann’s psyche,
Eusebius lying on the feminine, and Florestan on the masculine, sides of the divide.
As related above, research on Schumann and gender, and on his dramatic works, is
available: however, there is no large-scale study integrating the two. My dissertation addresses
30
Kristina Muxfeldt, “Frauenlieben und Leben Now and Then,” 19th-Century Music 25 (2001), 40.
Muxfeld argues: “This time, far from setting in relief the increased passion of the singer’s character at the
imagined sight of her beloved, as in the opening song, the retreat into an inner voice mimics a physiological
manifestation of self-absorption, taking the melody into the register in which the widow might hum it
consolingly to herself: sounding from within the texture, an octave below the original sung register, it
becomes an emblem of her interiority.” Ibid., 47.
32
Lawrence Kramer, “Rethinking Schumann’s Carnaval: Identity, Meaning, and the Social Order,” in
Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 103.
33
Ibid., 103.
34
Ibid., 103.
31
14
this lack. I intend not only to analyze the three works chosen to illustrate Schumann’s ideas of
gender as expressed in primary sources, but also to suggest how the concept of gender
transitivity may foster a novel assessment of his late dramatic works. In this study, I use the term
gender transitivity to refer to the fluid movement along feminine and masculine subject
positions, which, as Mary R. Strand and Alice Kuzniar affirm, leads to a stepping outside of
normative gender roles and attributes, an overcoming of rigid binarisms.35
IV-FEMINIST THEORIES, METHODOLOGIES AND TOOLS USED
In my study, I engage critical theories on gender such as psychoanalysis and the semiotic
chora (Kristeva), literary constructions of gender (Barbara Becker-Cantarino), androgyny (Sara
Friedrichsmeyer), bi-gendrism (Strand), bisexuality (Kuzniar), specular reciprocity and gender
hybridity (Tacey A. Rosolowski), feminine writing (Luce Irigaray, Helfer), gender synergy
(Kramer, Elizabeth Morrison,), the cry (Michel Poizat) and the narrative voice (Carolyn Abbate,
Paul Robinson). What I call gender transitivity is enabled by these concepts, which have been
developed by scholars of feminist and gender studies to analyze the blurring, flexibility and
mobility of gender boundaries in sources from the first half of the nineteenth century. Feminist
critical theories, by undermining binary gender oppositions, help uncover female agency and
power in artistic and theoretical works. However, feminist and literary scholars have also
pointed out the very real limits of such constructed female strength. Constructions of female
power, to further feminist aims, produces the strongest results when placed in their literary,
musical, psychological and social contexts. In the following paragraphs, I shall develop my own
35
Mary R. Strand, I/You. See especially chapter 5, “Paradoxes of Gender.” Alice Kuzniar affirms that by
emphasizing new (female) values such as the voice and song, “A female character may be used not to
bolster the identity of a male protagonist but to question it and perhaps even to undermine binary gender
oppositions.” See her “Hearing Woman’s Voices in Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” Publications of the
Modern Language Association of America 107 (1992), 1196-1197.
15
theoretical apparatus from this conceptual palette outlined above, and explore gender transitivity
as it relates to selected aspects of early nineteenth-century characterizations of femininity:
feminine subjectivity, love, redemption, and transcendence. In light of this theoretical apparatus,
I will first present three romantic literary archetypes (women as redemptive figures, women as
suffering archetypes of the Virgin Mary, women as angelic figures) in which these four aspects
are prominent. Chapter Two examines the figure of Clara Schumann and finally, Chapters Three
through Five provide case studies of Schumann’s female dramatic characters.
Semiotic Chora
Kristeva’s psychoanalytical concept of the semiotic chora will be useful in uncovering the
extent and limits of female agency and power displayed by female figures in literary works and
the three selected musical compositions. Her approach, laid out in her groundbreaking study
Revolution in Poetic Language (1974), is indebted to Lacanian psychoanalysis. 36 The Kristevan
semiotic chora designates a pre-Oedipal sphere preceding temporality and spatiality: as such,
“although it can be designated and regulated, it can never be definitely posited.”37 Kristeva
understands the term “semiotic” in its Greek sense, meaning “trace” or “mark” which in the
signifying process, “displace and condense both energies and their inscription.” 38 These energies
“articulate what we call a chora: a nonexpressive totality formed by the drives and their stases in
a motility that is as full of movement as it is regulated.”39 These psychoanalytical drives (such as
love, life and death) “involve pre-Oedipal semiotic functions and energy discharges that connect
36
A translated excerpt from Julia Kristeva’s Revolution in Poetic Language, pertaining to the semiotic
chora, is found in “Revolution in Poetic Language,” in The Portable Kristeva, ed. Kelly Oliver (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2002), 27-92. See especially the section: “The Semiotic and the Symbolic,”
32-70.
37
Ibid., 35.
38
Ibid., 35.
39
Ibid., 35.
16
and orient the body to the mother,” linking the semiotic chora to a feminine realm and
motherhood.40 In her article “Women’s Time,” Kristeva defines the chora as a “matrix space,
nourishing, unnameable, anterior to the One, to God and, consequently, defying metaphysics.”41
This female space fosters a novel conception of time, cyclic and monumental in which a
specifically female subjectivity may unfold: different from linear, teleological time, it comprises
repetitions, reminiscences and eternity linked to jouissance. 42 Furthermore, the chora occurs
prior to the process of signification: it “is a modality of significance in which the linguistic sign
is not yet articulated as the absence of an object and as the distinction between real and
symbolic.”43 Subjectivity is formed at the boundaries between unconscious drives and the
requirements of the social, at the threshold between the semiotic and the symbolic. I argue that
such a fluid position is particularly conducive to the kind of gender transitivity evinced by the
three female figures considered in this dissertation.
Literary Constructions of Gender
Contemporary feminist scholars such as Martha Helfer and Linda Roetzel have examined
the concept of gender put forward by early Romantics such as Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel.
They have pointed out that gender to the early romantics is flexible and ambiguous. This
treatment of gender creates tensions in the text between positive and negative views of women,
40
Ibid., 37.
Kristeva, “Women’s Time,” reprinted in Critical Theory Since 1965, ed. Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle
(Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1986), 472.
42
“As for time, female subjectivity would seem to provide a specific measure that essentially retains
repetition and eternity from among the multiple modalities of time known through the history of
civilizations. On the one hand, there are cycles, gestation, the eternal recurrence of a biological rhythm
which conforms to that of nature and impose a temporality whose stereotyping may shock, but whose
regularity and unison with what is experienced as extrasubjective time, cosmic time, occasion vertiginous
visions and unnameable jouissance. On the other hand, and perhaps as a consequence, there is the massive
presence of a monumental temporality, without cleavage or escape, which has so little to do with linear
time (which passes) that the very word ‘temporality’ hardly fits (…).” Ibid., 472-473.
43
Kristeva, “Revolution in Poetic Language,” in The Portable Kristeva, 36.
41
17
both real and idealized, an ambiguous situation which the feminist scholars I discuss clearly
mention. For Roetzel, “reading Early German Romanticism with respect to gender means
situating oneself within the tension between revolutionary approaches to the feminine and the
persistence of established gender politics.”44 Seemingly fixed and stable gender boundaries are
undermined “given the ironic, self-reflexive, self-critical nature of Romantic discourse and the
fluid gender categories that animate it.”45 Roetzel goes so far to as affirm that the Feminine was
envisioned as a site of critique: the Jena Romantics “attempt to use the feminine as a basis from
which traditional philosophy can be challenged. Gender critique, as they see it, makes it possible
to think outside of the categories of traditional Western philosophy.” 46 On a literary level, such
critique has widened the range of possibilities available for the portrayal of female characters to
be presented in a somewhat less stereotypical fashion, thus enabling agency and independence.
However, this seemingly positive idealization of female figures has failed to bear concrete results
for real women of that era: women associated with the Jena romantic circle, such as Dorothea
Veit-Schlegel and Caroline Schlegel-Schelling, were highly educated, intelligent women and
frequent contributors to the literary journal Athenaeum. While these women influenced in
various ways the men who surrounded them, their original contributions remained anonymous,
and their voices silenced by the very men who promoted in their writings greater gender
equality. 47
An early study by Barbara Becker-Cantarino (1979) looks at the origins of Schlegel’s
idealized and stereotypical image of women as priestesses and bringers of light in his novel
44
Roetzel, “Introductory Essay: Feminizing Philosophy,” 362.
Helfer, “Gender Studies and Romanticism,” 243.
46
Roetzel, “Introductory Essay: Feminizing Philosophy,” 362.
47
Helfer, “Gender Studies and Romanticism,” 230. She points out that “Sara Friedrichsmeyer has argued
with good justification that the Jena Romantic Circle owes its very existence to Caroline SchlegelSchelling, who had a fundamental impact on Romantic aesthetics and ethics.” Ibid., 230-231.
45
18
Lucinde.48 Becker-Cantarino is sceptical of the more “progressive” elements of early nineteenthcentury theory and argues that Schlegel in fact deepened gender dichotomies.49 For BeckerCantarino, this idealized conception came about because elements that did not fit masculine
norms were coded feminine, overvalued and elevated into the transcendent and the mystical. 50
Such gestures decorporealize female figures. Their role is to be submissive and devoted; angelic,
asexual figures embodying a passive ideal; and an abstract fiction outside the narrative scheme of
Bildung, with limited influence in the public social realm. In an exploitative and manipulative
act, male protagonists use such idealized and fictional figures in their quest to unite with abstract
feminine ideals through love, to access a higher, ambiguously gendered, humanity. 51 This
48
Barbara Becker-Cantarino, “Priesterin und Lichtbringerin,” in Die Frau als Heldin und Autorin: Neue
kritische Ansätze zur deutschen Literatur, ed. Wolfgang Paulsen (Bern: A. Francke, 1979), 111-112.
49
“Wichtig ist, daβ die Typologie männlich-weiblich in Gegensatzpaaren weiterentwickelt wird.” Ibid.,
116. (“What is important is that the binary opposition masculine-feminine is developed further.”)
50
Becker-Cantarino affirms: “In dem Bildbegriff der Priesterin und Lichtbringerin wurden nämlich die
Wesensverschiedenheiten der Frau in einem ideell überhöhten Wunschbild festgelegt, weil die männliche
Erfahrungswelt als absolute Norm zugrunde gelegt und von daher diejenigen Eigenschaften, die nicht in
diese Norm paβten, ins Mystische erhoben und überbewertet wurden.” Ibid., 111. (“With the concept of
priestess and bringer of light the individual characteristics of women are placed in an idealized higher
sphere, because the masculine world of experience is considered as the norm and those elements which do
not fit in this norm are elevated in the mystical and overvalued.”)
51
“Für die Frühromantik war das ideell überhöhte Bild der Priesterin eine abstrakte Fiktion, die
Unmenschliches verlangte. Die Mystifizierung der bürgerlichen Ehe in der wahren Liebesehe, bei
Schleiermacher dann die Verbindung von Religion und Liebe, die das Wesen der Frau ganz Liebe werden
läβt, während der Mann durch andere Aufgaben in Anspruch genommen ist, verbannte die Frau endgültig
in das Ghetto der bürgerlichen Ehe als natürliche Lebensform und Norm. In der Charakterologie der
Frühromantik waren es die Herausarbeitung der Verschiedenheit der Geschlechter und die Idealisierung des
Weiblichen, die den Anspruch der Frau an Individualität als Mensch auf die persönliche Sphäre begrenzte,
ihre politische Funktion negierte und damit die Emanzipation der Frau verhinderte.” Ibid., 122. (“For the
early romantics, the idealized higher image of the priestess was an abstract fiction which called for
superhuman qualities. The mystification of the bourgeois marriage in a true marriage founded on love, then
with Schleiermacher the union of religion and love as defining women’s beings while men are absorbed by
other duties, confined women to the ghetto of bourgeois marriage, considered as the natural way of life and
norm. The early romantics developed further the various characteristics of the sexes and idealized the
feminine, which limited women’s claims as individual human beings to the private sphere, negated their
political roles and as such limited the emancipation of women.”) Frank Hentschel voices similar thoughts:
“Aber das Frauenbild is ambivalent. Einerseits verbirgt sich in ihm eine Abwertung des Weiblichen, so
dass es implizit wie bei Liszt nachgerade zu einem Mittel des Männlichen wird, indem es dieses um das
ihm fehlende Gefühl ergänzt. Andererseits zeigt sich eine Glorifizierung des Weiblichen, die das Äusere
der Komposition von Liszt und in besonderem Maße der von Mahler vorwiegend bestimmt. Die Frau wird
zur Heilbringerin für den Mann, ihre Liebe vergöttlicht. Diese Ambivalenz traf schon auf Goethes zu.”
Hentschel, “Das ‘Ewig-Weibliche’ – Liszt, Mahler und das bürgerliche Frauenbild,” Archiv für
Musikwissenschaft 51 (1994), 290. (“But the portrayal of women is ambivalent. On the one hand one can
19
literary conception of romantic love, however, has no real impact in the social realm and risks
leaving traditional gender roles unchallenged by binding women to family, motherhood, and
love, hindering their emancipation and negating their political role. 52
Ricarda Schmidt, discussing Hoffmann’s female figures (Clara and Giacinta), portrays
female literary figures more positively: “Although the narrative focus is not on them, their
supportive roles are complex, allowing them the intellectual edge over their male lovers and a
great deal of emotional independence. Both male lovers feel threatened by the women’s
intellect.”53 Schmidt explains the origin of these fears: “Hoffmann’s purpose of exploring the
relationship between the real and the ideal for an artist extended the gender boundaries of his
age: in some of his best texts, he created female characters of remarkable intelligence, wit, and
independence of mind” in a seeming equality which, nonetheless, is driven by the requirements
of his very own text.54 Julie D. Prandi has examined how some “spirited women heroes” in
dramas by Goethe, Schiller and Kleist display strength and heroism: “Rather than limiting herself
to the domestic sphere, she [the spirited woman hero] tries to make her presence felt in larger
detect in it a devaluation of the feminine, so that it implicitly as with Liszt becomes a means to reach the
masculine, in the sense that it completes the man by providing him the feelings which he lacks. On the
other hand one can observe a glorification of the feminine, which governs external aspects of Liszt’s work,
and particularly that of Mahler. The woman brings healing to the man, her love deifies him. This
ambivalence is already encountered with Goethe.”)
52
“Mit der ‘romantischen Liebe’ wurde die bürgerliche Vernunftehe ideell begründet und aufgewertet; im
Androgynentum, der Verschmelzung des Männlichen und Weiblichen, eine höhere Stufe der
Menschlichkeit angestrebt, die weder in persönlichen Bindungen noch in der gesellschaftlichen Struktur
realisierbar war. Der fehlende Realitätsbezug der romantischen Geschlechterbeziehung läβt diese
wiederum in eine Verteidigung der patriotisch-bürgerlichen Kleinfamilie mit traditioneller
Rollenverteilung, der Frau als Mutter und Gefährtin, münden.” Becker-Cantarino, “Priesterin und
Lichtbringerin,” 111-112. (“With ‘romantic love’ the bourgeois marriage of convenience became idealized
and revaluated; in an androgynous sphere blending the masculine and the feminine, aspiring to a higher
stage of humanity but which could be realized neither in personal relationships nor within social structures.
The lacking reality of the romantic relationship of the sexes ultimately leads back to an apology of the
patriotic-bourgeois family with traditional role division.”)
53
Ricarda Schmidt, “Male Foibles, Female Critique and Narrative Capriciousness: On the Function of
Gender in Conceptions of Art and Subjectivity in E.T.A. Hoffmann,” in From Goethe to Gide: Feminism,
Aesthetics and the French and German Literary Canon 1770-1936, ed. Mary Orr and Lesley Sharpe
(Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2005), 61.
54
Ibid., 64.
20
circles.”55 A woman hero “retains many of the feelings of the passive heroines, but desires to be
active in her society like the male heroes.”56 She “builds a will of her own and tries to act on it”
even if “in their quest for deeper knowledge of self, these protagonists come into conflict with
the norms for feminine behaviour (…).”57 Male authors like Hoffmann thus sometimes create
interesting and nuanced female characters, at once active within the public sphere and displaying
positive feminine attributes and values. However, they stop short of presenting unambiguously
strong female figures who truly challenge gender norms and the dominant androcentric model.
Androgyny
Literary scholar Sara Friedrichsmeyer examines the concept of androgyny and
emphasizes its flexibility. She discusses how the concept became thoroughly incorporated into
early Romantic religious and secular ideologies due to romantic writers’ strong interest in a
construct that blurs and eliminates boundaries. Friedrich Schlegel, for instance, emphasized an
individual’s freedom to move back and forth along a masculine-feminine axis. 58 Defining
androgyny as a combination of masculine and feminine features with love as the primary
unifying and redemptive force, Friedrichsmeyer argues that androgyny provides access to a
higher realm. It emerges as an ideal of human progress and perfection, mediating between the
individual psyche and the divine. She argues that while Schlegel’s female characters remain
idealizations, “he did struggle versus the position which treated women as ancillaries important
only for a man’s development” and that “he was attempting to persuade his contemporaries that
not only individuals, but society as well would benefit if the character traits usually associated
55
Prandi, Spirited Women Heroes, 2.
Ibid., 2.
57
Ibid., 3.
58
Friedrichsmeyer, The Androgyne in Early German Romanticism, 110.
56
21
with gender were available to all.”59 The optimism shown by Roetzel and Friedrichsmeyer about
the potential of gender blending in literary and theoretical works for the emancipation of real
women, however, should be strongly qualified.
Hovering
Mary R. Strand (1998) looks at the paradoxical constructions of the male and female
selves in early nineteenth-century writings. Deriving her methodology from psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan as well as Kristeva, Strand argues that Novalis and Schlegel’s fluid and at times
contradictory conceptions of gender allowed men and women to speak from multiple, or bigendered, perspectives. She claims that when the emphasis is placed on the unconscious and
destabilizing drives of the chora, feminine otherness can destabilize psychological and social
systems from within as well as without.60 Central to her argument is the subject’s position
between two gendered poles, which results in the lifting up of the subject beyond gender in an
“absolute sphere of hovering” where the identities of masculine Self and feminine Other merge.
For my dissertation, this is perhaps the most fruitful aspect of her theory, bearing the greatest
potential for uncovering feminine agency and strength in male literary works. However, Strand
also makes clear that while a greater range of options was thus opened for female characters of
the romantic era, they were still depicted in stereotypical ways. She points out that literary
works often reiterate the common conception of women as embodiments of the wild and sinful
Eve or the submissive and obedient Virgin Mary: “Images of wild femininity are contrasted with
subdued, motherly figures.”61 Pushed to extremes, both images are potentially detrimental to
women. Strand pursues: “Women are also portrayed, paradoxically, as both active subjects and
59
Ibid., 171.
Strand, I/You, 94.
61
Ibid., 3-4.
60
22
passive objects in their [Novalis’ and Friedrich Schlegel’s] complex, contradictory writings on
gender.”62 Female activity, it seems, goes hand in hand with their portrayal as passive objects,
primarily for the male hero’s use and benefit. However, such activity results from male artistic
decisions.
Roetzel also discusses the concept of hovering in early nineteenth-century works.
She affirms that inverting reified oppositions of gender can function as a site of critique:
Traditional Western philosophy centers the masculine subject and posits that
which is beyond or outside the masculine subject as feminine. Attributes
associated with this ‘beyond’ include all that is incomprehensible or
uncontrollable in subjectivity, nature, and language. When turned on its head,
this unreflected reproduction of the binary opposition of gender opens up the
possibility of a radical form of criticism. Reflection upon the opposition
subject/object and masculine/feminine becomes a critical lever that can undo an
entire system. The appeal of the feminine as a site of critique thus has to do
with the volatility of reified oppositions of gender when they are inverted and
reinscribed under the position of the feminine. 63
Roetzel pursues: “Schlegel’s emphasis, not on the two poles but on the exchange between
them, disrupts the given economy of gender from within.” 64 This movement along both
poles of the gendered continuum characterizes my understanding of gender transitivity.
Its workings are similar to Novalis’ “absolute I,” which Strand calls an “absolute sphere
of poetic reflection” and an “originary sphere of feeling,” both of which undermine a
fixed and stable subject position. 65 The destabilized Novalis subject aims to be
“suspended between extremes in an absolute realm of hovering,” a “chaotic space beyond
62
Ibid., 3-4.
Roetzel, “Introductory Essay: Feminizing Philosophy,” 365-366.
64
Ibid., 369.
65
Strand argues: “In Novalis’ Fichte-Studien the subject longs to be suspended between extremes in an
absolute realm of hovering, or free being. Novalis’ notion of hovering resembles his concept of feeling,
which he describes as an originary moment, the beginning of philosophy. He also posits the absolute I, the
state of hovering, as an a priori moment. It is the point of indifference or wholeness out of which
differences, or dualisms, such as subject and object, are engendered.” Strand, I/You, 12.
63
23
dualistic differences.”66 Strand views this realm of hovering as an “a priori moment”
constituting “the point of indifference or wholeness out of which differences, or dualisms,
such as subject and object, are engendered.”67 Roetzel mentions: “When read in terms of
Novalis’s concept of the absolute I, which, as a realm of ‘hovering,’ is always
destabilized, the feminine itself could be seen to be always unstable and thus beyond the
world of binary oppositions.”68 In line with these literary theories, I link early Romantic
thought to contemporary feminist psychoanalytic theories such as Julia Kristeva’s
semiotic chora, which I then apply to my analysis of Clara Schumann’s gender
transitivity and three female figures in Schumann’s dramatic works.
Voice
Alice Kuzniar and Pam Morris investigate the workings of the voice in early nineteenthcentury literary works. Their theories uncover female or gender-ambiguous voices in maleauthored artistic works, while remaining mindful of the limitations placed on female power and
agency by male artists. This power and agency remain limited to women in literary or musical
texts, and, as these are created by male artists, respond to male prerogatives for the achievement
of male goals. Kuzniar, in her 1992 analysis of Novalis’s novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen
(1802), discusses how the concept of “woman” is constructed by male ideology, and the positive
effects which the dismantling of this image might imply for feminist criticism. 69 She argues for
66
Ibid., 12.
“In Novalis’ Fichte-Studien the subject longs to be suspended between extremes in an absolute realm of
hovering, or free being. Novalis’ notion of hovering resembles his concept of feeling, which he describes
as an originary moment, the beginning of philosophy. He also posits the absolute I, the state of hovering,
as an a priori moment. It is the point of indifference or wholeness out of which differences, or dualisms,
such as subject and object, are engendered.” Ibid., 12.
68
Roetzel, “Introductory Essay: Feminizing Philosophy,” 371.
69
Kuzniar points out: “The term woman is already a cultural fabrication invoking a set of conditioned
images.” See her “Hearing Woman’s Voices in Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” 1196.
67
24
the presence, in male-authored literary works, of feminine voices and unique feminine paradigms
challenging the dominant androcentric model. 70 She emphasizes the link between voice and
song as opposed to language: “Cixous and Irigaray oppose woman’s voice, issuing from the
mouth, to male discourse, which, arising in the Lacanian symbolic, marks a repression of the
body. Cixous specifically links woman’s voice with song and breath and contrasts it with
codified male language.”71 Pam Morris holds similar views: “In linking language to voice
Cixous is moving back beyond the Oedipal stage to the pre-Oedipal relation between mother and
child, a time dominated by the tactile and by sound and rhythm far more than by the visual.” 72
Thus for Alice Kuzniar and Pam Morris, voice originates in a pre-Oedipal time prior to the
symbolic, akin to my take on the semiotic chora. Moreover, Kuzniar believes that the female
voice’s quality as unmediated song enables female figures, often associated with the beloved,
mothers, angels, or muses, to speak.73
The musical concept of the voice, theorized by Morrison, Poizat, Robinson and Abbate, is
powerful and subversive. Morrison affirms: “‘Voice’ within musical practice (…) emerges from
the generalized ‘music’ which surrounds it and, in all its excessiveness, breaks down signifying
codes and conventions within this practice while still remaining that supplemental ‘leftover’.”74
Solie links the voice with Kristeva’s psychoanalytical concept of the maternal semiotic: “In Julia
Kristeva’s psychoanalysis, the voice (song, music, even sound in general) is identified with the
maternal, with a state of being that precedes the symbolic realm of the father and is thus
70
Kuzniar affirms: “Unique female paradigms in canonical male-authored works may challenge the
dominant androcentric model. A female character may be used not to bolster the identity of a male
protagonist but to question it and perhaps even to undermine binary gender oppositions. Although such a
female model remains a male fabrication, it may offer an alternative to a male set of privileged terms.”
Ibid., 1196-1197.
71
Ibid., 1197.
72
Pam Morris, Literature and Feminism: An Introduction, (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993), 122.
73
“Hearing Woman’s Voices in Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” 1199.
74
Elizabeth Morrisson, “The Dead/ly Feminine: Violence and Eroticism in Three Expressionist Operas”
(Ph.D. diss.: McGill University, 2002), 363-364.
25
irrational, inarticulable – and marked female.”75 Irrational, excessive and seductive, the voice
forms and exceeds the subject, triggering psychoanalytical jouissance. Morrison argues: “The
voice signifies that jouis-sense, that pleasure beyond meaning, which both exceeds and yet forms
the subject. The human voice is the surest repository for language and communication, yet in its
purely sonorous dimension it can also radically undermine expressive intent.”76 Jouissance is
central to Poizat’s notion of the “musical cry” in his study of opera, the moment in which
language becomes unintelligible and meaning dissolves, but also the moment, as he argues, when
gender blurs. 77 The resulting powerful cry of the female high voice triggers strong emotions
lying outside rationality, such as bliss and pain, bringing forth sobs and tears, leading the listener
into the semiotic realm where the visual order collapses due to what Poizat terms a “radical
autonomization of the voice” as object.78 A fragile and evanescent object of jouissance, the cry
75
Solie, “Introduction: On ‘Difference’,” in Musicology and Difference, ed. Ruth A. Solie
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 14.
76
Morrison, “The Dead/ly Feminine,” 363.
77
Michel Poizat, L'Opéra, ou, Le cri de l'ange: Essai sur la jouissance de l'amateur d'opéra (Paris: A.M.
Métailié, 1986).
78
“L’effondrement dans ces instants de l’ordre visuel, ou sa complète transfiguration sous l’effet captatif de
la voix et de la musique, n’est pas un phénomène secondaire, accessoire du genre opéra. On peut dire au
contraire qu’il en est constitutif. C’est ce phénomène d’autonomisation radicale de la voix, de ce véritable
détachement de la voix comme objet venant s’emparer de toute la disponibilité de l’auditeur qui a rendu
possible la mise en place même du dispositif de l’opéra.ˮ Poizat, L'Opéra, ou, Le cri de l'ange, 56-57.
(“The collapse of the visual order in these instants, or its transfiguration under the alluring influence of
voice and music, is not a secondary or accessory phenomenon of the operatic genre. Quite the contrary, in
a sense it is constitutive of opera. For it is the radical autonomization of the voice, its veritable
transformation into a detached object that lays claim to the listener’s entire receptivity, that has made
possible the very apparatus that is opera. ˮ English in The Angel’s Cry: Beyond the Pleasure Principle in
Opera, transl. Arthur Denner [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992], 33) This is particularly true in the
case of female voices: “En fait, c’est dans ces instants où le chant, et principalement le chant féminin, se
pose délibérément comme chant, comme musique pure, rompant toute attache avec la parole, la détruisant
littéralement au profit d’une mélodie purement musicale qui se développe petit à petit jusqu’à confiner à
quelque chose qui est de l’ordre du cri; c’est dans ces instants où disparaît toute parole et apparaît petit à
petit ce qui est cri, que surgit cette émotion qui ne peut s’exprimer autrement que par l’irruption de cette
marque du sentiment de la perte absolue qu’est le sanglot, au point d’ôter d’ailleurs à l’auditeur lui-même
toute possibilité de parole.ˮ Ibid., 61. (“It is with such instants that we are concerned, instants when
singing, particularly the singing of a woman, deliberately presents itself as singing, as pure music free of all
ties to speech; singing that literally destroys speech in favor of purely musical melody that develops little
by little until it verges on the cry. In such instants, when language disappears and is gradually superseded
by the cry, an emotion arises which can be expressed only by the eruption of the sob that signals asbolute
loss; finally a point is reached where the listener himself is stripped of all possibility of speech.” English in
26
enraptures the listener and exerts a powerful hold over him or her, particularly when uttered by
high-pitched female voices. 79
Catherine Clément has brought attention to the undoing of women in opera plots: by
deliberately leaving the music out of her discussion, however, some scholars believe she has
ignored an important source of female power.80 Abbate and Paul Robinson have argued from
two different angles that because of their musical voices, women remain undefeated, speaking
across the crushing plot and channelling the listener’s attention. 81 Abbate means by voice “a
sense of certain isolated and rare gestures in music, whether vocal or nonvocal, that may be
The Angel’s Cry, 37.) (A few pages later Poizat adds: “L’une des propriétés principales du chant dans
l’aigu, c’est de rendre impossible l’articulation intelligible de la parole.” Ibid., 67. (“One of the principal
properties of high-pitched singing is that it makes intelligible verbal articulation impossible.ˮ English in
The Angel’s Cry, 42) (Poizat links this breakdown of language with psychoanalytical jouissance: he
affirms that “ce n’est pas dans l’inintelligibilité en soi que réside le ressort de la jouissance lyrique mais
dans la dissolution progressive du sens sous l’effet d’une logique de l’écriture musicale qui échappe alors à
celle de la parole.” Ibid., 71. (“[I]t is not in unintelligibility itself that lyric jouissance resides but in the
progressive dissolution of meaning under the effect of a logic of musical composition that then escapes the
logic of verbal expression.” English in The Angel’s Cry, 44-45.)
79
“Car c’est bien en tant que la voix est objet, objet autonome détaché du corps qui la produit, que
l’amateur y prend jouissance. Mais cet objet est fragile, évanescent. Il n’existe qu’en tant qu’il échappe
toujours.” Ibid., 59. (“For it is insofar as the voice is indeed an object, an autonomous object detached
from the body that produces it, that it can become the object of the fan’s jouissance. And yet this object is
fragile and evanescent. It exists only as long as it manages to elude.” English in The Angel’s Cry, 35.)
Poizat pursues: “C’est qu’en effet cet objet-voix, lors de cette première phase hypothétique que nous avons
décrite plus haut, est effectivement objet de jouissance. Dès lors le rapport à la matérialité sonore est
rapport de jouissance. La voix comme objet est donc construite à la fois comme objet perdu et comme
objet premier de jouissance. Il n’est donc pas étonnant à partir de là de voir s’enclencher une quête de cet
objet, quête de ce matériau sonore perdu, dissout derrière la signification.” Ibid., 147. Emphasis in the
text. (“For the vocal object, in that first, hypothetical phase described earlier, is indeed an object of
jouissance. Thereafter, any relation to phonic materiality will involve jouissance. The voice as object is
thus constructed both as lost object and as first object of jouissance. It is thus not surprising that a quest for
the object is set in motion, a search for lost phonic materiality, now dissolved behind signification.”
English in The Angel’s Cry, 103.)
80
Catherine Clément, Opera, or the Undoing of Women, transl. Betsy Wing, foreword by Susan McClary
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988).
81
Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), xix. Paul Robinson, “It’s Not Over Until The Soprano Dies,” New
York Times Book Review (1 January 1989), 3. Abbate also mentions: “Clément chooses to neglect the locus
of women’s operatic triumph, even though it is exemplified in the very works she discusses, in the
overwhelming sound of female operatic voices and the musical gestures that enfold those voices into a
whole. This is a realm beyond narrative plot, in which women exist as sonority and sheer physical volume,
asserting themselves outside spectacle and escaping murderous fates.” See her article “Opera, or, The
Envoicing of Women,” in Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed.
Ruth A. Solie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 254.
27
perceived as modes of subjects’ enunciations.”82 She argues that these voices are not necessarily
linked with any singing human voice but may be located within the orchestral music. Since there
are often many voices in one given work, this gives rise to what she calls “polyphonic
narration.”83 For Robinson, women in opera “seem subversive presences in a patriarchal culture,
since they so manifestly contain the promise – or rather the threat – of women’s full equality.”84
Such equality, as Robinson himself points out, is threatening. Looking at the figure of Clara
Schumann in the next chapter, I argue that any promise of full equality within the social sphere
for real nineteenth-century women remained illusory at that time. Nonetheless, subversive
musical gestures do occur in Schumann’s three dramatic works, which the concept of the voice,
with the help of literary and psychoanalytical theories discussed above, may help uncover.
Gaze
Tacey A. Rosolowski examines how, in Hölderlin’s novel Hyperion, the gaze is
subversive and empowers female literary figures. Deemed the province of masculinity, the male
gaze typically tames women as safe and distant objects marked for male control, but is also
dangerously erotic. Laura Mulvey affirms:
In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between
active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the
female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women
are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual
and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. Woman
displayed as sexual object is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle (…).85
82
Abbate, Unsung Voices, xix.
Ibid., xiv.
84
Robinson, “It’s Not Over Until The Soprano Dies,” 3.
85
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” in Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989), 19.
83
28
However, some female characters in early romantic literature did display strength and
agency by returning and taking control of that gaze, thus freeing it from masculine monopoly. 86
Rosolowski has elaborated the concept of “specular reciprocity” to discuss such female
characters’ control of the gaze. Specular reciprocity occurs when female characters
unexpectedly return the gaze of male characters. This move, Rosolowski argues, unmasks the
dependency of the male subject on the female object: “Feminist scholars have pointed out that
even though ‘any theory of the subject has always been appropriated by the ‘masculine’,’ those
acts by which the feminine reflects light back to the masculine subject are as ‘formative’ as the
sun’s apparently powerful rays (Irigaray, Speculum 133). In this context, when masculine gaze
constitutes the feminine, it also constitutes itself in a relation of fundamental dependency on its
other.”87 Such a prospect is appealing: Judith Butler has argued that female figures may contest
the place and authority of the masculine subject and in so doing, expose his independence as
illusory.88 However, female subjectivity, particularly that of abstract and idealized characters,
similarly remains dependent on its relationship with a masculine agent for its self-constitution.
Seemingly acting of their own free wills, idealized female figures may in fact be denied any
agency in choosing their courses of action.
Martha Helfer believes one should take Friedrich Schlegel at his word when he says that
the essence of feminine writing lies in what is not said by women, at the levels of both form and
content. Analyzing Dorothea Veit-Schlegel’s novel Florentin, Helfer reads a “feminist aesthetic
of the other” defined by displacements and absences undermining masculine discourse, in
86
“The other, the Non-I, or You, is unleashed from its complete dependence on the seeing I/eye of
Enlightenment philosophy.” Strand, I/You, 49.
87
Tacey A. Rosolowski, “Specular Reciprocity and the Construction of the Feminine in Friedrich
Hölderlin’s ‘Hyperion’,” Modern Language Studies 25 (1995), 44.
88
“The sudden intrusion, the unanticipated agency, of a female ‘object’ who inexplicably returns the
glance, reverses the gaze, and contests the place and authority of the masculine position. The radical
dependency of the masculine subject on the female ‘Other’ suddenly exposes his autonomy as illusory.”
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), ix.
29
response to Friedrich Schlegel’s male-oriented aesthetic in his novel Lucinde. Friedrichsmeyer,
Kuzniar, Rosolowski and Helfer thus argue for the presence of strong, subversive agency in
female literary characters of the romantic era created by both male and female authors. In some
instances, the agency lay in the unconscious (the semiotic) of the text, outside male norms of
creativity. However, abstract female protagonists were also frequently downplayed by their
authors. In feminist discourse, decorporealized and desexualized female protagonists may
inhabit a higher realm in which their beneficial influence on male characters is strongly felt.
Gender Synergy
Lawrence Kramer has used a psychoanalytical concept related to androgyny which he
terms “gender synergy.” The concept allows a single subject to occupy “both masculine and
feminine positions either simultaneously or in rhythmic succession.”89 Kramer contends that the
result of gender synergy “is the ability to affirm that authority, truth, and pleasure inhere in the
ad hoc ensemble of positions rather than in a fixed and prepotent masculine position.” 90
Morrison refines Kramer’s concept of gender synergy by bringing it in dialogue with Kristeva’s
semiotic chora. The chora is “non-signifying and beyond discursive control”: linked with
vocality, music and the Feminine, it emerges from “a state of being preceding language and
articulate thought.”91 Seeking to avoid the pitfalls of gender essentialism which in her view
89
Lawrence Kramer, After the Lovedeath: Sexual Violence and the Making of Culture (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1997), 12.
90
Ibid., 12.
91
“Woman becomes a trope for the disturbing qualities of music precisely because, just as music, she is
considered non-signifying and beyond discursive control. It therefore becomes necessary for the subject to
annihilate or somehow transcend this Other in order to maintain a hold on subjective coherence and unity.”
Elizabeth Morrison, “The Dead/ly Feminine,” 23-24. Thomas S. Grey also points out the link between
Kristeva’s theories of the chora, the maternal, and music: “In much French feminist writing (notably
Kristeva’s) the traditional female gendering of music is grounded in more general associations between
aurality (vocality) and the maternal, a state of being preceding language and articulate thought.” Grey,
30
Kramer’s concept entails, Morrison views gender synergy as the result of the energies of the
semiotic which, at once feminine and preceding gender identity, disrupt rigid binarisms. She
proposes “a view of synergy that is the result of those energies of the semiotic (‘the disruptive
impulses of the semiotic’), which, although rooted in the imaginary and in the mother’s body,
actually arise from a state preceding gender identity.”92 She argues that gender synergy “breaks
down the polarized boundaries of ego formation that require the privileging of a pre-potent
masculine position over a derivative, feminine Other. The subject is thus allowed to move freely
between a multitude of positions; in fact, the experience of pleasure and bliss is now situated
precisely in this mobility.”93
Linking the concept of the voice discussed above with the semiotic, Morrison argues that
the energy of the latter surfaces “precisely in those moments when music actually seems to
‘speak’ or project ‘meaning’ thereby taking on an ‘authorial’ voice of its own.”94 Even if issuing
from a male creative act, this opens within the text a space for a multitude of voices, a
transgressive feminine gesture since it “throws the traditional conception of a controlling male
author into question while also supplanting it with other multivalent (and hence indeterminate or
variably gendered) voices, which disperse and multiply authority.”95 According to Morrison,
such dispersal of authority is enacted most powerfully via women’s voices due to their traditional
exclusion from an authorial position.96
I shall argue that a certain number of such voiced musical gestures share affinities with
my understanding of the semiotic chora. While those are not easily defined in music theoretical
Wagner’s Musical Prose: Texts and Contexts (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1995), 131.
92
Morrison, “The Dead/ly Feminine,” 40.
93
Ibid., 34.
94
Ibid., 128.
95
Ibid., 385.
96
Ibid., 386.
31
terms, they appear to have certain traits in common, as will be discussed in the last three chapters
of this dissertation. For instance, their lyricism and temporal flexibility appear musically to
enact the multiplicity, disruption, and undecidability of signifying practices which “result from
the dialectic between the systematicity of signs [or masculine symbolic] and the transgression of
drives [the feminine semiotic].”97 I plan to foster a feminist understanding of Schumann’s
female protagonists’ voices from literary, musical and psychoanalytical perspectives by paying
attention to those moments when the feminine, in any of its abovementioned manifestations,
breaks into the masculine sphere.98
V-THREE FEMININE ARCHETYPES AND QUALITIES
Feminine Archetypes: Redemptive Figures and Feminine Love
The remainder of this chapter examines critically three common romantic feminine
archetypes that recur both in Schumann’s idealization of Clara and in his dramatic works. The
first section looks at redemptive figures, stereotypically filled with feminine love.
Friedrichsmeyer points out: “The Jena Romantics idealized women to such an extent that there is
in their work a pervasive belief in a saving ‘feminine’ principle.”99 The importance of
redemption, both personal and artistic, for Schumann has been noted by Laura Tunbridge and
John Daverio. Tunbridge mentions Schumann’s “strong personal investment in the idea of
redemption.”100 Daverio notes: “As the notion of redemption looms large in all three literary
operas [i.e. Genoveva, Manfred and the Szenen aus Goethes Faust], they represent a clear
97
Ewa Ziarek, “At the Limits of Discourse: Heterogeneity, Alterity, and the Maternal Body in Kristeva’s
Thought,” Hypatia 7 (1992), 94.
98
Kramer speaks of “the sudden eruptions of subjectivity that manifest themselves as impediments to
narrative, signs of an inability to proceed meaningfully in time.” See his “As If a Voice Were in Them,” in
Music as Cultural Practice: 1800-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 203.
99
Friedrichsmeyer, The Androgyne in Early German Romanticism, 173.
100
Laura Tunbridge, Schumann’s Late Style (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2007), 42-43.
32
continuation of the thematic tendencies first essayed in the Peri.”101 Female figures redeem
either by beneficially affecting the male hero’s psyche or by leading him to higher spheres
outside spatial and temporal boundaries. The redemptive element present in the Goethean
archetype of the Eternal feminine endows women with a strong moral sense, which presents
them in a positive light. However, male writers’ power to create redemptive female characters is
also a powerful patriarchal tool for controlling and containing their women characters’s power.102
Thus the Eternal feminine remains fundamentally androcentric, conveniently presenting women
as timeless and generic. Certainly, such idealized female figures may gain agency, subjectivity
and strength. They do so via feminine values such as their redeeming and healing love which, as
Marina Foschi Albert mentions, has the power to blur gender boundaries.103
Love pervades nineteenth-century writings. It is a drive which romantic artists
envisioned positively and which they typically associated with femininity. Some have
investigated the positive side of female love, a crucial concept in early nineteenth-century
theories, viewed as an androgynous force overcoming spatial and temporal boundaries, uniting
femininity and masculinity in what Sara Friedrichsmeyer has termed a “sphere of androgyny.” 104
Others such as Becker-Cantarino have pointed out that in fact, while granting strength to
idealized female figures within the context of literary works, love’s potential for empowering
101
John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age” (New York: Oxford University Press,
1997), 336.
102
“The Romantic formulation of the idea, though, transformed it into one of the most pervasive themes of
nineteenth-century culture, succinctly expressed by Goethe as ‘Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan.’ This
phrase not only encapsulates the idea of women’s similarity to a timeless and generic nature, but also the
fundamental androcentricity of this conception: the ‘uns’ who are to be redeemed by ‘das Ewig-Weibliche’
are implicitly male.” Elizabeth Ann Garnett, “Constructions of Gender and Musical Style, 1790-1830”
(Ph.D. diss.: University of Southampton, 1995), 150.
103
Marina Foschi Albert mentions the blurring of gender boundaries brought about by the power of love:
“Die Kraft der Liebe ‘activiert’ sozusagen das Weibliche im Mann wie das Männliche in der Frau.” Albert,
Friedrich Schlegels Theorie des Witzes und sein Roman Lucinde (New York: P. Lang, 1995), 94. (“The
power of love ‘activates’ so to speak the feminine in man, and the masculine in woman.”)
104
Friedrichsmeyer, The Androgyne in Early German Romanticism, 53. Furthermore, Blackall has
observed that such a union of opposites in a transcendental world is a feature of Jean Paul’s novels. See his
The Novels of the German Romantics, 105-106.
33
real women within the social sphere remains limited. The confining and limiting aspects of love
for women are summed up by Schlegel, for whom it defines their entire character: “Their love is
their character.”105 Similarly, Novalis contends: “With women, love came into being, and with
love, women came into being – and therefore one does not understand the one without the
other.”106 Love, as conceptualized by romantic thinkers, was in fact far from empowering. Love
deprived female literary characters as well as real-life women of their individuality. More
positively, love bears affinities with the life-giving properties of the semiotic, pre-Oedipal realm
of the chora. Eric Blackall emphasizes the closeness between the philosophical notion of love
and the early romantic concept of the Absolute:
Love means for him [Friedrich Schlegel] not merely the great transfiguring
force in human experience, but also the experience in which above all others the
inner and outer world become one. Thereby it becomes in romantic thinking
(for we shall find similar statements about love in others of the German
Romantics) the Absolute in which all that is individual is contained and
sustained, the one primal force and the one life force, the infinite in the finite,
that which gives man the sense of unity with the universe.” 107
Linked by feminist theorists to Schlegel’s and Novalis’ concept of “hovering of poetic
reflection” in the “sphere of the absolute I,” love occurs prior to the appearances of dualisms and
subject formation, allowing gender differences to be overcome.108 It is analogous to intellectual
intuition: acting in the unconscious sphere of the Absolute it mediates between subject and
105
Friedrich Schlegel: “[I]hre Liebe ist ihr Charakter.” German original in Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 140.
Novalis: “Mit den Frauen ist die Liebe, und mit der Liebe die Frauen entstanden – und darum versteht
man keins ohne das Andre.” German original quoted in ibid., 162-163. English translation in Theory as
Practice, 384.
107
Blackall, The Novels of the German Romantics, 38.
108
Strand affirms: “For Novalis, the absolute I is, again, paradoxically both a sphere in which the difference
between the I and Non-I is maintained and a realm in which such differences are overcome. The hovering
of the imagination in the sphere of the absolute I both destabilizes the subject and moves it toward a point
of wholeness, or non-differentiation.” She makes the connection between the absolute I and love explicit:
“Poesy is the activity of the human spirit that is most clearly expressed in love, as he [Novalis] indicates in
his novel, Heinrich von Ofterdingen. It leads to breaking down the boundaries between self and other, to a
‘Zusammenflieβen’ of the I and the You.” Strand, I/You, 1998, 24.
106
34
object, self and other.109 Love has traditionally been viewed as a progressive means to attain the
early nineteenth-century androgynous ideal. 110 Ellis Dye and Catriona MacLeod note that love
dissolves stable ego boundaries, rendering porous fixed positions of gender. 111 Imaginative
constructions of gender may lead to re-evaluation of female characters, enhancing our
understanding of their pluralistic roles in artistic works. However, issuing from male
imagination, they offer no guarantee that such idealized characters will avoid the damaging
elements of traditional literary archetypes. Nor is this usually the intended goal. Freely
travelling between variously gendered poles, love and the Absolute foster a pluridimensional
conception of subjectivity which nonetheless mostly benefits male characters. While love may
be said to be freely given by women, it nonetheless acts for men’s benefit, bolstering male sets of
values. A feminist theorized reading of love shows that despite its potential to empower female
characters, the androgynous unions it fosters are frequently exploitative and asymmetrical: more
often than not, the value of love depends on the benefits reaped by male heroes. Male characters
rarely have the same beneficial effects on the idealized female figures they encounter, and the
wishes and desires of the latter are not typically significant factors of the plot.
109
Rosolowski points out that “if the masculine subject cannot theoretically encompass the unity of self lost
in self-consciousness, love of woman provides an experiential supplement to this intellectual lacuna.
According to this logic, love functions as an analogue of intellectual intuition – the immediate knowing of
self that covers the breach between self and other, subject and object.” Rosolowksi, “Specular Reciprocity
and the Construction of the Feminine,” 47-48.
110
Friedrichsmeyer affirms, discussing Schlegel’s “An Diotima” and “Über die Philosophie. An
Dorothea”: “Emphasizing the whole with the male and female as contributing antipodes, Schlegel turns to
love as the means of attaining the goal. In so doing, he, like Novalis, was helping to define the prototypical
Romantic view of love. In espousing love as the medium for the necessary exchange of qualities, Schlegel
became part of the tradition adhered to by a majority of Romantic thinkers, one clearly rooted in an
androgynous definition of wholeness.” Friedrichsmeyer, The Androgyne in Early German Romanticism,
136-137.
111
Dye discusses metaphors of water and flowing, as well as dissolution into the feminine and the
“metaphor of dissolution by mean of love.” Dye, “Figurations of the Feminine in Goethe’s Faust,” 116.
Catriona MacLeod also argues: “It is also worth pointing out that Mignon is repeatedly associated with
water and drowning, which is symptomatic of the androgynous condition of fluidity and nondifferentiation.” MacLeod, “Pedagogy and Androgyny in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre,” Modern
Languages Notes 108 (1993), 404f.
35
Love, linked with the romantic Absolute and the Kristevan chora, fosters a nonteleological conception of time and space: as I discuss in later chapters, it defines Schumann’s
female characters in important ways. Cixous links love with voice, song and femininity in her
psychoanalytical concept of écriture féminine: “In woman’s speech, as in their writing, that
element which never stops resonating, which, once we’ve been permeated by it, profoundly and
imperceptibly touched by it, retains the power of moving us – that element is the song: first
music from the first voice of love which is alive in every woman.”112 The feminine power of
song mentioned by Cixous may perhaps be evinced by numerous references to its effects in early
Romantic poems which Schumann excerpted in his Mottosammlung or set to music, and may
enlighten our understanding of idealized female characters. For example, love is linked with
song, leading upwards to higher regions. For Theodor Körner and Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué,
song leads the spirit towards higher regions bathed in love.113 Associated with night, love is a
force active in dreams, knowing no laws and no rules, “triumphing over time and space.”114 For
both Ludwig Tieck and August Wilhelm von Schlegel, “love thinks in sweet tones” and “speaks
with bright glances”: it leads to an “ethereal realm” lying beyond boundaries of language and
reason, in which both music and the gaze unite. 115 In Eichendorff’s poem “Schöne Fremde,”
112
From Hélène Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” (Signs 1 [1976], 881) quoted in Pam Morris,
Literature and Feminism, 12.
113
Theodor Körner: “Auf des Lieds melodischer Brücke/Stieg der Geist zum alten Glücke/In der Liebe
goldnes Land” (“On the lied’s melodious bridges/The spirit rises to old joys/In the golden land of love”)
(excerpted in Robert Schumanns Mottosammlung: Übertragung, Kommentar, Einführung, ed. Leander
Hotaki [Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach, 1998], 152. Friedrich De la Motte Fouqué also voices similar
thoughts (from Dichterlust): “Laβt sich doch die Menschen drängen/Aufwärts geht des Liedes Bahn.”
(“Let human beings press onward/Upwards goes love’s path.”) Quoted in Robert Schumanns
Mottosammlung, 165.
114
Ernst Schultz: “Liebe läβt durch keine Macht sich binden/Die triumphirt hoch ueber Zeit u. Raum/Ihr
süβer Kuβ, ihr Lächeln mag entschwinden/Sie lächelt fort u. küβt im selgen Traum.” (“Love does not let
itself be bound by any power/It triumphs high above time and place/Its sweet kiss, its smile might vanish/It
continues to smile and kiss in blissful dreams.”) Quoted in ibid., 329.
115
Ludwig Tieck quoted ibid., 160. August Wilhelm von Schlegel in his poem “Die Sprache der Liebe”
(based on the poem by Tieck) excerpts from which appear ibid., 164: “Worte sind nur dumpfe Zeichen/Die
Gemüther zu entziffern,/Und mit Zügen, Linien, Ziffern/Läßt sich Wißenschaft erreichen./Doch aus den
36
night casts glowing gazes of love on the narrator.116 Finally, love, night and the gaze unite in a
poem by Friedrich Rückert: “All the stars in the sky/Are glance of love in the night.”117
The literary scheme of Bildung, typically viewed as a masculine prerogative, pervades
early romantic novels. Loving women are presented in two conflicting ways in Bildung
narratives: either as embodiments of the chaste, redemptive and motherly Virgin Mary or its
opposite, the seductive, temptress and sexually excessive Eve, who brings death.118 As Todd
Kontje puts it, “women in the classical Bildungsroman tend to stereotypically function either as
devoted loving mothers or as erotic adventures for the hero on his journey to self-discovery.”119
Either way, female characters do not usually partake of the quest, even if they may be influential
in various ways. As loving figures, women such as Goethe’s Gretchen take on a leading role,
guiding with her love the male hero to redemption and uniting both partners in a higher sphere.
Gail K. Hart points out the unconventional nature of feminine leadership:
äther'schen Reichen/Läßt ein Bild des ew'gen Schönen/Nieder zu der Erde Söhnen/Nur in Bild und Ton sich
schicken:/Liebe spricht in hellen Blicken,/Liebe denkt in süßen Tönen.” (Emphasis added.) (“Words are
only hollow signs/With which to decipher the mind/And with draws, lines and numbers/One may attain
knowledge./But from ethereal regions/An image of the eternally beautiful/Comes down to reach the sons of
the earth/An image which is sent only in images and sound:/Love speaks with bright glances/Love thinks in
sweet tones.”)
116
Josef von Eichendorff: “Was sprichst du wirr wie in Träumen/Zu mir, phantastische Nacht?/Es funkeln
auf mich alle Sterne/Mit glühendem Liebesblick.” Set to music by Robert Schumann as “Schöne Fremde,”
Op. 39, No. 6 (Liederkreis). (“What do you say so murmuringly, as if in a dream,/To me, fantastic
night?/The stars glitter down on me/With glowing, loving gazes.”)
117
Friedrich Rückert: “Alle Stern' in Lüften/Sind ein Liebesblick der Nacht.” From Lyrische Gedichte. Set
by Robert Schumann as “Rose, Meer und Sonne,” Op. 37, No. 9 (Zwölf Gedichte aus Friedrich Rückerts
Liebesfrühling).
118
Marina Warner, in the section “Second Eve” of her monograph on the Virgin Mary, also discusses at
length the connection with sex, sin and death, the first two being associated with Eve. She affirms: “It is
almost impossible to overestimate the effect that the characteristic Christian association of sex and sin and
death has had on the attitudes of our civilization.” Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the
Virgin Mary (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), 50. She further notes that since the earlier days of
the Church, “the evils of sex were particularly identified with the female.” Ibid., 57. She adds: “Because
of the curse of Eve in Eden, the idea of woman’s subjection was bound up in Christian thought with her
role as mother and as temptress.” Ibid., 58. In contrast, the Virgin Mary brings life: she is “the second
Eve, mother of all the living in a new, spiritual sense.” Ibid., 59. She ends this chapter by affirming: “The
cult of Mary is inextricably interwoven with Christian ideas about the dangers of the flesh and their special
connection with women.” Ibid., 67.
119
Todd Kontje, Women, the Novel, and the German Nation, 1771-1871: Domestic Fiction in the
Fatherland (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 9.
37
Whereas Faust is popularly known for his restless movement or striving, the context for
this activity is deeply imbued with the problematics of guidance or channelling of such
movement by a leader or guide. Faust needs to be shown the way, led to his goals by a series of
figures, but this relationship is not framed in conventionally authoritarian terms (with the leader
enjoying dominion or superiority over the follower). Rather the partial abdication of authority or
self-determination that constitutes ‘following’ appears to involve a projection of self onto a muse
figure, an objectification of self – here as a feminine spirit preoccupied with the education or
salvation of the subject.120
Hart contends that active female figures leading the male hero go against what she
considers prevailing nineteenth-century views of “women’s natural instinctual need for male
dominance and guidance.”121 Hart’s optimism, however, ignores that Gretchen’s leadership via
her love, while essential to Faust, is effective only after her death, once she has abdicated her
identity and blended with the Virgin Mary: at the end of Goethe’s drama she is described simply
as “a penitent, formerly known as Gretchen.” This is a clear example of when female leadership
in artistic works responds to male fantasies, as did most real-life nineteenth-century women who
remained subject to male domination. As I discuss in Chapter Two, this was the lived reality of
the Schumann couple: Clara Schumann earned more than her husband by pursuing her virtuoso
career after their marriage, but she subordinated herself to him on a day-to-day basis.
The motive of masculine redemption via a female higher figure pervades Schumann’s
writings. He frequently voices his need for a guide or a mentor. His mother, his teachers, Clara:
all are psychologically stronger than the emotionally fragile Schumann. According to BurgerGüntert, the need for redemption through a loving woman may explain his fascination with
Faust.122 Schumann consistently reiterates the archetype of women as “Ewig-weibliche,”
120
Gail K. Hart 1994, “Das Ewig-Weibliche nasführet dich,” in Interpreting Goethe’s Faust Today, ed.
Jane K. Brown, Meredith Lee and Thomas P. Saine (Columbia: Camden House, 1994), 112.
121
Gail K. Hart, “The Women’s World of Goethe’s Stella,” in Tragedy in Paradise: Family and Gender
Politics in German Bourgeois Tragedy, 1750-1850 (Columbia: Camden House), 50.
122
Edda Burger-Güntert speaks of “das Motiv der Rettung durch die liebende Frau, das Schumanns Briefe
und private Aufzeichnungen durchzieht und ebenfalls im Zusammenhang mit seiner Faszination für
Goethes Faust zu sehen ist.” See her Robert Schumanns ‘Szenen aus Goethes Faust,’ 62. (“[T]he motive
38
essential to his well-being. Herbert Lindenberger mentions this ambiguous conception of
femininity, at once positive due to the beneficial effects of female figures on male heroes, and
noxious in presenting them as passive, disempowered, and idealized, which is evinced in
Schumann’s writings. He observes that Schumann “idealizes the female as a being who, on the
one hand, is more naïve, passive and self-sufficient than the male and, on the other, someone
who soothes him of his restlessness and is necessary for his salvation.”123 Tunbridge notes that
for commentators on Schumann’s life and work, redemption seems to occur both in the intimate
context of the lied and in large-scale works, able to straddle various gendered binaries: “This
tension between the individual and the collective runs through writings on Schumann: it is often
expressed through other binaries, such as the subjective and the objective, the intimate and the
public, song and chorus. As is highlighted by the shared theme of redemption the distance
between such poles is sometimes small.”124 The idealized, redemptive woman possesses the
power to cure the male hero of the lack within his divided psyche: for Aigi Heero, precisely this
ideology is an important meeting point between Schumann and the early Romantics. 125 She
argues that Schumann’s early love poems idealize women as muses, “unreachable ideals” of
“virtuous beauty.”126 Real women are idealized and objectified as naïve, passive, and loving
of redemption through a loving woman, which pervades Schumann’s letters and private writings, and which
is related to his fascination with Goethe’s Faust.”)
123
Herbert Lindenberger, “Closing up Faust: The Final Lines According to Schumann, Liszt and Mahler”
in Interpreting Goethe’s Faust Today, ed. Jane K. Brown Meredith Lee, and Thomas P. Saine (Columbia:
Camden House, 1994), 127.
124
Tunbridge, Schumann’s Late Style, 42-43.
125
“Sein Ideal, sein Zukunftsprogramm ist die Ganzheit, in der die in Einzelzustände dissoziierte
Gegenwart überwunden und alle getrennten Instanzen integriert sind. Mit dieser von der literarischen
Romantik geprägten Vorstellung kommt Schumann den theoretischen Programmen von Novalis und
Friedrich Schlegel nahe.” (“His ideal, his vision of the future is the unity in which the single dissociated
states of the present are overcome, and every separated instances are integrated. Such a conception, close
to that of the literary romantics, brings Schumann’s ideas in relation to theoretical programs of Novalis and
Schlegel.”) Robert Schumanns Jugendlyrik: kritische Edition und Kommentar, ed. Aigi Heero (Sinzig:
Studio-Verlag 2003), 93.
126
Heero investigates Schumann’s early idealization of women, in the late 1820s. Interestingly, she points
out themes (women as holy, gift from above, immaterial and ethereal) which keep recurring in Schumann’s
39
female figures, a psychological process which frequently recurs in Schumann’s writings and
brings them close to their literary and musical counterparts. The purpose of such figures, with
few exceptions, is to save, redeem and psychologically protect the male hero during his journey
through life against “dangerous extremes.”127 In April 1829, Schumann confesses to his friend
Gisbert Rosen his need to find a “loving woman” to soften him and cure him of his
“seriousness.”128 In 1836, Schumann wrote to his sister-in-law Therese Schumann: “I have no
one but you, who takes me by the arm and appear to protect me.”129 These women’s curing, lifegiving virtues bring Schumann to rest, sheltering him against emotional turmoil: he clearly
depended on their presence and psychological proximity. However, the benefits for them of
performing this protective and sheltering role are uncertain. From the limited view of their needs
and desires that Schumann provides, they seem less independent as autonomous beings than he
himself. Such a stereotypical conception of the feminine role thwarts a more nuanced and
complex construction of their subjectivity, while limiting their action within the public sphere.
letters, diaries, criticism and musical works. “Schon in Schumanns frühesten Dichtungen zeigt sich
romantische, platonische Sehnsucht nach dem unerreichbaren Ideal der tugenhaften Schönheit, verkörpert
durch eine Frau, die zur Muse der Dichtkunst wird.” (“A romantic, platonic longing towards the
unattainable ideal of virtuous beauty is already evident in Schumann’s earliest poems, embodied by a
woman who becomes the muse of poetry.”) In Robert Schumanns Jugendlyrik, 70.
127
Schumann writes to Frau Devrient: “Eben diese erhöhte Geistesstimmung artet aber oft in Uebermuth
aus, wo ich ordentlich gleich die ganze Welt mit Sturm nehmen möchte. Die Abspannung folgt auf dem
Fuβe nach und dann die künstlichen Mittel, sich wieder aufzuhelfen. Das rechte Mittel, solche gefährliche
Extreme zu versöhnen, kenne ich wohl: eine liebende Frau könnte es.” (“Precisely this higher state of mind
often degenerates in arrogance, when I’d like to take the whole world by storm. Exhaustion quickly
follows, and then artificial means to hold oneself back up again. I know the true means to reconcile such
dangerous extremes: a loving woman could do it.” Undated letter of the Summer 1836, in Briefe, Neue
Folge, ed. Gustav Jansen, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1904), 73.
128
Schumann wrote to his friend Gisbert Rosen: “Das Erste, was ich in Heidelberg suche, ist – eine
Geliebte; sonst würdest Du manchmal schwer meine Ernst besänftigen können.” (“The first thing I’ll look
for in Heidelberg is – a beloved; otherwise you’d sometimes have a hard time softening my seriousness.”
Letter of April 1829, in ibid., 14.
129
Schumann wrote to Therese Schumann: “In einer tödlichen Herzenangst, die mich manchmal befällt,
hab’ ich Niemanden als Dich, die mich ordentlich wie im Arm zu halten und zu schützen scheint.”
(“During the deadly fits of anguish which sometimes overcome me, I have no one but you, who takes me
by the arm and appears to protect me.” Letter from the end of the year 1836, in ibid., 83.
40
Some female characters display strength with their gaze coming down to earth from
above, healing and redeeming the male hero by lifting him up. The gaze is linked with feminine
values such as love, lending them the ability to lead male figures to a higher sphere. In the poem
“Widmung” by Friedrich Rückert (set to music by Schumann as the first song of the Myrten Op.
25), the beloved’s gaze, coming down from Heaven, brings rest and peace by her love. It
transfigures the male poet and lifts him up: “You are rest, you are peace/You are bestowed upon
me from heaven/That you love me makes me worthy of you/Your gaze transfigures me/You raise
me lovingly above myself/my good spirit, my better self!”130 The beloved’s eyes in Heine’s
poem “Wenn ich in dein Augen seh’” (Schumann’s Dichterliebe Op. 48, no. 4) have the power to
heal all pains and torments when the male lover gazes into them, restoring the poet to health, also
emphasizing the reciprocity of the gaze. 131 In Robert Reinick’s poem “Nichts Schöneres” the
male narrator is so enthralled by his beloved’s eyes that, gazing into them for eternity, he loses
track of time. 132 While these idealized female figures may be said to possess some measure of
agency and power by returning the male gaze, such depictions ultimately partake of male
fantasies which control them: while the power of gazing displayed by Gretchen, Genoveva and
the Peri appear to grant them various degrees of agency and strength over male characters, each
reiterates nineteenth-century norms of proper feminine behaviour.
130
“Du bist die Ruh, du bist der Frieden,/Du bist wom Himmel, mir beschieden./Daß du mich liebst, macht
mich mir wert,/Dein Blick hat mich vor mir verklärt,/Du hebst mich liebend über mich,/Mein guter Geist,
mein beßres Ich!” Friedrich Rückert, from Lyrische Gedichte. Set by Schumann as “Widmung,” Op. 25
No. 1 (1840), from Myrthen.
131
“Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’/So schwindet all’ mein Leid und Weh.” (“When I gaze into your
eyes,/All my pain and woe vanishes.”) From Dichterliebe, Op. 48, No. 4.
132
“Da fiel’s mein Lebtag mir nicht ein/Daß noch was Schönres sollte sein/Als in dein liebes
Augenpaar/Hineinzuschauen immerdar.” (“I thought it would never happen in all my days/To see
something lovelier/Than your lovely pair of eyes/As I gazed into them for eternity.) Op. 36, No. 3, from
Sechs Gedichte aus dem Liederbuch eines Malers.
41
Feminine Archetypes: the Suffering Virgin Mary
Women figures leading men upwards with their love are often envisioned in a religious
manner and linked with the Virgin Mary, both in early Romantic works and in Schumann’s
writings. Frank Hentschel speaks of “der Vergöttlichung der weiblichen Liebe” and suggests
that “das ‘Ewig-Weibliche’ ist die religiöse Stilisierung des Weiblichen.”133 Love and religion
lift the subject and raise him to higher spheres, and both are connected with stylized women. For
Friedrich Schlegel: “The religious idea of aesthetic is love.”134 For Novalis, religion is an
“eternal union of two loving hearts” with love creating a powerful bond between both partners.135
Becker-Cantarino and Warner have argued that religion, and in particular the connection of love
with the figure of the Virgin Mary, has been used in tandem to repress women. As discussed
above, Becker-Cantarino believes that the idealized image of women as priestesses, while
outwardly positive, in fact confined them within the domestic sphere by negating their political
agency and thwarting their emancipation. Warner notes that by her obedience, softness, chastity,
humility, and gentleness, the Virgin was for Christians the culmination of an ideal, perfected
womanhood. While ordinary women were strongly encouraged to emulate this sacrificial,
positive model, the latter appeared to be beyond their reach: as Eve’s daughters such ordinary
women remained irremediably tainted by sin. As Becker-Cantarino points out, the Christian
view of women entails two diametrically opposed sides, one negative and the other positive, in
the figures of Eve and Mary: “The Western literary tradition knew two basic, diametrically
opposed female character types: Eve, the vehicle of misogyny, and the idolized Mary figure.
133
Hentschel, “Das ‘Ewig-Weibliche’ – Liszt, Mahler und das bürgerliche Frauenbild,” 291.
Friedrich Schlegel: “Die religiöse Idee der Ästhetik ist die Liebe.” German original in Theorie der
Weiblichkeit, 212.
135
Kurt Lütti cites a passage from Novalis, where he addresses his beloved: “Was ist Religion als ein
unendliches Einverständnis, eine ewige Vereinigung liebender Herzen?” (“What is religion but an endless
understanding, an eternal union of loving hearts?”) German original quoted in Feminismus und Romantik:
Sprache, Gesellschaft, Symbole, Religion (Vienna and Cologne: H. Böhlau Verlag, 1985), 26.
134
42
Imbued with the moral and religious values of the Jewish-Christian tradition, women were either
evil, witch-like, destructive creatures or pious, loveable heroines.”136 Warner further contends:
“The contempt and hatred evident in interpretations of the Creation and the Fall, and idealization
of her more “Christian” submissive nature – meet and interlock in the advocacy of humility for
the sex.”137 The figure of the Virgin Mary is an idealization, a religious construct with scant
historical substance. Margaret Bruzelius notes that “in Scriptures Mary has no persona, only a
primal relation to her son ratified by her tears.”138 She is present only briefly in the Scriptures: as
Warner, and others, mentions, the accumulation of knowledge about her is largely a (male)
fabrication which varies throughout the ages. This lack of definition “allows those who pray to
her to envisage her in any way they wish”: however, the idealized Virgin Mary, while appealing
primarily to women and on the surface appearing to grant them some degree of agency, remains
controlled by men, who are largely responsible for fabricating and disseminating those multiple
views, sanctioned by higher masculine religious instances of what remains, within the Catholic
Church doctrine, the only strongly influential female figure available to ordinary women with
whom they can identify. 139
The Virgin Mary assumes a wide range of conflicting roles and attributes, in depictions of
her as both as glorious (Mater gloriosa) and suffering (Mater dolorosa). As a religious icon, but
also an earthly artistic symbol and literary archetype, she takes on various subject positions as
she travels between both the heavenly and earthly spheres: mother, intercessor, virgin, bride,
136
Becker-Cantarino, “Goethe and Gender” in The Cambridge Companion to Goethe, ed. Lesley Sharpe
(New York, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 183.
137
Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, 191.
138
Margaret Bruzelius, “Mother’s Pain, Mother’s Voice: Gabriela Mistral, Julia Kristeva, and the Mater
Dolorosa,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 18 (1999), 218.
139
Ibid., 218.
43
queen, and goddess.140 She conflates positive and negative images of idealized womanhood: at
one pole, she is a powerful queen and goddess, at the other, an icon of female subjection.
Providing grace to those in need, she is redemptive, particularly in times of duress: in this she is
connected to the female figures discussed in the previous section.141 Opposed to the earthly
figure of Eve, whose moral weakness is the cause of man’s downfall, the Virgin Mary is pure,
without sin. While the guilty Eve, according to Christian theology, disobediently ate from the
Tree of Knowledge and brought death and suffering to humankind, the obedient and submissive
Mary restores sinners to life and promises them happiness in the afterlife through her
intercession with Christ. Goethe’s Gretchen, Tieck and Hebbel’s Genoveva, and Johanna (from
Schiller’s play Die Jungfrau von Orleans) develop a special connection with the Virgin Mary,
who provides them with moral strength and assertiveness. 142 The Virgin Mary is connected to
the beloved, music, song and night. In medieval times, she became associated with the moon,
who “through her mediation, bent the beams of God’s grace into the Christian soul” just “as the
moon is filled with sunlight and sheds it on the earth at night.”143 In Jean Paul’s poem “Für
Fräulein Marie v. Welden,” music is a priestess, the “holy Madonna among the arts,” linked with
the Virgin Mary, song and prayers.144 In Novalis’ “Hymnen an die Nacht” the idealized beloved
140
She is the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heavens, Mother of the Church and Mother of God, the Intercessor at
the time of death (in the Hail Mary prayer), Bride of Christ. Warner’s study discusses in details the social
and psychological construction of each of these archetypes and roles.
141
The prayer “Hail Mary” is, of course, recited in many contexts during Catholic worship. However,
invocations of her at the hour of death are especially powerful moments: “Holy Mary, Mother of God/pray
for us sinners/now and at the hour of our death.”
142
Prandi discusses the special connection between Johanna and the Virgin Mary, affirming that “the
Virgin serves as Johanna’s alter ego” and that “Johanna has a parallel vision in which she actually does
become what the Virgin already is in the first vision.” See her Spirited Women Heroes, 77-78.
143
“As a belief in her intercession with God became more profound, the idea crystallized that Mary,
through her mediation, bent the beams of God’s grace into the Christian soul, just as the Church stood
before Christ, her bridegroom, irradiated by his grace, or as the moon is filled with sunlight and sheds it on
the earth at night. (…) Analogously, each Christian is reborn in the light of Christ, which she deflects on
them.” Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, 258.
144
Jean Paul: “Die Tonkunst ist die Heilige, die Madonna unter den Künsten; sie kann nichts gebären und
darstellen als das Sittliche. Selig ist eine Priesterin dieser Madonna und ihr Gesang ist nur ein anderes
44
is conflated with the motherly image of the Virgin Mary and the Queen of Heaven, associated
with moon and light, operating in the realm of night: both are presented as redemptive figures,
holding the key to eternal life.145
Love, the source of women’s capacity to redeem men, is emphasized as a crucial
ingredient in the connection between female figures and the Virgin Mary. Discussing Goethe’s
Faust and the character of Gretchen, Ellis Dye argues: “Love is a gift and not to be earned,
through striving or in any other way. In Faust, love is a female donation, embodied in the Mater
gloriosa and the transfigured Margarete who intercedes on Faust’s behalf.” 146 The Mater
gloriosa has transcended her sufferings: as an archetype of femininity she is connected with love,
motherhood and a realm outside language and linear time, symbolized by her Assumption.147
Kristeva argues that in this atemporal realm, which she links to her concept of “women’s time,”
“one is reminded of the various myths of resurrection which, in all religious beliefs, perpetuate
the vestige of an anterior or concomitant maternal cult, right up to its most recent elaboration,
Christianity, in which the body of the Virgin Mother does not die but moves from one spatiality
to another within the same time via dormition (according to the Orthodox faith) or via
Gebet.” From “Für Fräulein Marie v. Welden.” (“Music is holy, the Madonna amongst the arts; she can
only engender and portray the ethical. Blessed is the priestess of this Madonna and her song is only another
prayer.”) Quoted in Dichtergarten für Musik: Eine Anthologie für Freunde der Literatur und Musik, ed.
Gerd Nauhaus and Ingrid Bodsch (Frankfurt: Stroemfeld Verlag and StadtMuseum Bonn: 2007), 271.
145
Friedrichsmeyer affirms: “By the fifth hymn, the ‘beloved’ has become a part of an idealized ‘feminine’
principle; as was the case with the feminine redeemers in the novels, she is linked with the ‘Mother,’ with
‘the Heavenly Virgin,’ and with Maria. All are included in the realm of the Universal Queen, the world of
Night and, according to Novalis, are a part of a historical Christianity.” See her The Androgyne in Early
German Romanticism, 101.
146
Dye, “Figurations of the Feminine in Goethe’s Faust,” 117.
147
Warner affirms: “Belief in the Assumption extends an idea fundamental to the virgin birth: that time
itself belongs to the material world and is alien from the spiritual, from the supernatural. Death, like birth,
belongs to time; freedom from death, like freedom from sex, overcomes it.” And later: “Decay marks the
passage of the years, freedom from corruption frees her from time. She is lifted out from the plane of
humanity, onto what Christians imagine is the time plane of God.” Both passages are found in her Alone of
All Her Sex, 94.
45
assumption (the Catholic faith).”148 The Virgin Mary’s attributes are milk and tears: while there
are no references to milk in the three dramatic works under discussion, tears, linked with water
metaphors but also with sacrifice and sufferings, occur in all three. Kristeva contends that both
these fluid elements are “metaphors of non-language, of a ‘semiotic’ that does not coincide with
linguistic communication.”149 Tears become important particularly at the end of Schumann’s
oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri. The Virgin Mary’s tears are pure, like water, and wash
sinners of all stains: Warner examines how they became linked with water, but also with the
moon and nourishing light, including death as well as rebirth, outside the temporal realm. 150 The
Virgin Mary’s sufferings and her helpless image are easy to control: they have been interpreted
by feminist scholars as negative for women. They reinstate stereotypically feminine attributes,
emphasizing women’s capacity to bear suffering and pain, conveniently reiterating the archetype
of female figures as innocent, helpless and passive, controlled by men’s imagination. Margareth
B. Guenther points out: “A fervent piety based on a somewhat sentimentalized Roman
Catholicism seems attractive to male authors: the vulnerable virgin, already sacrificed or about to
be sacrificed, kneeling before the altar, preferably with tears in her eyes, is a recurring
picture.”151 For other literary scholars, sufferings provide female figures with the moral
authority to speak. Examining both the positive and negative implications of the connection
between maternal sufferings and feminine speech, Bruzelius argues that it provides “a source of
148
Kristeva, “Women’s Time,” 473.
Kristeva, “Stabat Mater,” transl. Arthur Goldhammer, reprinted in Poetics Today (1985), 143.
150
Tears are “thought of as pure, like water.” Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, 222. And also, quoting Mircea
Eliade: “The symbolism of waters includes death as well as rebirth.” Quoted in ibid., 222. For Warner:
“Mary’s tears do not simply flow in sorrow at the historical event of the Crucifixion, a mother’s grief at the
death of her child. They course down her cheeks as a symbol of the purifying sacrifice of the Cross, which
washes sinners of all stain and gives them new life (…).” Ibid., 223. Linking water with lunar imagery,
Warner also points out: “The grace of God, mediated through Mary, as the light of the sun reflects off the
disc of the moon, also gives life and quickens and nourishes and purifies, like water. Thus the imagery of
light was intimately associated with the imagery of water, itself the foremost image of grace.” Ibid., 259.
151
Margaret B. Guenther, “Faust: The Tragedy Reexamined,” in Beyond the Eternal Feminine: Critical
Essays on Women and German Literature, ed. Susan L. Cocalis and Kay Goodman (Stuttgart:
Akademischer Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, 1982), 80.
149
46
female authority in a male-dominated world” which is “inaugurated by her tears.”152 She
suggests, discussing Kristeva’s essay “Stabat Mater”: “Her [Kristeva’s] image of mother as a
repository of the values of the race, as a voice that speaks from the edge of a realm of pain and
nonlanguage is redolent of the archaic Mater Dolorosa.”153 Todd Kontje mentions that suffering
often produces a spirit with strength and eminence. 154 Discussing Schumann’s late lieder in
conjunction with the notions of suffering and redemption, Tunbridge contends: “In the Kulmann
and Maria Stuart lieder, there is a sense that these young women are somehow able to redeem
themselves through their sufferings.”155 However, even when these sufferings are overcome, as
occurs at the end of all three works discussed in this dissertation, when female characters fulfill
their quest and access a higher realm pervaded by bliss, psychoanalytical jouissance, and light,
the outcome is rarely unerringly positive and often reached after great personal ordeals. 156
Characteristics associated with the Virgin Mary, also evident in female literary characters,
appear to have exerted a certain fascination on Schumann, playing a role in his idealization of
real women. Some are ambiguously presented in Schumann’s writings as passive, motherly
figures, while their strength and heroism may also be emphasized, both in his writings and in the
libretto of his dramatic works, the latter which the composer was heavily involved in crafting.
Warner argues that the Virgin’s love, an important aspect of her characterization, is primarily
maternal. 157 The Virgin Mary in Christian imagery is primarily a life-giving, motherly figure:
152
Bruzelius, “Mother’s Pain, Mother’s Voice,” 216 and 218.
Ibid., 225.
154
Kontje, Women, the Novel, and the German Nation, 168.
155
Tunbridge, Schumann’s Late Style, 31.
156
Warner points out: “The mystery of the Mater Dolorosa flourished on the tension between grief and joy,
between the death of the Cross and the future Resurrection. Mary’s cry of grief will become a shout of
exultation; the agony will be followed by peripeteia and triumph; sadness will explode into joy.” Alone of
All Her Sex, 219.
157
“The most consistent theme in the theology of the Virgin’s intercession, however, is her motherhood.
(…) Her love of mankind is maternal, and her qualities of mercy, gentleness, loving kindness, indulgence,
forgiveness, are all seen as motherly.” Ibid., 286.
153
47
Schumann’s writings emphasize the maternal woman. In Schumann’s three dramatic works
considered in this dissertation, however, and in each of which the composer was heavily
involved in the fashioning of the libretto, the maternal element is not what I view as immediately
significant in the characterization of the three female characters discussed in Section Two.
Nonetheless, Schumann’s use of the archetype in large-scale dramatic works remains
objectifying and detrimental to women’s subjectivity, as I shall explain in the following chapters.
Schumann’s fascination with the Virgin Mary shines through in his views on paintings of
the Madonna, in which he had a lifetime interest. A reproduction of Raphael’s Madonna hung in
his bedroom.158 He discussed that painting with art connoisseurs. 159 Renaissance images of the
Virgin Mary often appear bathed in light. Mary Bittner Wiseman points out, in her discussion of
Madonna paintings by Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo Da Vinci, a connection between light and
the psychoanalytical concept of maternal jouissance: “Painting in which forms are defined solely
as fields of light and color may be said to capture the maternal jouissance, one not tied to an
object, insofar as the mother’s body is not so much an object as a generic field on which the
languaged world of objects is inscribed.”160 The Virgin Mary is imagined as a maternal,
religious principle linked to, but also distinct from, Schumann’s view of women as redemptive,
discussed in the above section. Linking women with the image of the Virgin Mary provides an
aura of saintliness and strength to their characterization. In Schumann’s diaries, women
sometimes have “the pious gaze of the Madonna” or “the features of the Madonna”: he seems to
158
See Briefe, 148 (footnote 181).
See Marcia J. Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1993), 48. Schumann, mentioning that musicians may learn from painters, tellingly did not cite as
strong models the celebrated historical paintings depicting battles and heroes, but the Madonnas by
Raphael. See Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker, 5th ed., vol. 1, ed. Martin Kreisig (Leipzig:
Breitkopf & Härtel, 1914), 28.
160
Mary Bittner Wiseman, “Renaissance Madonnas and the Fantasy of Freud,” Hypatia 8 (1993), 124-125.
Both light and color will return in Chapter Three in the course of my discussion of the rainbow in the
Szenen aus Goethes Faust.
159
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have fetishized selected parts of the female body, notably the face. In April 1828, Schumann
wrote: “lovely Madonna faces.”161 In May 1829, one again finds: “Amalia Scheibe – das
Madonnengesicht.”162 The link with this powerful religious icon removes real-life women,
envisioned by the composer as female idealized figures, from the earthly sphere, seemingly
removing the stigma of sinfulness represented by Eve. Such idealizations however, fashioned
from a male perspective, in fact often deprive real-life women of voice and subjectivity which,
by denying their bodily existence, limits their agency within the social sphere.
In the poem “Der Ball am 16th Januar” (1827), the Madonna’s gaze is connected with
melancholia, tears and sorrows, redolent of the suffering Mater Dolorosa.163 In that same poem,
Schumann describes the image he has in his mind of his friend Emil Flechsig’s beloved, whom
he views as possessing traits similar to those of the Virgin Mary. For Schumann, this beloved is
“the constantly-sought image of his [Flechsig’s] dreams” which Flechsig adores, but from which
he nevertheless keeps his distance, out of awe or perhaps fear.164 The Virgin Mary triggers a
gesture of masculine submission before her powers. In a piece of fiction written by Schumann at
the end of 1828, a man bows his head before an image of the Madonna, then gazes upward at this
image: the visual connection thus established between this man and the Virgin Mary constitutes a
reciprocal gesture of gazing.165 In April 1829, Schumann wrote: “Der fromme
161
“Niedliche Madonnengesichter.” Entry of May 13th, 1828, in ibid., 45.
Entry of April 21st, 1829, in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band I: 1827-1838, ed. Georg Eisman
(Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1971), 190.
163
In the poem “Der Ball am 16. Januar”: “Melancholische Gefühle/Trüben den Madonnenblick/Mischen
Thränen in die Spiele/Seufzer in das nahe Glück.” Ibid., 26.
164
From “Der Ball am 16. Januar”: “Ach! Da stehts vor seinen Bliken – /Die Ersehnte seines
Traumes/Seine Andacht, sein Entzücken/Formen des beseelten Schaums./Doch wie vor
Madonnenzügen/Bleibt er scheu von Weitem stehn/Schöne Seelen kanns begnügen/Schönheit nur zu
heiligen.” (“Ah, the one he longs for in his dreams/There stands before his eyes/His devotion, his
rapture/Make up the enlivened mist./But awed, he stands aback/As he would if he stood before features of
the Madonna./Beauty may be satisfied/To only sanctify beautiful souls.”) Ibid., 28.
165
“Vor einer Madonna, die nicht weit von him hing, neigte er das Haupt; dann schlug er, wie ein Seher,
die Augen empor.” (“He bowed his head before the image of a Madonna, which hung not far from him;
162
49
Madonnenblick.”166 Thus in Schumann’s writings, the Madonna, as an idealized religious figure,
appears to trigger a sense of awe and wonderment: this moment seems to take place outside
temporal boundaries, and I link it to Kristeva’s notion of the semiotic chora. It is also at this
moment that a visual connection between the (typically male) gazer and the object of this gaze
(the Virgin Mary) occurs.
Feminine Archetypes: Angelic Figures
Women are also couched in Schumann’s writings as higher, religious and angelic beings,
removed from purely worldly matters, suspended between Heaven and earth. In a letter to Clara
of May 1839, he described maidens as a “mixture of angels and human beings which one seldom
encounters among men.”167 Clara wrote that during the Russian trip (early 1844), Schumann
described in his notebook a Russian princess as an angel. 168 In 1847, he described the singer
Jenny Lind as a “heavenly apparition, mild and lovely.”169 In literary works, angelic and
religious female figures often act as idealized leading figures for male heroes, mediating between
earthly and otherworldly realms, in a manner redolent of Gretchen in Goethe’s Faust and the
then he raised his gaze upwards, like a mystic.”) From a text titled “Die Harmonika – Altarblatt,” of
November 1829. Ibid., 136.
166
Entry of April 12th, 1829, possibly referring to Agnes Carus, in ibid., 188.
167
Robert: “Mädchen sind ein Gemisch von Engel und Mensch, wie man [sie] es unter den Männern nur
selten antrifft.” Letter of May 18th, 1839, in Clara und Robert Schumann Briefwechsel, vol. 2, ed. Eva
Weissweiler (Basel: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1984), 525. Henceforth simply Briefwechsel. (Throughout
this dissertation, all English translation of Schumann’s letters to Clara have been taken from The Complete
Correspondence of Clara and Robert Schumann, ed. Eva Weissweiler, transl. Hildegard Fritsch and Ronald
L. Crawford, Critical Edition, vol. 2 [New York, Berlin and Vienna: Peter Lang, 1996], 198. Henceforth
simply Correspondence.)
168
Clara: “Robert war den ganzen Abend im Anschauen der Fürstin versunken, die er auch in seinem
Notizbuch wie in seinem Herzen als ‘Engel’ steht.” (“During the whole evening Robert, in an absorbed
manner, gazed at the countess, who is also described in his notebook as an ‘angel’.”) Entry of May 19th,
1844, in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band II: 1836-54, ed. Georg Eisman (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher
Verlag für Musik, 1971), 363.
169
Concerning Jenny Lind, Schumann wrote: “Wir schieden von ihr wie von einer himmlischen
Erscheinung getroffen, so lieb und mild war sie.” (“We parted from her as if struck by a heavenly
apparition, so lovely and gentle was she.”) Entry of January 1847, in ibid., 411.
50
angelic figure of the Peri. In Schumann’s writings, idealized women often occur in dreams, or
seem distant and hovering. Gretchen, Mignon, Elizabeth Kulmann, Agnes Carus, and Clara
Schumann are ethereal, naïve and angelic female figures, belonging to a mysterious otherworldly
realm, even though they were (or had been) real-life women. Emblematic of such idealizations is
a comment in Schumann’s diary of November 1828 in which a beautiful, pale maiden strikes him
as the “Ewigersehnte.”170 For the early romantics as for Schumann, women are rendered
mysterious, distant, an unknowable secret and an incomprehensible object of religious devotion
which, so they believe, male subjects never completely master.171 Being presented as angelic
and elusive, female figures appear to escape male control: in depicting idealized women, male
artists thus seemingly opened in their works a crack, allowing feminine agency to slip in. Yet
despite their call for greater equality for women in the social sphere, Novalis and Schlegel
reiterate in their literary works the stereotype of women as submissive, ordinary, childlike and
passive, attributes which contributed to thwarting the influence of both real and ideal women.172
This point must be kept in mind in any feminist investigation of feminine power in artistic works.
170
Robert: “Ein schönes bleiches Mädchen erschien mir drinnen; ich kannte sie: die Ewigersehnte.” (“A
beautiful, pale maiden appeared to me in thoughts; I knew her: the one I eternally longed for.”) Entry of
November 24th, 1828, in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band I, 149.
171
Schlegel affirmed in “Über die weiblichen Charaktere in den griechischen Dichtern”: “Der weibliche
Charakter wird so oft nicht verstanden, eben weil es die Natur des Weibes ist, seine Seele zu verhüllen, wie
seine Reize; selbst die offenste weibliche Hingebung ist leise.” (“The feminine character is often not
understood precisely because it is in the nature of woman to hide her soul and her charms; even the most
candid feminine devotion is quiet.”) German original in Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 17. In a similar vein,
Schlegel affirms in that same essay that the power of love remains ungraspable: “Die Macht weiblicher
Reize, und die Bande weiblicher Liebe starker als der Mensch, ja selbst über seine Fassung und
unbegreiflich sind.” (“The power of feminine charms and the bonds of feminine love are stronger as man,
stronger even than his countenance, and are ungraspable.”) German original in ibid., 20.
172
Novalis: “Haben sie nicht die Aehnlichkeit mit dem Unendlichen, daβ sie sich nicht quadriren, sondern
nur durch Annäherung finden lassen? Und mit dem Höchsten, daβ sie uns absolute nah sind, und doch
immer gesucht – daβ sie absolut verständlich sind und doch nicht verstanden, daβ sie absolute
unentbehrlich sind, und doch meistens entbehrt werden, und mit höhern Wesen, daβ sie so kindlich, so
gewöhnlich, so müβig und so spielend erscheinen?” (“Are they not similar to the infinite in that they
cannot be raised to the second power, but rather only be found through approximation? And are they not
similar to the highest in that they are absolutely near to us, and yet always sought after – that they are
absolutely understandable, and yet not understood, that they are absolutely indispensable, and yet are
usually dispensed with. And are they not similar to higher beings in that they seem so childish, so ordinary,
so idle, and so playful?”) German original in ibid., 162. English translation in Theory as Practice, 384.
51
Returning to the angel archetype, MacLeod points out that when women are associated with
angels, the polarities of male and female are suspended and the question of their sex becomes
irrelevant.173 Poizat also mentions a connection between women and angels: however, his
argument implies that women are somehow denied their sex, rather than transcending it.174
Strand discusses the role of dreams in the elaboration of subjectivity: “The boundaries
between self and other, I and world, are continually dissolved and re-established in the shifting
‘Ich/Du’ relations of the dream state.”175 Dreams distance female figures by placing them in a
higher sphere where they bring male heroes to an eternal realm in which time and space merge.
This flexible conception of dreams, which I argue bears strong links with the semiotic chora,
disrupts fixed notions of gender and will be useful for my analysis of the strength, but also the
idealization and disembodiment, of female figures. Dreams, night and love bear links to each
other, partaking of the same associations found in romantic imagery. For J. M. Ritter, a member
of the Jena romantics, at night, women appear victorious: “The sun shines forth; man also strives
forward like the light. (…) In love he arrives at the light of the world, and delights in his
existence for the first time. (…) Sun and man rule the day; at night earth and woman win a
splendid victory over the day.”176 While Ritter only mentions night, not dreams, Linda and
Michael Hutcheon associate both night and dreams with feminine love. 177 Of particular
173
MacLeod, “Pedagogy and Androgyny in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre,” 411.
“[Si] La Femme est envisagée comme privée de son sexe, elle est aussi hors-sexe tout comme l’Ange.”
Poizat, L'Opéra, ou, Le cri de l'ange, 206. (“[I]f The Woman is envisioned as lacking a sex organ, then
she, like the angel, is also trans-sexual.” English in The Angel’s Cry:, 147.)
175
Strand, I/You, 46.
176
“Die Sonne leuchtet, auch der Mann strebt vorwärts, wie das Licht. (…) In der Liebe kommt er an das
Licht der Welt, und freut zum erstenmal sich seines Daseyns. (…) Die Sonne und der Mann beherrschen
den Tag, in der Nacht trägt die Erde und das Weib den schönen Sieg davon.” Emphasis in original.
German original in Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 182. English translation in Theory as Practice, 396.
177
Novalis, like other German Romantics, tended to link love, death and night. Linda and Michael
Hutcheon, discussing Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, affirm: “Wagner had clearly read Novalis and the
other German Romantics and, like Schopenhauer, had more than likely been influenced by their frequent
linking of love, death, and night in his own inversion of their standard cultural associations.” See their
174
52
significance is the passage from darkness to light mentioned by Ritter. Man may rule the day,
but he nonetheless strives to attain the “light of the world” provided by feminine love. The
ending of both Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust and Das Paradies und die Peri make clear
that light and love are crucial for the achievement of male heroes’ goals, and essential elements
for the redemption achieved by female figures. I shall expand on Ritter’s connection of women
with victory, night, and dreams in order to measure the extent of its impact, both positive and
negative, for artistic female characters. In dreams, the boundary of reality and imagination,
consciousness and unconsciousness, is made porous: temporal and spatial boundaries blur.
Dreams, for the early Romantics as for Schumann, are often envisioned as the medium by which
masculine subjects may access the otherworldly sphere, suspending symbolic linguistic logic.
Because of this, I view this feminine realm outside language and social norms as akin to the
semiotic chora. It consists of gaps, crossing of boundaries, lack and excess: of what cannot be
contained within rational systems. It does provide an opportunity for idealized female figures to
take hold of the masculine psyche, leading him towards a higher realm.
I have shown above that for Schumann as for the early Romantics, religion is linked with
redeeming love, the Virgin Mary and the female beloved, culminating in an eternal union of two
loving hearts. Love is also linked with an idealized and atemporal world of dreams. Seen as
pure, holy and a gift from Heaven, angels, or similarly idealized hovering beings possess this
love leading men upwards. 178 In January 1827, Liddy Hempel, with whom Schumann was
“Death Drive: Eros and Thanatos in Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde’,” Cambridge Opera Journal 11 (1999),
277.
178
“Auf der Erde sollt’s nicht werden/Drum entschwing’n wir uns den Erden/Eilen hin in jene Welt/Sie
fröhnt nur dem thier’schen Triebe/Aber dort ist reine Liebe/Liebe, wie sie Engel hält.” (“Nothing shall
become on earth/Thus let us flee from this earth/Let’s hurry towards this yonder world/The world here only
indulges in beastly drives/But there one finds pure love/Love as preserved by angels”) One of Schumann’s
early poem, quoted in Robert Schumanns Jugendlyrik, 146. And in Schumann’s early poem “Ein Traum”
the female figure Leonore speaks: “Nein wir müβten jetzo scheiden/Müβen uns nun ewig meiden/Nimmer,
nimmer folg’ ich dir/Auf der Erde herrschen Triebe/Schöner ist im Himmel Liebe/Liebst du mich so folge
53
infatuated at the time, was seen as floating above before his eyes.179 That same year, she is seen
in “blissful dreams” conjuring up the “godly maiden,” the “ideal of our heart.”180 In a letter to
his friend Gisbert Rosen of June 1828, Clara von Kurrer occured to Schumann in dreams,
floating on high, bringing him happiness.181 Angelic figures have the capacity to redeem men
and as such, are similar to the first archetype discussed above: in September 1834, Schumann
wrote to Henriette Voigt that her letter has “touched him like the hand of an angel,” curing him
of his exhaustion.182 An important figure is that of Agnes Carus, who is depicted in Schumann’s
writings as a religious, angelic being. Already in 1828, she is placed in a higher realm of
dreams. 183 She provided one of the strongest female influences during Schumann’s late teens,
mir.” (“No, we must now part/We must avoid each other forever/I will never, ever follow you/On earth
beastly drives prevail/Love in Heaven is more beautiful/If you love me, then follow me.”) Quoted in ibid.,
146.
179
Robert: “Den ganzen Tag schwebt mir Lidys Bild vor den Augen.” (“All day long Lidy’s image
hovered before my eyes.”) Entry of January 20th, 1827, in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band I, 25.
180
Robert: “Die seeligsten Träume schaffen mir oft das göttliche Mädchen hervor: wenn dir Wahrheit
traurig ist, warum kann man nicht heiter in den Träumen, die uns lieblich das Ideal unserer Herzen
hervorgaukeln, warum sollte man da nicht die Göttlichkeit glüklicherer Tage vorempfinden?” (“The most
blissful dreams often conjure up the image of that divine maiden: when the truth is sorrowful why not be
happy in dreams that sweetly bring us the ideal of our heart, why shouldn’t one experience in them the
divinity of happier days to come?”) Entry of early 1827, in ibid., 20.
181
Robert: “Es reiche hin, Dir zu sagen, daβ ich recht innig an Dich dachte, daβ mir das Bild der lieblichen
Clara [von Kurrer] im Traume und im Wachen entgegen schwebte, und daβ ich recht von Herzen froh
war.” (“It suffices for me to tell you that I have thought very deeply of you, that the image of the lovely
Clara [von Kurrer] hovered in my dreams and when I was awake, and that I was quite happy in my heart.”)
Letter of June 5th, 1828, in Briefe, 3. On March 1st, 1830, Schumann speaks of “eternal dreams” of a
certain Henriette: “Ewige Träume von Henriette.” Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band I, 231. The
identity of this Henriette is unknown: she is described only as a “Mädchen” in Heidelberg.
182
Robert: “Bis zum Niederstürzen war ich erschöpft vom gestrigen Tag, da kam Ihr Brief. Wie eine
Engelhand had er mich berührt.” (“I was exhausted up to the point of collapse because of yesterday, and
then your letter came. It has moved me like the hand of an angel.”) Letter of September 7th, 1834, in
Briefe, 56.
183
These excerpts from Schumann’s diary provide a vivid account of the ways in which he idealized Agnes
Carus as an angelic figure appearing in dreams. In July 1828, Schuman wrote: “Ich traume oft u. sie lebt
manchmal in meinen Träumen, aber niemals schön; wenn doch Träume das Gegentheil könnten! Ich
vermisse sie tagtäglich.” (“I dream often and she sometimes lives in my dreams, but never in a beautiful
way; if only dreams could achieve the opposite! I miss her every day.”) Robert Schumann Tagebücher,
Band I, 93. And that same month: “Ich will zu Bette gehn u. träumen von ihr, von ihr. Gute Nacht, Agnes
[Carus].” (“I want to go to bed and dream of her, of her. Good night, Agnes [Carus].”) Ibid., 94. And on
August 20th, 1828: “Träume von Agnes [Carus] u. Clara [von Kurrer].” (“Dreams of Agnes [Carus] and
Clara [von Kurrer].”) Ibid., 117. In December 11th, Schumann again wished her good night in his mind.
Ibid., 153. On February 22nd, 1829, Schumann wrote that he dreamt of A. Carus. Ibid., 175. And the next
day: “Schöne, schöne Träume von A.” (“Beautiful, beautiful dreams of A.[gnes Carus].”) Ibid., 176. Then
54
assuming in his mind the roles of muse, surrogate mother, beloved, and mentor. An older,
married woman, however, Agnes Carus remained a distant and inaccessible feminine ideal.
Agnes Carus occupies a privileged position in Schumann’s mind, conflating his idealized
vision of women as religious and appearing in dreams, exemplifying his idealization of real
women. She provides an interesting case of how Schumann, while glorifying her and granting
her power and strongly relying on it for his psychological well-being, nonetheless ensured by
objectifying her and placing her on high that her power remained within safe bounds. He
affirmed in 1828 that “her holy image eternally slumbers in my soul” and added: “Her image
remains forever securely in me and shall be from now on the genius of my life, to which one may
pray and sanctify but never behold.”184 Later that year, Schumann wrote: “Agnes [Carus] good
night, you heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, godly, godly Agnes, you godly
wife of the doctor.”185 Reflecting on his youth, Schumann perceived her stereotypically as his
“ideal of a woman, so feminine in all things, graceful and lovely.” 186 In his writings she is
sometimes unnamed, referred to only as “she” or “she at a window.” Other women also appear
at windows: on March 14th, 1830 Schumann wrote: “Minchen with her cap at the window.”187
on February 3rd, 1830: “Schöne, herrliche Träume von Agnes [Carus].” (“Beautiful, magnificent dreams of
Agnes [Carus].”) Ibid., 225.
184
Robert: “Ewig u. heilig schlummert ihr Heiligbild in meiner Seele (…). [A]ber ihr Bild steht ewig fest
in mir u. sey fortan der Genius meines Lebens, der den Mensch anbeten u. heiligen, aber nimmer anschauen
darf.” Entry of June 1828, in ibid., 86.
185
Robert: “Agnes, gut Nacht, du himmlische, himmlische, himmlische, himmlische, himmlische, göttliche,
göttliche Agnes, du göttliche Frau des Doctors.” Entry of November 5th, 1828, in ibid., 132.
186
Robert: “Denke Dir, die Professor Carus ist gestorben; ich hab’ sie einmal schwärmerisch geliebt; es
war in meiner Jean-Pauls-Periode; und sonderbar, wenn ich sie auch später noch irgendwo sah, erwachte
die alte Leidenschaft wieder; sie war mir das Ideal einer Frau, so weiblich in Allem, so hold und lieblich.”
Letter of April 17th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 488. (“Imagine, Professor Carus’s wife has died; I was
madly in love with her at one time; it was in my Jean Paul period, and strangely, the old passion was
aroused whenever I saw her later on; for me she was the ideal of a woman, so feminine in all things, so
sweet and lovely.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 158). Emphasis in original.
187
Robert: “Minchen in der Haube am Fenster.” Entry of On March 14th, 1830, in Robert Schumann
Tagebücher, Band I, 235. Other women are generic figures without identity, emblems of femininity to be
gazed at and controlled: in April 1829, an unnamed woman (perhaps Agnes Carus), “she by the window,”
occurs repeatedly in the diary. Schumann’s mention, “Sie am Fenster,” recurs at several points in ibid.,
184-188.
55
This strategy distances women, which ambiguously grants them strength and power over the
male psyche, while in fact its purpose is to present them as passive objects to be gazed at by the
male subject. Such distancing readily maps onto a public (male, outside)-private (female, inside)
dichotomy which, as feminist scholars have argued, confines women to domesticity, depriving
them of identity and power within the public sphere.
VI-CONCLUSION
This introductory chapter has intended to lay the theoretical groundwork for the following
chapters. I have investigated the imagery used and the roles assumed by female characters in
early romantic literary works and Schumann’s writings by being strongly critical of three
common romantic literary archetypes: women as redemptive, women as suffering archetypes of
the Virgin Mary, and woman as angelic figures. Unlike these, female protagonists in romantic
works who I read as constantly shifting between feminine and masculine subject positions can be
rich and complex, depicted in ways which outwardly may be conceived as positive but which
nonetheless limit their sphere of action, despite the strength they display. These figures are, in
my view, gender transitive because they acknowledge, but also resist, fixed and stereotyped
female values. Such gender ambiguity has its roots in the Goethean figures of Gretchen (in
Faust) and Mignon (in Wilhelm Meister), as well as in the philosophical writings of early
Romantics. Although this has generally been little discussed, Robert and Clara Schumann left
strong evidence concerning their views on the nature of gender, which emerges in their writings
as an unstable and transitory construct. Clara herself, as a real nineteenth-century woman, a
mother with a professional career, constantly traversed the gender continuum in matters personal
as well as professional, a point that did not escape her husband and which I discuss in Chapter
56
Two. My dissertation argues that these multiple influences found their way into Schumann’s
characterization of female protagonists.
While using values and characteristics traditionally coded as male (courage, leadership,
moral strength, and determination), female characters do not repudiate their femininity which, in
fact, often figures as the catalyst of their influence on, and repression by, male characters. These
idealized figures are depicted by male artists in stereotypically appealing ways, embodying a
series of positive roles and attributes, seemingly empowering them. Redemptive and religious
higher beings, female characters’ moral superiority heals the hero’s divided psyche, bringing him
calm and peace of mind. Male protagonists thus strongly rely and depend on them.
Furthermore, possessing sharp critical powers despite an outwardly unassuming appearance, they
are able to resist the masculine gaze and the narrow roles to which the early nineteenth-century
has confined them.
Despite such optimism, however, the strength and freedom which female figures evince
remains for the most part illusory. On the surface, the gendered imagery of many early romantic
literary works often presents female characters as idealized, otherworldly beings placed in a
higher sphere, controlled by the gaze of an active, male subject. They rearticulate the
widespread literary archetype of the passive, loving and submissive woman functioning as muse
and mediator, but little inclined to psychological development. Gender transitivity, while
opening the door for a positive re-evaluation of gender attributes and roles in artistic works,
provides no guarantee of gender equality for real women. As pointed out by Nancy Reich,
Schumann in fact often reinstated traditional gender roles for men and women within the social
realm, which I explore further in Chapter Two. Furthermore, literary female characters, due to
their passivity and submissiveness, have been viewed with suspicion by feminist critics. While
57
placing these idealized female characters in a positive light by using stereotypical feminine
attributes seemingly granting them strength (love, redemption, devotion, sufferings), the
archetype, as a male fabrication, in fact often oppressed them by limiting their options, confining
them within the private, domestic sphere. Trapped within an “Ewig-weibliche” archetype, their
subjectivity does not issue from feminine experiences and traditions, but instead, as I
demonstrate in the last three chapters of this dissertation, the portrayal of female figures such as
Gretchen, Genoveva and the Peri, is controlled by male artists, their apparent freedom in fact
reflecting male prerogatives and aspirations.
58
CHAPTER TWO
CLARA SCHUMANN AS BLENDING GENDER ATTRIBUTES
Clara Schumann, perhaps more than any other woman described in Schumann’s
writings, reconfigured and put to the test stereotypical notions of gender. To her husband
and the poet Franz Grillparzer, she was understood as a connection of feminine values,
roles, attributes and symbols, both religious and secular: childishness, naivety, suffering,
care, devotion, angel, Virgin Mary, distant shrine, higher realm above, embodiment of
faithfulness and love. 1 She displayed conventional male attributes (authority, energy,
strength of character, maturity, heroism, independence, assertiveness, determination,
entrepreneurship, initiative, financial success, freedom, creative talent) while retaining
feminine ones (lyricism, love, grace, naivety, softness, religiosity, submission, sacrifice,
self-abnegation, lack of self-confidence).2 She both reaffirmed and thwarted traditional
views concerning women, seen as passive and dependable. I first discuss how Clara
1
Franz Grillparzer’s poem “Clara Wieck und Beethoven” (January 7th, 1838, published in the Wiener
Zeitschrift für Kunst two days later) reiterates some of these stereotypes of women as childlike and
innocent. Two lines in particular describe Clara: “Sinnvoll gedankenlos, wie Mädchen sind” (“Sensibly
empty-headed, as maidens are”) and “Der anmutreichen, unschuldsvollen Herrin” (“The innocent mistress,
full of charms”). Excerpted in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band II: 1836-1854, ed. Georg Eisman
(Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1971), 391. Nancy Reich’s biography of Clara Schumann
begins by a mention of this poem: see Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 2001), 3.
2
Beatrix Borchard, summing up gendered attributes as discussed by Karin Hausen in her “Family and
Role-Division: The Polarisation of Sexual Stereotypes in the Nineteenth-Century – an Aspect of the
Dissociation of Work and Family Life,” in The German Family: Essays on the Social History of the Family
in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Germany, ed. Richard J. Evans and W. R. Lee (London and Totowa,
N. J.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1981), classifies them as masculine or feminine. Masculine attributes
include: strength, activity, public life, independence, energy, striving, understanding, reason, and abstract
thought. Womanly attributes include: life in the home, passivity, indecision, dependency, love, feelings,
receptivity, religiosity, beauty, chastity, charm, self-forgetting, and devotion. Eva Rieger in her Frau,
Musik und Männerherrshaft: Zum Ausschluss der Frau aus der deutschen Musikpädagogik,
Musikwissenschaft und Musikausübung, 2nd ed. (Kassel: Furore, 1988), also compiled a similar list of male
and female attributes: while there are of course considerable overlap between her list and that of Hausen,
she includes under the “masculine” heading concepts such as heroism and maturity. As pointed out by
Borchard, Clara Wieck und Robert Schumann: Bedingungen künstlerischer Arbeit in der ersten Hälfte des
19. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed. (Kassel: Furore Verlag, 1992), 144.
59
embodied and also extended, in her husband’s mind, the three archetypes discussed in
Chapter One. Then, drawing from the extensive research in various areas of Clara’s life
and work (teacher, composer, spouse, mother, performer) conducted by Nancy B. Reich
in her groundbreaking biography of Clara Schumann (Clara Schumann: The Artist and
the Woman), I examine the latter’s activities as a performer and composer, both of which
were relatively unusual for a married woman. Passive and active, an idealized and a real
female figure, she straddled the boundaries between the feminine private and masculine
public spheres. She assumed both male and female roles: her activities as a composer
and travelling concert pianist fell on the masculine side of the divide, while her role as
teacher, idealized muse, secular and religious icon, devoted, loving wife and mother
would have been considered proper feminine occupations. I argue that from Clara’s
powerful example, Schumann devised gender ambiguous female characters that at once
reiterated and challenged stereotypical views of women, a claim which I examine in later
chapters.
Clara as Redemptive Figure
For male romantic artists, as an idealized muse figure the female beloved led the
male partner upwards with her love and inspired his strivings. In his Athenaeum
fragment 363, Friedrich Schlegel observes: “To idolize the object of love is in the nature
of the lover.”3 For Herbert Lindenberger, nineteenth century artists viewed the beloved
“as compliant yet indispensable by virtue of her inspirational and sanctifying power, the
3
Schlegel: “Das Geliebte zu vergöttern, ist die Natur des Liebenden.” German original quoted by Barbara
Becker-Cantarino, “Priesterin und Lichtbringerin,” in Die Frau als Heldin und Autorin: Neue kritische
Ansätze zur deutschen Literatur, ed. Wolfgang Paulsen (Bern: A. Francke, 1979), 116. English transl. in
Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde and the Fragments, ed. Peter Firchow (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1971), 220.
60
man as the one who keeps things going yet is always in need of the purification that his
female partner can dispense.”4 Margareth Kohlenbach argues that the beloved is the
source of the work of art, a muse sparking the artist to songs, images, or poems.5 Such
descriptions of women, however, despite hinting at their outwardly beneficial influence,
remain stereotypical: the beloved, real or idealized, remains compliant and passive while
the male lover actively “keeps things going.” Like other women in Schumann’s writings,
Clara fitted the widespread romantic archetype of generic female figures discussed in
Chapter One. Particularly before their wedding, she appeared to her future husband as a
feminine, idealized embodiment of the redemptive Goethean archetype termed Ewigweibliche, with ambiguous effects, both positive and negative, on her characterization.
This idealization put her in an active position recalling that of Gretchen at the end of
Goethe’s drama, leading Faust to higher realms and saving him: yet such idealization
decorporealized and objectified her, with devastating effects on real women. As an
idealization issuing from her husband’s psyche, Clara reaffirmed the archetype of the
passive, distant and unreachable woman. As a real individual, she remained both passive
and active. Reich has argued that Clara provided optimal material conditions for
Schumann’s creativity by taking care of mundane concerns within the private sphere:
however, far from remaining the dutiful mother at home, from her early teens she actively
4
Herbert Lindenberger, “Closing up Faust: The Final Lines According to Schumann, Liszt and Mahler,” in
Interpreting Goethe’s Faust Today, ed. Jane K. Brown Meredith Lee, and Thomas P. Saine (Columbia:
Camden House, 1994), 127.
5
Margaret Kohlenbach argues: “Kreisler speaks of an infinite longing which never attains the unequivocal
possession of the desired object. Accordingly, the artist’s love results not in a marriage but in (Romantic)
songs, paintings, or poems: ‘Und sie, sie selbst ist es, die Herrliche, die, zum Leben gestaltete Ahnung, aus
der Seele des Künstlers hervorleuchtet, als Gestang – Bild – Gedicht!’” She pursues: “Here, the woman
with whom the artist believes himself to be in love is said to be, or to be the source of, the work of art.
Figuring her as what which radiates as art from the artist’s soul, Kreisler disregards the female body and his
beloved’s independent existence.” See her “Women and Artists: E.T.A. Hoffmann's Implicit Critique of
Early Romanticism,” Modern Language Review 89 (1994), 659.
61
performed and rehearsed his works within the public sphere. 6 Examining below various
aspects, both private and public, of Clara’s musical activities, I demonstrate in what ways
she proved essential and “redemptive” both to her husband’s psychological well-being
and his creative endeavours, which often meant curtailing her own desires and
professional activities.
Linked with the idealized image of Clara is her role as a muse, passive yet also
capable of strength, assertiveness and individuality. From Schumann’s writings, it is
evident that she afforded her husband psychological stability, acting as a mentor,
protector and heroine within both the private and public spheres. By publicly performing
his works, she played a crucial role in his growing fame during the 1840s.7 In a letter to
Heinrich Dorn of September 1839, Schumann recognized the overwhelming effect she
had on him: “I feel really happy in my art, and I think I’ll be able to continue working for
quite some time. Also, someone stands by my side, encouraging me and lifting me up –
6
Clara’s psychological and artistic support, while invaluable to her husband at all times, was particularly
welcome during periods of mental instability. Reich underlines Clara’s dual role: one the one hand, a
housewife, mother and spouse, and on the other, an acclaimed traveling virtuoso. She affirms: “During his
‘nervous’ times, Robert depended on his wife for psychological as well as artistic and financial support.”
She adds: “In good times, too, he depended on her, not only as a wife but as a musician. Clara’s superb
skills and training were exploited in the arrangements for piano of his Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, the CMajor Symphony, the Faust scenes, and Genoveva, and she served as assistant conductor and accompanist
for his Dresden choral group. She coached at rehearsals of his Peri, Mignon, and Faust, and, as we have
noted, premiered all his great piano solos and vocal and chamber works in which the piano had a part.” See
her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 106. Reich also points out: “Though he doubtless
preferred to think her principal role was that of mother and wife, Schumann encouraged her professional
activities and took pride in her talents and achievements.” Ibid., 109. Clara’s dual role as a housewife and
a performing artist sometimes conflicted: “Always conscientious, she [Clara] never shirked what she
regarded as the woman’s responsibilities, but she must have felt underlying resentment as she went about
her homemaking duties and practiced only when her husband, the composer, would not be disturbed.”
Ibid., 135.
7
Reich affirms: “Beginning at the age of twelve, she [Clara] had introduced Schumann’s works in Leipzig,
Dresden, Vienna, and Paris.” Ibid., 174. And also: “One of Clara Schumann’s great achievements was to
bring the work of Robert Schumann to the attention of European concert audiences. There is no doubt that
without her crusading performances it would have been many more years before his music was played and
accepted. A study of piano programs in the nineteenth century makes clear that Schumann’s works began
to appear regularly on programs of the leading pianists a few years after Clara first performed them. (…)
And most significant, his symphonies and many orchestral works (with a few rare exceptions) were first
presented at concerts in which Clara was the soloist and leading attraction.” Ibid., 257.
62
Clara.”8 She is often mentioned as the source of his works: letters confirm her
importance in the genesis of the Davidsbündlertänze Op. 6, the Fantasiestücke Op. 12,
the Kreisleriana Op. 16, and the Novelletten Op. 21.9 As Clara toured Vienna at the end
of the year 1837, Schumann wrote to Joseph Fischhof: “Certainly Clara will play for you
some of my compositions. You’ll hear them at the source.”10 In March 1840, Schumann
wrote that Clara’s watchful eyes were essential to the genesis of his early lieder, asserting
that “one couldn’t write such music without such a fiancée.”11 He acknowledged her role
as protector, sheltering him against depression. In a letter to Clara of March 1839 he
mentioned her redeeming function: “You are my consolation and my salvation.” 12 In
June 1839 he placed this redemption within an explicit domestic context: “[Y]ou’re also
the one who will bring me peace and healing. (…) Nothing is lacking for my happiness
except your being here, and that which you will bring with you: domestic order, peace
and security.”13 A letter from her sufficed to spark him to compose: when he didn’t hear
8
Schumann wrote to Heinrich Dorn: “Ich fühle mich wirklich glücklich in meiner Kunst, denke auch noch
lange fortzuarbeiten. Auch steht mir ja Jemand zur Seite, zusprechend und erhebend – Clara.” Letter of
September 5th, 1839, in Briefe, Neue Folge, ed. Gustav Jansen, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1904),
170.
9
Letter of January 5th, 1838, in Clara und Robert Schumann Briefwechsel, ed. Eva Weissweiler, vol. 1
(Basel: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1984), 75. Also: see letter of February 6th, 1838 in ibid., 90; and letter of
April 13th, 1838, in ibid., 138.
10
Schumann wrote to Joseph Fischhof: “Gewiβ wird sie Ihnen von meinen Compositionen vorspielen; da
hören Sie sie an der Quelle.” Letter of December 4th, 1837, in Briefe, 104.
11
Robert: “Wie ich sie componierte, war ich ganz in Dir. Du romantisches Mädchen verfolgst mich doch
mit Deinen Augen überall hin und ich denke mir oft, ohne solche Braut kann man auch keine solche Musik
machen, womit ich aber Dich besonders loben will.” Letter of March 13th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3,
978-979. (“As I composed them I was thinking only of you. Romantic girl, your eyes follow me
everywhere, and I often think to myself that one couldn’t write such music without such a fiancée; that is
meant as a high compliment.” English translation in The Complete Correspondence of Clara and Robert
Schumann, Critical Edition, vol. 3, ed. Eva Weissweiler, transl. Hildegard Fritsch and Ronald L. Crawford
[New York, Berlin and Vienna: Peter Lang, 2002], 137.)
12
Robert: “Du bist mein Trost und mein Heil.” Letter of March 30th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 460.
(English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 129.)
13
Robert: “Du bist es aber auch, die mir wiederum Frieden und Heilung bringen wird. (…) Nichts fehlt zu
meinem Glück, als Deine Nähe, und, was sie mitbringen wird, häusliche Ordnung, Ruhe und Sicherheit.”
Letter of June 8th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 553. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 228.)
63
from her, his creative forces waned. 14 He was unable to work, suffering from debilitating
physical symptoms, complaining of restlessness and lack of sleep. 15 Schumann depended
on her emotional support: in 1845 while Clara was away, he complained: “I can’t work at
all; I lack the peace of mind, and I look for you in every room. You are my peace of
mind.”16
With her independence and determination, Clara appeared emotionally, even
physically, stronger than her husband. Fearless, she did not hesitate to travel, often under
difficult conditions, both to promote her husband’s works and for the fulfillment which
concertizing brought her. John Daverio notes her “quiet but insuperable resolve that was
perhaps the most remarkable aspect of her character.”17 Clara’s strength originated from
various sources: it is interesting that she twice mentioned love, with its strong potential to
idealize female figures, as the source of that strength. She affirmed in January 1838:
“Women are of course weaker than men, but their love [renders them] strong.”18 This is
a mixed blessing: it essentializes women and emphasizes their alleged weak nature. In
July 1839 she wrote: “I will never be overcome by weakness again; I am not afraid of
14
Robert: “Bist Du dann in meine Nähe, so werd’ ich wieder ganz gesunden.” Letter of July 7th, 1839, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 624. (“I’ll recover completely when you’re near me again.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 2, 302.)
15
See for instance Robert’s letter to Clara of February 6th, 1838: “Es war mir immer dabei, als hätte ich das
Rechte / noch / nicht getroffen in der Musik, etwas noch nicht gefunden, was ich suchte – Und da trat am
Sonnabend der Postillon in die Stube und der hatte es und gingen mir die Augen auf ‘das hatte ich gesucht,
Deinen Brief, Deinen schönen theuren Herzensbrief.” In Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 90. (“But all the while I felt
as if I hadn’t yet hit upon the right thing, hadn’t yet found something I was looking for – and then the
postman came into my room on Saturday, and he had it; then I understood. That’s what I’d been looking
for, your letter, your wonderful, loving letter.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 92.)
Emphasis in original.
16
Robert: “Arbeiten kann ich gar nicht; es fehlt mir alle Ruhe und ich suche Dich immer in allen Stuben –
Du bist die Ruh.’” Letter of October 5th, 1845, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1225. Emphasis in original.
(English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 387.) Emphasis in original.
17
John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age” (New York: Oxford University Press,
1997), 157.
18
Clara: “Zwar ist das Weib schwächer als der Mann, doch in der Liebe stark.” Letter of January 27th,
1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 87. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 88.) Emphasis in
original.
64
anything – my love gives me strength for everything.”19 Clara’s moral strength was a
powerful model for Schumann during difficult times: he was ill-equipped to deal with
emotional crises, and she afforded him the stability he lacked.20 He often presents
himself as emotionally fragile, dependent on another human being: Clara’s love and
strength provided an anchor for the emotionally lost Schumann during the lengthy court
proceedings.21 In a letter of September 1837 to Ernst Becker, Schumann lamented: “I
have not spoken with Clara yet; her strength is my only hope.”22 Three months later,
Schumann considered Clara’s strength as a basic element of her personality in a letter to
his sister-in-law Therese Schumann: “Clara will not leave me; she is unshaken and a
19
Clara: “Nie soll eine Schwäche mich je mehr überfallen, ich fürchte Nichts – meine Liebe gibt mir Kraft
zu Allem.” Letter of July 10th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 631. (English translation in Correspondence,
vol. 2, 310.) Emphasis in original.
20
Robert: “Es kömmt mir oft fast wie übermenschliche Geduld vor, was ich gelitten. Ein Anderer, der
übrigens wäre was ich bin, würde es kürzer gemacht haben. Aber weiβt Du, wer mein Vorbild ist, Du
selbst meine Klara.” Letter of February 24th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 946. (“What I have suffered
often seems almost like superhuman patience. Anybody else in my position would have lost patience. But
do you know who my model is? You yourself, my Klara.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3,
106.)
21
Early in the year 1836, it became obvious to Friedrich Wieck that Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck had
become lovers (they became engaged in August 1837). While some of his concerns appear legitimate, he
reacted strongly and irrationally, insisting that Schumann was unworthy of his daughter and did not have
the means to sustain her economically. He left with Clara on lengthy tours (Dresden, Berlin, Vienna) and
forbade her to write to Schumann, or to receive letters from him, so their correspondence, extensive, was
possible due to the help of friends. Estranged from her father in 1839 and barred access to the parental
home, Clara undertook a concert tour, alone, in Paris. Matters went to court, and following a favourable
decision the couple finally married on September 12th, 1840. Clara wrote: “[S]ey nur muthig, lieber Robert,
und ja nicht traurig, wenn Du lange keine Nachricht hast – Du weiβt ja, daβ ich Dich keinen Augenblick
vergesse, auch Du bist ja mein erster und letzter [Tag] Gedanke am Tag. Ich liebe Dich ja, wie kein
Mensch mehr lieben kann, darauf muβt Du auch [vertragen] vertrauen – das bitte ich, sonst kann ich nicht
ruhig sein.” Letter of January 4th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 344. (“[K]eep your chin up, dear Robert,
and don’t get sad if you don’t hear from me for a long time – you surely know that I will not forget you for
a moment; you are my first and last thought each day. I really love you as no other person can; you must
believe that – please do, or I can’t rest easy.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 6.) Emphasis
in original. She pursues by saying: “Sey nie muthlos – geh ich doch mit muthigem Schritt in die Welt.
Von ganzem Herzen und mit aller unaussprechlichen Liebe küsst Dich Deine treue Braut Clärchen.” Same
letter, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 345. (“Don’t ever become discouraged – I have courage and am going out
into the world. Your faithful fiancée Clärchen kisses you with all her heart and with inexpressible love.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 7. Emphasis in original.)
22
Schumann wrote to Ernst Becker: “C. sprach ich noch nicht; ihre Stärke ist meine einzige Hoffnung.”
Letter of September 14th, 1837, in Briefe, 99.
65
maiden with a firm character.”23 In January 1838, Schumann, otherwise “so easily
depressed,” described Clara as “curing” and “encouraging” because of her love. 24 In
February 1838, Clara gave him the strength and courage to conquer heaven and stars.25
And in January 1840, Schumann affirmed that without Clara, “I would have perished
long ago.”26
Clara’s love is linked to outwardly positive feminine values (uplifting, caring,
healing) crucial to Schumann’s ability to compose. Both before and after her wedding,
Clara repeatedly described her love to Schumann in ways recalling the character of
Gretchen, using terms such as “Hingebung” and “Ergebung.”27 Love may confer
considerable powers on female figures: in a typically romantic fashion, it allows them to
support the male hero and heal his divided psyche. Clara, as idealized by Schumann, thus
embodied early romantics’ conception of love such as those put forward by Schlegel in
his novel Lucinde. Love encourages womanly submission and devotion, confining real
23
Schumann wrote to Therese Schumann: “Clara läβt nicht von mir; sie ist unerschüttert und ein
charakterfestes Mädchen.” Letter of December 15th, 1837, in ibid., 105.
24
Robert: “[A]ber das kannst Du wiβen, daβ Du mich ganz heilen, ganz glücklich machen kannst – bleib
mir nur treu und sprich manchmal ermuthigend und mit Liebe zu mir, der so leicht zu Boden zu drücken,
und wieder aufzurichten ist.” Letter of January 5th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 74. (“[B]ut you should
know that you can cure me completely and make me totally happy – just remain faithful to me; encourage
me from time to time, and speak lovingly to me. I’m so easily depressed and so easy to cheer up.” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 75.)
25
Robert: “Vorläufig ist mir’s indeβ gar nicht wie Sterben – im Gegentheil möchte ich gleich einen Stern
oben am Himmel erobern vor Kraft u. Muth; Alles kömmt von Dir.” Letter of February 12th, 1838, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 103. (“For the time being, however, I don’t feel at all like dying – on the contrary, I
feel so strong and brave that I’d like to conquer a star up in the sky; everything comes from you.” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 105.)
26
Robert: “Hätte ich Dich nicht, wärst Du nicht so ein starkes deutsches Mädchen, so wäre ich längst
untergegangen.” Letter of January 10th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 860. (“If I didn’t have you, if you
weren’t such a strong, German girl, I would have perished long ago.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 21.)
27
Clara: “Und nun laβ Dich umarmen und Dir die Falten aus der Stirn streicheln von Deiner Clara, die Dir
ja Alles vergelten will mit der treuesten Liebe und Hingebung.” Letter of January 6th, 1840, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 851. (“And now let your Clara embrace you and caress away the lines from your
brow. She will repay you for everything with the most faithful love and devotion.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 13.) And again she affirmed: “Mit innigster treuester Ergebung umarme ich Dich,
wie Du es ja kennst (…).” Letter of February 25th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 952. (“I embrace you
with the deepest, most faithful devotion, as always (…).”) English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3,
112.
66
nineteenth-century women within the domestic sphere: Clara is no exception, as I discuss
later. In a letter of June 1839, Schumann portrays himself in a less than glorious light,
believing that Clara’s love will cure him of his “restless,” “childish” and “weak” nature.
By nurturing him, this feminine love contributes to the male project of personal growth
and Bildung: “I lack a few things which would make me a complete man; I’m too
restless, often too childish, too soft; I also indulge myself quite a bit in whatever I’m
enjoying and don’t think of others; in short, I have my bad days when nothing can be
done with me – however, the patience and love which you have so often shown will help
me develop more and more.”28 In a letter of May 1840, Schumann contends that Clara
has distinguished herself by her love’s curing virtues: “Faithful, friendly girl, my nurse,
my dearest beloved – how can I thank you for all the special care and love you honored
me with this time?”29 In a letter from Clara to Schumann of August 1840, she links love
to a feminine ethic of care, and anticipates her future domestic life with joy, looking after
her husband at all times with her enduring love. 30 The exploitative component of female
love discussed in Chapter One remains: typically, there is little evidence from primary
sources demonstrating that Schumann’s love had a similarly beneficial effect on his wife.
28
Robert: “[M]ir fehlt noch manches zum ganzen Mann; ich bin noch zu ruhelos, zu kindisch oft, zu weich;
auch hänge ich viel dem nach, was gerade mir Vergnügen gewährt ohne Rücksicht auf Andere; Kurz ich
habe meine bösen Tage, an denen nichts mit mir anzufangen – doch Nachsicht und Liebe, wie Du sie gegen
mich so oft gezeigt, werden mich schon bilden immermehr.” Letter of June 3rd, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol.
2, 546. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 220.)
29
Robert: “Du treues freundliches Mädchen, Du meine Pflegerin, Du mein Allerliebstes – wie soll ich Dir
denn danken für all Deine Sorgfalt und Liebe, mit der Du mich [Du mich] diesmal ganz besonders
ausgezeichnet hast.” Letter of May 1st 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1010. (English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 169.)
30
Clara: “[W]arte nur, bin ich erst Dein Weib, will ich Dich schon pflegen, daβ Du nie aufhören sollst
meine Liebe zu erkennen. Wenn ich Dir nur gut wirthschafte, das ist noch meine Sorge, damit Du in allen
Dingen Deine Freude an mir haben kannst.” Letter of August 24th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1097.
(“[W]ait till I am your wife; I will take care of you so that you will never doubt my love. If only I can be a
good housewife for you, too; that’s what concerns me; I want you to be pleased with me in every respect.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 257.)
67
Clara, as a real woman, escaped her husband’s idealization as a loving and healing
passive being by actively working within both the private and public spheres. As such,
her redemptive influence is of a different order than that of artistic female figures
examined in Chapter One, whose sphere of influence, when embodying in a rigid manner
the three archetypes discussed in Chapter One, tends to remain more closely bound to
domesticity. While Clara’s image was constrained by the idealization issuing from male
imagination, as a real woman, her character is more complex. She displayed masculine
qualities such as assertiveness and independence, resulting from her own psychological
outlook. Clara assumed many roles: muse (both real and idealized), performer of
Schumann’s music (within both the public and private spheres), and leader during
rehearsals. Furthermore, Borchard believes that she was instrumental in Schumann’s turn
to large-scale compositions which afforded him wider professional recognition. Borchard
argues that by insuring a more secure physical and psychological existence for Schumann
within the private sphere, Clara helped him access the public sphere successfully, often at
the cost of her own professional career and creative endeavours.31 Schumann’s
contemporaries believed that she understood her husband’s works best: she herself took
great pride in her unique abilities to grasp Schumann’s genius. In a letter of January
1840, Clara wrote to her future husband that Wilhelm Taubert specifically requested her
to play one of Schumann’s piano sonatas to Taubert so the latter could understand it
better.32 As late as 1851, Schumann relied on her to acquaint him with new music: he
31
“Die Komposition unfangreicher Werke aber scheint ihm an eine gesicherte phychische und psychische
Existenz gebunden und – an eine Frau.” (For him, the composition of large-scale works appears linked to a
secure psychical and physical existence and – to a wife.”) Borchard, Clara Wieck und Robert Schumann,
72.
32
Clara: “Taubert besuchte mich gestern Abend und bat mich ihm Deine Sonate zu spielen, damit er sie im
Concerte besser verstünde.” Letter of January 31st, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 898. (“Taubert came to
68
withheld his judgment of a sonata dedicated to him by Moscheles until Clara, recovering
from an injury, was able to perform the work.33
Despite her own musical endeavours and duties as a nineteenth-century woman,
her involvement with her husband’s composing, rehearsing, and conducting activities was
extensive. Schumann made it clear that the performance of his works had priority over
her professional activities. During the Peri rehearsals in 1843, he lamented: “I don’t like
to hold rehearsals without you; I feel as if my guardian angel weren’t here.”34 Similar
concerns are expressed in a letter of Schumann to Clara of November 1843, in which he
urged his wife, currently in Dresden, not to give a second concert unless it brought a good
amount of money, but to come back to Leipzig instead to help with the Peri rehearsals. 35
The exchange of letters shows that in preparation for the premiere of the oratorio, Clara
took care of many details while she was touring in Dresden, in addition to the demands of
see me last night and asked if I would play your Sonata for him so he would be able to understand it better
at the concert.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 59.)
33
Schumann wrote to Moscheles: “Die Sonate selbst habe ich bis jetzt leider nur lesen können, da meine
Frau seit einiger Zeit am Spiele gehindert (…). Das Ganze freue ich mich bald von meiner Frau, sobald sie
wieder genesen, in lebendiger Ausführung zu hören (…).” (“Unfortunately up until now I have only able to
read through your sonata, since my wife cannot play at the moment (…). I’m looking forward to hear my
wife’s lively performance of the whole thing, as soon as she recovers.”) Letter of November 20th, 1851, in
Briefe, 350-351.
34
Robert: “Ich mag keine Proben ohne Dich halten, es ist, als fehlte mir der gute Genius dabei.” Letter of
November 23rd, 1843, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1218. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 380.)
35
Robert: “Ein zweites Concert gieb doch ja nicht, wenn Du nicht die feste Aussicht hat, daβ es sehr viel
einbringt. In jedem Falle wollte ich nächste Woche eine Orchesterprobe halten, wahrscheinlich Mittwoch –
und Du solltest allein darin fehlen?” Letter of November 16th, 1843, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1210. (“But
don’t give a second concert unless you have definite prospects of making very much. I wanted to hold an
orchestra rehearsal next week in any case, probably Wednesday – and do you want to be the only one
absent?” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 371.) Emphasis in original. Clara, however,
indeed gave a second concert, having the perfect excuse at hand: Schumann’s compositions pleased the
Dresden public so much that the warm reception would be beneficial for the oratorio. Clara: “Ich werde
von allen Seite bestürmt, ein Zweites Concert zu geben, die Leute sagen, sie hätten sich dies nicht gedacht,
und namentlich haben Deine Compositionen so sehr gefallen, daβ ich meine, es wäre doch gut für Dich
(auch wegen der Peri später) wenn ich noch mehr von Dir hören lieβe.” Letter of November 21st, 1843, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1216-1217. (“I am being besieged on all sides to give a second concert; people are
saying that they hadn’t expected that your compositions would be so pleasing; I think it would be good for
you (and for Peri later on) if I would play more of your music.” English translation in Correspondence,
vol. 3, 378.)
69
her own concert schedule. 36 Back in Leipzig, Clara led rehearsals and communicated
with the performers more efficiently than did her husband.37 Able to command large
musical ensembles, her leadership, energy and enthusiasm proved invaluable. Her
musical skills were also useful in preparing piano reductions of large-scale works. In
early August 1843, Clara confided in the marriage diary: “At the end of July I began the
piano part for the Peri – a work which gives me much pleasure.”38 Schumann recognized
his wife’s commitment as she accomplished this tedious task, but he did not fully
acknowledge her input, assuming that she would be able to detect his unspoken gratitude.
Later that month he wrote: “Clara has finished the piano reduction of the Peri with great
love and devotion and I have outwardly thanked her very little; but I know how to
appreciate her efforts and her love and I was often moved when I saw her working at the
piano so diligently.”39 Women have frequently been active in advancing other men’s
36
Clara: “Der Vater meinte, den 3ten Januar ginge es hier mit der Peri ganz gut. Ich werde doch operieren
so viel als möglich. Schreibe nur, was Dir einfällt, daβ ich hier Nützliches dafür thuen könnte, überhaupt,
erwarte ich vor Freitag noch einmal Nachricht.” Letter of November 15th, 1843, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3,
1208. (“Father thought January 3rd would be quite suitable for Peri here. I’ll make as many arrangements
as I can. Just write and tell me what you think I can do here that would be useful to you. In any case I
expect word again before Friday.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 370.)
37
Livia Frege, who sang the title role at the premiere of the work, found Schumann too laid back as a
conductor, and bemoaned his inability to scold at the musicians to get discipline. See Daverio, Robert
Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 274. Reich, who also mentions Clara’s involvement in the Peri
rehearsals, cites this same letter: “If only your dear husband could resolve to scold a little and to demand
greater attention, everything would go better right away.” See Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the
Woman, 94. In her chapter “Düsseldorf and the Death of Robert Schumann,” Reich also discusses Clara’s
heavy involvement in the rehearsals of the Dresden Choral Society, which Schumann was conducting, due
to, in great part, the latter’s inability to communicate his wishes to the choir efficiently. Reich affirms that
“despite some critical enthusiasm for the Dresden Choral Society it was known that he had difficulty
holding that group together. He depended increasingly on Clara, who would communicate the conductor’s
wishes to the chorus from her place at the piano.” Ibid., 114.
38
Clara: “Ende July habe ich angefangen den Auszug für das Clavier der ‘Peri’ zu machen – eine Arbeit,
die mir groβe Genüβ schafft.” Entry of July-August 1843, in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band II, 268269.
39
Robert: “Klara had mit groβer Aufopferung und Liebe den Clavierauszug der Peri gemacht und ich hab’
es ihr äuβerlich nur wenig gedankt; aber ich weiβ ihre Mühe und Liebe zu schätzen und hab’ mich oft
gerührt, wenn ich sie so eifrig am Clavier arbeiten sah.” Entry of November 21st, 1843, in Robert
Schumann Tagebücher, Band II, 270.
70
careers, sometimes sacrificing their own: however, their accomplishments were done
“behind the scenes” and not recognized to their full extent.
Clara as a Suffering Archetype of the Virgin Mary
The Virgin Mary is associated with two important female figures in the male
hero’s life: his mother and his beloved. These two figures, frequently portrayed as
subdued and passive, are often overlooked in traditional analysis of early romantic
literary works focusing on the male scheme of Bildung. However, their influence on
masculine characters can often be considered crucial for the latter’s development. In her
husband’s mind, Clara Schumann embodied both images of mother and beloved. The
beloved in artistic works assumes a variety of roles: she becomes an idealized generic
figure, imbued with qualities conferred to the Virgin Mary, while also remaining a real
woman conflating attributes of friend, sister, and woman. 40 Discussing Novalis’ novel
Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Alice Kuzniar views the main female protagonist as muse,
angel, beloved, and mother, inspiring the male hero: “In her multiple, diffuse
transfigurations the muse thus assumes the features not only of an angel and the beloved
but also of a mother, as if to suggest that the poet’s calling is both inspired and maternally
inherited.”41 While such generic figures possess little individuality of their own, their
voices may affect male characters in significant ways and even trigger the quest for
Bildung. Heinrich is enthralled by his mother’s voice, which he hears in dreams: it
40
“Die Frau wird für den Mann zur Sophia, zur Maria und Madonna; zugleich ist sie aber auch Freundin,
Geliebte, Schwester, Frau.” (“The woman becomes for the man Sophia, the Virgin Mary and the Madonna;
at the same time she is also friend, beloved, sister, and wife.”) Kurt Lütti, Feminismus und Romantik:
Sprache, Gesellschaft, Symbole, Religion (Vienna and Cologne: H. Böhlau Verlag, 1985), 25.
41
Alice Kuzniar, “Hearing Woman’s Voices in Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” Publications of the Modern
Language Association of America 107 (1992), 1198.
71
provides him security and comfort. So powerful is this voice that, as Kuzniar mentions,
“Heinrich later sets off on his travels to recapture or reproduce this auditory illusion in his
encounters with other women.”42 Under feminine influence, Heinrich no longer controls
himself: he is obsessed by this maternal voice which he cannot fully master. As Kuzniar
argues, the female voice represents “a plenitude that is lost to Heinrich from the start”: it
remains beyond his reach as a symbol of his lack.43 The female voice, as discussed in
Chapter One, thus appears to possess uncanny, feminine, ways of affecting male heroes.
Hélène Cixous has linked it to song and music. Gretchen and Genoveva, idealized
female figures closely linked with the Virgin Mary, affect their beloved by appropriating
this maternal voice musically.
Schumann referred to Clara as an embodiment of the Virgin Mary, a conflation
common in the Romantic era, as Gisela Probst points out.44 In Schumann’s first letter to
Clara of January 1832 she is portrayed as a quasi-religious distant shrine to be
worshipped, an image placed high on the altar, which I argue conveys clear Marian
overtones.45 The Madonna is presented as maternal, life giving, healing, uplifting and
hovering above in a higher, atemporal heavenly realm. Her idealized image provides
spiritual and moral strength to real women as well as idealized female characters: both
often establish a powerful bond with this religious figure, who acts as intercessor. In so
doing, they become secular embodiments of the Virgin to their male lovers. Clara
42
Ibid., 1198.
Ibid., 1199.
44
Gisela Probst points out: “In der Literatur der Zeit verschmilzt das Bild der Geliebten oft mit dem der
Mutter Gottes.” (“In the literature of the time, the image of the beloved often blends with that of the
mother of God.”) See her Robert Schumanns Oratorien (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1975), 32.
45
Robert: “Ich denke oft an Sie, nicht wie der Bruder an seine Schwester, oder der Freund an die Freundin,
sondern etwa wie ein Pilgrim an das ferne Altarbild (…).” Letter of January 11th, 1832, in Briefwechsel,
vol. 1, 3. (“I often think of you, not as a brother thinks of his sister, or as a boy friend of his girl friend, but
rather as a pilgrim thinks of a distant shrine.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 1.)
43
72
embodies the dual components of the Virgin Mary expressed in the Szenen aus Goethes
Faust: suffering (Mater dolorosa) and glorious (Mater gloriosa). The Virgin’s idealized
image entails a glorious but oppressed femininity, emblematic of early nineteenthcentury’s ambiguous and contradictory views on women. One the one hand, male artists
paid tribute to the women they loved by representing them as idealized figures of the
Mater gloriosa and seemingly granting them power of over their psyche, while on the
other, real women failed to measure up to their husbands’s unreal expectations and
suffered from associations with the sinful and deadly figure of Eve. Those women who
attempted to be active within the public sphere suffered because of social mechanisms
contributing to their oppression and thwarting their emancipation.
The Virgin Mary and the image of the beloved are both viewed as mediating
figures, leading men from the earthly world to an otherworldly and religious one. While
such a role is positive, these female figures seldom perform any other significant actions.
The beloved’s influence on the male hero is considerable: nonetheless, she stands outside
the main events of the plot, the outcome of which seems to have scant impact on the
future course of her life. She typically acts as a tool to be used at will by other characters
(mostly male ones). Put on a higher plane, she sanctifies the male lover who, gazing at
this feminine idealized image and enraptured by its redeeming powers, may coyly retreat
before her beauty. In Schumann’s letter of September 1837 to Friedrich Wieck on
Clara’s 18th birthday, she is described as “that higher maiden worthy of devotion.” 46
46
Schumann wrote to Friedrich Wieck: “Es ist nicht die Aufregung des Augenblicks, keine Leidenschaft,
nichts Äuβeres, was mich an Clara halt mit allen Fasern meines Daseins, es ist die tiefste Überzeugung, daβ
selten ein Bündnis unter so günstiger Übereinstimmung aller Verhältnisse ins Leben treten könnte, es ist
das verehrungswürdige hohe Mädchen selbst, das überall Glück verbreitet und für unseres bürgt.” (“It is
not the excitement of the moment, nor any passion, nothing exterior which binds me to Clara with all the
fibers of my being; it is the deep conviction that such a bond could only seldom appear under such
73
Borchard argues that Schumann’s way of depicting Clara in that letter recalls the tone of
Marian worship.47 Women’s redemptive powers may also be linked with the Virgin
Mary, with love again playing a crucial role. In February 1838, Schumann complains
that he “could no longer pray” while his eyes and heart were “cold and as hard as iron”:
but Clara’s love brought him to an “ever greater purity” as if “being reborn.”48 This
spiritual rebirth is made possible by what Schumann perceived as her life-giving
motherly and religious attributes, which Clara and the Virgin Mary encapsulate. In a
letter of March 1839, at the height of the court battle against Wieck, he expressed his
deeply felt need for her: “You alone are my consolation; I look up to you as I would to a
Madonna; I want to get courage and strength from you once more.”49 While the gaze
here is male, a woman (Clara), as a religious image of the Virgin, holds the power to
redeem the male psyche. In a letter of June 1839, Schumann described his study room, in
which a painting of Clara hangs, as if sanctified.50 In light of Schumann’s fascination
fortuitous life circumstances; it is this higher maiden worthy of devotion herself, which spread joy
everywhere and vouches for our beings.”) Letter of September 13th, 1837, in Briefe, 97.
47
Borchard points out the strong religious overtones. She affirms: “Die Formulierung ‘das
verehrungswürdige hohe Mädchen’ erinnert an Marienlieder und weist auf die Stilisierung der Frau zur
Heiligen – ganz im Sinne des restaurativen Frauenbildes.” (“The formulation ‘this higher maiden worthy
of devotion’ reminds one of Marian lieder and points to the stylization of women as saintly – in accordance
with conservative images of women.”) Borchard, Clara Wieck und Robert Schumann, 183.
48
Robert: “[W]ie Du es bist, meine Clara, die mich dem Leben wieder gegeben hat, an deren Herzen ich
mich zu immer höherer Reinheit aufziehen laβen will. Ein armer geschlagener Mann war ich, der nicht
mehr beten konnte und weinen achtzehn Monate lang; kalt und starr wie Eisen was das Auge und das Herz.
Und jetzt? Wie verändert Alles, wie neu geboren durch Deine Liebe und Deine Treue.” Letter of February
6th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 92. (“[L]ike you, my Clara; you have brought me back to life again, and I
want your heart to lead me to ever greater purity. I was a poor, beaten man who could no longer pray or
cry for 18 months; my eyes and my heart were cold and as hard as iron. And now? How different
everything is, like being reborn through your love and your faithfulness.” Emphasis in original. English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 93-94.)
49
Robert: “Du allein bist mein Trost, zu Dir seh ich auf wie zu einer Maria, bei Dir will ich mir wieder
Muth und Stärke hohlen.” Letter of February 10th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 407. (English translation
in Correspondence, vol. 2, 73.)
50
Robert: “Das Bild hat mir keine Ruhe gelaβen; ich hab’s vor mir aufgehängt; in dieser Entfernung nun
lebt es und spricht es ordentlich; das ist ein trefflicher Maler, der es gemalt; ich hab eine unaussprechliche
Freude darüber, wenn ich es ansehe; die ganze Stube kömmt mir wie geheiligter vor.” Letter of June 13th,
1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 569. (“Your picture won’t leave me in peace; I hung it up in front of me; it
74
with Raphael’s paintings of the Madonna, I argue that the painting of the secular, real-life
Clara acted in his mind as an idealized symbol for the religious figure of the Virgin Mary.
Such images of Clara as embodiments of the Virgin Mary discussed above grant
Clara little agency of her own. However, Clara is also frequently associated in her
husband’s mind with masculine values of independence, free will, strength, energy,
activity, striving, courage, heroism, lack of fear, even violence and war. In a diary entry
of June 1832, Schumann commented on the thirteen-year-old child’s independence of
mind and propensity to dominate.51 In a letter to Dr. Gustav Adolf Keferstein of August
1840, he marveled: “However delicate, she is healthy and can resist like a man.” 52 These
masculine values are linked with strong secular literary female figures such as Klärchen
in Goethe’s Egmont (1788) and Käthchen von Heilbronn in Kleist’s eponymous novel
(1807-1808), both of which challenge narrow understandings of the three archetypes
discussed above. These heroines display both feminine (love and devotion) and
masculine (courage and strength) values by their ability to suffer great sacrifices in the
name of a just cause: saving their male counterparts.53 This strength has been termed
“heroism of endurance” by Matthew Head: it trades “physical strength for spiritual
now lives and almost speaks from there; the artist who painted it is excellent; when I look at it, I feel an
inexpressible joy; my whole room somehow seems more sanctified.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 2, 245.)
51
Robert: “Clara [Wieck] zeigt groβen Eigensinn gegen ihre Stiefmutter die gewiβ die achtungswertheste
Frau ist. Der Alte [Wieck] verwies Clara [Wieck] – er wird jedoch nach u. nach unter den Pantoffel Clara’s
[Wieck] kommen, die schon wie eine Senorita befiehlt – aber sie kann auch bitten, wie ein Kind u.
schmeicheln.” (“Clara [Wieck] shows great stubbornness towards her stepmother, who certainly is a a
woman worthy of great consideration. The old [Wieck] admonished Clara – however he is slowly coming
under Clara’s influence, who already orders like a Senorita – but she can also plead and cajole like a
child.”) Entry of June 1st, 1832, in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band I, ed. Georg Eisman (Leipzig:
VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1971), 402.
52
Robert wrote to to Keferstein: “So zart sie ist, so ist sie doch gesund und kann wie ein Mann aushalten.”
Letter of August 24th 1840, in Briefe, 192.
53
Schumann: “[D]ie Leonore bist Du, mein geliebtes Mädchen, und die Pizarros wollen wir schon aus dem
Weg räumen.” Letter of January 2nd, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 66. (“[Y]ou, my beloved girl, are
Lenore, and we will surely get rid of the Pizarros.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 66.)
75
fortitude.”54 Schumann acknowledged Clara’s heroism and spiritual strength, linking her
with the Virgin Mary. In a letter of January 1839, he conflated the religious image of the
Virgin Mary with the secular one of Käthchen von Heilbronn, both of which he viewed as
heroic: “[W]ell, my Klara, let’s push forward with greater zeal; if Heaven has intended
you for me, you will be given to me, but we must also do our part, and you’re leading the
way so heroically, like a Käthchen von Heilbronn, with true faith in your heart. If only I
could see you now; your eyes must be sparkling; you must look like a Madonna and a
heroine at the same time.”55 Schumann focuses on her eyes and ability to see: fierce and
heroic, she is depicted by her husband as a heroic embodiment of the Virgin Mary, an
unconventional way of portraying the Virgin, a description fitting the figure of Joan of
Arc better. A few days previously, Schumann had linked Clara with heroism: “Seeing
your girl displaying such vigor gives you moral strength. I’ve done as much work in the
past few days as I usually do in weeks. (…) See what strength you’ve given me, my
Clara; of course, such a heroic girl has to make her beloved something of a hero, too.”56
Schumann also linked other literary figures with strength and courage. In a letter of June
1839 he wrote:
I saw Egmont the day before yesterday, and I was doubled up in pain; I thought,
‘If only you, too, had such a brave Klärchen.’ And now I do again. You would
54
“What Lockwood calls Florestan’s ‘heroism of endurance’ involves a belief system (…) that trades
physical strength for spiritual fortitude.” Matthew Head, “Beethoven Heroine: A Female Allegory of
Music and Authorship in Egmont,” 19th-Century Music 30 (2006), 104.
55
Robert: “Nun, meine Klara, laβ und mit höherem Feuer vorwärts drängen; hat Dich mir der Himmel
bestimmt, so giebt er Dich mir, aber wir müβen auch selbst dazu / thun/, und Du gehst mir ja so
heldenmüthig vor wie ein Käthchen von Heilbronn, den guten Glauben in der Brust. Könnt ich Dich nur
jetzt einmal sehen; es müβen Funken aus den Augen [springen] / leuchten /; Du muβt wie eine Madonna
und eine Heldin zugleich aussehen.” Letter of January 19th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 360. (English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 23.) Emphasis in original.
56
Robert: “Es stärkt so moralisch, solche Kraft seines Mädchens zu sehen. In den vorigen Tagen hab’ ich
so viel gearbeitet, wo zu ich sonst Wochen gebraucht. (…) Sieh, solche Kraft hast Du mir gegeben, meine
Clara, so ein Heldenmädchen muβ ja ihren Geliebten auch zu einem kleinen Heros machen.” Letter of
January 15th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 355. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 17-18.)
Emphasis in original.
76
go into battle with me, would be at my side and wouldn’t be afraid, isn’t that
right? – We would fight side by side and protect each other – I can really see
myself – the helmet suits you wonderfully – just don’t put it on too often when
we’re married. I’ve never really been able to stand Amazons – and I like a muse
with a shield much better.57
Later that month, Schumann exclaimed: “Klärchen, Klärchen, what are you turning me
into, my heroic fiancée?”58 Schumann’s conception of Clara as an embodiment of the
Virgin Mary definitely displayed a more heroic cast than was typical at the time. Clara
thus may be said to have had some influence in changing Schumann’s mindset about
women characters discussed in the three last chapters of this dissertation.
Clara as an Angelic Figure
Related to the Virgin Mary, Clara is frequently portrayed as an angelic, child-like
religious figure, hovering above, leading Schumann to higher spheres with her womanly
love and devotion. As Georges Starobinski points out, Clara unites two archetypes, both
of which refer to a gender-ambiguous realm: the woman as angel and as child,
encapsulated by the idealized figures of Mignon and the Peri as well as the real-life
57
Robert: “Egmont sah ich vorgestern; aber ich war gebeugt von Schmerz ‘hättest Du doch auch solch ein
tapferes Klärchen’ dacht’ ich. Und nun hab’ ich’s wieder. Nichtwahr, Du gingst mit mir in die Schlacht,
an meiner Seite, und fürchtetest Dich nicht – wie wollten wir neben einander kämpfen und einander
beschützen – ich sehe mich ordentlich – der Helm steht Dir schön – nur setze ihn nicht zu oft auf im
Ehestand – Amazonen hab’ ich nie recht leiden gekonnt – aber eine Muse mit einem Schild gefällt mir
schon besser.” Letter of June 2nd, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 542-543. (English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 2, 216.)
58
Robert: “Klärchen, Klärchen, was machst Du denn aus mir, Du meine heldenmüthige Braut.” Letter of
on June 30th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 607. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 285.)
Head points out: “Female heroism is central to Goethe’s five-act tragedy Egmont.” See his “Beethoven
Heroine,” 111. In Goethe’s novel Clärchen is also viewed by Egmont as an allegorical and idealized figure,
appearing to him in dream: the figure of Liberty. Once an active male hero, Egmont appears passive
throughout most of the play: in a typical feminine fashion, he becomes a mere signifier of past heroism, an
ideal. See Head, “Beethoven Heroine,” 111. Clara is also linked by modern critics with strong female
characters from contemporary rescue operas such as Leonore in Beethoven’s opera Fidelio. Daverio
affirms that Clara “play[ed] Leonora to her husband’s Eusebius” during the revolutions of 1848. While
Schumann was hiding at their friends’ estate, Clara, at night and seven months pregnant, went back to
Dresden to fetch the children that had remained behind. Daverio provides a vivid account of this event in
his Robert Schumann, Herald of a ‘New Poetic Age’,” 423-434.
77
young poetess Elizabeth Kulmann. 59 Many of Schumann’s letters refer to Clara as a
“child”: it is a term of endearment which he frequently used to describe his future wife.
Emblematic of the fact is a letter of June 1839 in which he described her as a “heavenly
child.”60 The archetype of the angelic woman is placed in a positive light. By distancing
her, however, and by imagining her as a child, Schumann objectified her and contained
the threat she represented. In a letter of March 1838, he compared Clara to an angel,
leading him to higher realms: “Where should I begin to tell you what kind of person you
are making of me, my love, magnificent one! Your letter provided me with one delight
after another. What life you’re opening before me, what prospects! Sometimes when I
read through your letter I feel like the first human might have felt when the angel led him
through the new creation, from peak to peak; each beautiful region is followed by even
more beautiful ones (…).”61 In January 1839, she is envisioned by Schumann in a dream,
hovering above, leading him into higher regions. 62 And in April 1839, Clara, as a
59
“Clara unissait à ses yeux, on l’a vu, deux figures qui l’inspireront jusqu’à la fin de sa vie, celle de l’ange
et de l’enfant poète (Mignon, bien sûr, mais aussi la Péri ou la jeune poète Élisabeth Kullmann).” (“We
have seen that Clara united in his mind two figures which inspired him until the end of his life, that of the
angel and that of the poet-child (Mignon, of course, but also the Peri or the young poetess Elizabeth
Kullmann.” Georges Starobinski, “Les Kinderszenen op. 15 de Schumann: Composantes littéraires et
biographiques d'une genèse,” Revue de musicologie 88 (2002), 383.
60
Robert: “Ich hab ein zu treues Mädchen, ein Mädchen, dem ich aber auch mein ganzes Leben widmen
will und heiligen; ein Mädchen, das immer von mir geliebt sein soll; ein Mädchen hold und züchtig und
dabei warm und fest. (…) Du bist ein gar zu himmliches Kind.” Letter of June 27th, 1839, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 603. (“I have such a very faithful girl, a girl to whom I’ll devote my whole life and
whom I’ll hold sacred, a girl whom I shall always love, a girl who is lovely and chaste and warm and
steadfast as well. (…) You’re such a heavenly child.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 280.)
61
Robert: “Wo soll ich denn anfangen, Dir zu sagen, was Du aus mir machst, Du Liebe, Herrliche Du!
Dein Brief hat mich aus einer Freude in die andere gehoben. Welches Leben eröffnest Du mir, welche
Aussichten! Wenn ich manchmal Deinen Brief durchgehe so ist mir es, wie es wohl dem ersten Menschen
gewesen sein mag, als ihn sein Engel durch die neue junge Schöpfung führte, von Höhe zu Höhe, wo
immer eine schönere Gegend hinter der schöneren zuruckschwindet (…).” Letter of March 19th, 1838, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 116. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 119.)
62
Robert: “Ich erinnere mich eines der seltsamsten und schönsten Gefühle, das ich einmal an Deiner Seite
hatte – in Dresden. Es war mir als schwebtest Du in die Höhe und zögest mich Dir leise nach. Wir kamen
immer höher, von Blau zu Blau, bis Du mich endlich aufwecktest mit einem Kuβ.” Letter of January 25th,
1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 367. (“I remember one of the strangest and most wonderful feelings I ever
had at your side – in Dresden. It seemed to me as if you were soaring up into the sky and were quietly
78
protective angel, floating above as if in a dream, with her loving eyes.63 Dreams,
suspending boundaries of time and space, open a semiotic realm in which female figures
may transcend gendered boundaries.
The angelic woman is often made distant, either physically, psychologically, or
both: this distanciation may occur in dreams and at night. Those years prior to their
wedding when the couple were kept apart seem particularly conducive to idealization
from Schumann, who frequently saw his future wife as an image, a product of his
imagination. In early 1836, he wrote to Clara: “Your radiant image, however, shines
through all the darkness, and I can bear things more easily.” 64 Darkness is associated
with night and dreams which, as Michael and Linda Hutcheon point out, suspend
boundaries of time and space. 65 I link its timeless, undifferentiated oneness with the
semiotic chora, the genderless and yet maternal principle to which the male hero longs to
return. Katherine Padilla also links the blurring of spatial and temporal boundaries with
night and the beloved who leads the male subject into the realm of the Absolute.66
Associated with a web of nocturnal metaphors (such as moon and stars), night features
drawing me toward you. We went higher and higher, from one blue sky to the next, until you finally
awakened me with a kiss.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 30.)
63
Robert, on his way to Pragues: “Oft hatte ich auch das schöne Bild, Du schwebtest wie ein Schutzengel
neben dem Wagen einher – ich sah Dich ordentlich in schönen Gewändern, mit Flügeln und liebenden
Augen. – Gewiβ hast Du gestern und vorgestern recht mit Liebe an mich gedacht.” Letter of April 15th,
1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 472. (“I often had this wonderful image of you hovering beside our coach
like a guardian angel – I saw you, wonderfully dressed in beautiful gowns, with wings and loving eyes –
surely you were thinking of me very lovingly yesterday and the day before.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 2, 141-142.
64
Robert: “Hinter allem Dunkeln steht aber Dein blühend Bild und ich trag alles leichter.” Letter of
February 13th, 1836, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 20. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 18.)
65
“Night was directly linked to the primary and permanent reality of the noumenal world, the timeless,
undifferentiated oneness from which individuals were expelled at birth and to which they longed to return”
Linda and Michael Hutcheon, “Death Drive: Eros and Thanatos in Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde’,”
Cambridge Opera Journal 11 (1999), 277.
66
“Night is die Geliebte; it signals the time when the subject can partake of infinity, in that he has defined
the other as such. It is the point at which the bounds of time and space are lifted for the male subject (…)
and he can thus commune with the Absolute.” Katherine Mary Padilla, “The Embodiment of the Absolute:
Theories of the Feminine in the Works of Schleiermacher, Schlegel, and Novalis” (Ph.D. diss.: Princeton
University, 1988), 205-206.
79
prominently in early romantic thinking as well as Schumann’s writings and dramatic
works. Night is opposed to light: they are binary opposites, a relationship which also
characterizes popular conceptions of female figures, such as Eve and the Virgin Mary,
and witches and angels. These oppositions ambiguously characterize idealized female
figures as despised and feared, glorified and reviled.
A religious streak shines through Schumann’s idealization of Clara as an angelic
figure. A letter of August 1838 reveals clear religious, Marian overtones: “[Y]ou belong
up at the altar, both as a saint and as a fiancée.”67 In November 1838, doubting himself
and lacking energy, he passively awaited an angel to care for him, in vain. Instead the
image of Clara appeared, bringing him forward: by her loving encouragement she lifted
him into a higher realm. 68 In December 1838, the heavenly image of Clara, moving
upwards, comforted him during difficult times: it is imbued with stereotypical feminine
values such as simplicity and “a vision of faithfulness and love” which also characterizes
countless idealized female figures in artistic works.69 In June 1839, Clara is described as
67
Robert: “[A]n den Altar gehörst Du hin, als Heilige wie auch als Braut.” Letter of August 31st, 1838, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 228. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 235.)
68
Robert: “Ach, ich bedarf Deiner liebevollen Ermuthigung so sehr. Wenn ich zu zagen anfange, so ist es
gleich der Gedanke an das Vertrauen, das Du zu mir hast, welcher mich wieder erhebt. Es hat mich hier
schon manchmal die Energie verlaβen, daβ ich die Hände schlaff hängen lieβ und wie auf einen Engel
wartete, der mir Alles hübsch mache u. besorgte. Es kam aber Keiner. Und nun dachte ich ‘Klara,’ und
war wieder auf von meinem Sitz, und so bin ich denn, wenn auch wenig, doch immer weiter vorwärts
gekommen.” Letter of November 8th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 287. (“Oh, I need your loving
encouragement so much. When I begin to become faint-hearted, it’s the thought of the confidence that you
have in me which immediately lifts my spirits. Sometimes I’ve lost my determination here, and I’ve
twiddled my thumbs and waited for an angel to take care of everything for me. But none came. And then I
thought “Klara” and got up out of my chair, and so I really have made progress, but not very much.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 296-297.) Emphasis in original.
69
Robert: “[Z]wischen all diesen unglücklichen Gedanken stieg nun auch oft ein himmlisches Bild auf, das
Bild der Treue und Liebe, das Du mir bist und Du standest vor mir in Deiner hohen Einfachheit.” Letter to
Clara of December 1st, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 304. (“[A]mong all these unhappy thoughts a
heavenly vision often arose, a vision of faithfulness and love; that’s what you are to me, and you stood
before me in your noble simplicity.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 315.) Similarly,
Robert wrote: “Leb wohl, mein Mädchen; ich träume viel von Dir jetzt. Ich seh Dich auch im Traum
immer lieb und treu.” Letter of February 27th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 956. (“Farewell, my girl; I’m
80
coming from Heaven: a month later, she is described as a noble, higher figure. 70
Paintings connect the loving Clara with angelic figures: her body, particularly her face,
undergoes a process of fragmentation (eyes, lips, and forehead) before being made whole
again. In a letter of April 1838, Schumann looked at her picture in a way that
decorporealized her, a month after she received the title of Kammervirtuosin from the
Viennese court:
And now to your picture – what shall I say about it? I have almost ruined it with
kisses – yes, that’s you, and the artist is a good friend of mine and captured you;
the picture is my entire heaven, and I look from the eyes to the lips, then to the
forehead, then look at the entire picture again – I wonder who that might be – then
I unroll some more – then a hand appears and the large title – and you look as
regal as a princess and as uncomplicated as a child – and then there’s something
else in this angelic picture – listen girl, are you perhaps in love?”71
dreaming a lot about you. In my dreams you’re always kind and faithful.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 116.)
70
Robert: “Du vom Himmel gekommenes.” Letter of June 8th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 554. (“[Y]ou
who have come from heaven.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 229.) And also: “Ich sehe
Dich jetzt vor mir in Deiner hohen Gestalt, ein rechtes Mädchen wie es sein soll.” Letter of July 4th, 1839,
in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 623. (“I see your noble figure before me, the way a girl is supposed to be.” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 301-302.)
71
Robert: “Und nun Dein Bild – Was soll ich dazu sagen! Zerküβt habe ich’s beinahe – ja das bist Du und
der Maler ist mein guter Freund und hat Dich erfaβt und das Bild ist mein ganzer Himmel und da schau ich
von den Augen zu den Lippen, dann zur Stirne, dann das Ganze wieder – wer das wohl sein mag, denke ich
dann – rolle dann weiter – da kömmt die Hand und nun der groβe Titel – und nobel wie eine Prinzessin
siehst Du und einfach wie ein Kind – und dann steht auch noch etwas auf diesem Engelsbild – höre
Mädchen, liebst Du vielleicht?” Letter of April 13th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 133. (English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 136-137.) Emphasis in original. Clara believed it to be a sign of
Robert’s tenderness and love towards her when he called her a child, but also resented this stereotypical
view, and the subordination it implied. Positive view: “Du nanntest mich wieder einmal ‘Kind’ – das hab
ich gar zu gern, und lasse Dich auch gern mit mir spielen, es ist mir immer ein Zeichen, daβ Du recht
zärtlich gegen mich gesinnt bist (…).” Letter of February 22nd, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 944-945.
(“You called me ‘child’ once again – I love that. I also like it when you tease me because it’s a sign that
you have tender feelings for me.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 105.) In a previous letter
Clara had expressed similar positive views: “Ich bin recht kindisch, das ist wahr, Du liebst es aber ja,
nanntest mich ja sonst öfters Dein liebes Kind.” Letter of January 6th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 852.
(“It’s true that I’m quitte childish, but you like that; you have often called me your dear child.” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 14.) Negative view: “Im Ernst aber, bin ich ein kleines Kind, daβ
sich zu dem Altar führen läβt wie zur Schule? Nein Robert. Wenn Du [K] mich Kind nennst, das [s] klingt
so lieb; aber, aber, wenn Du mich Kind [meinst] denkst, dann tret’ ich auf und sage ‘Du irrst’! Vertraue
mir wollkommen.” Letter of November 12th, 1837, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 42-43. (“But seriously, am I a
little child who will allow herself to be led to the altar as she was to school? No, Robert. When you call
me child, that sounds so sweet; but, but, when you think of me as a child, then I must put my foot down and
say ‘you are wrong!’ Trust me completely.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 41.) Emphasis
in original.
81
It is significant that Schumann felt the need to reassure himself of her love and conflate
the holy, angelic image of Clara with the image of Clara the child, both of which render
her harmless by idealizing her and depriving her of her individuality and her talents, at a
time when she was one of the foremost virtuosos of Europe.
The three archetypes discussed above are prominent in nineteenth-century artistic
works: they have also profoundly shaped social views of proper womanly behaviour. I
have shown to what extent they frame Schumann’s idealizations of Clara, idealizations
that link her with several recurring traits typically associated with femininity, angelic
figures and the Virgin Mary. Various traits, behaviours, emotions and attributes typically
linked with these idealizations, while present in real women, issue from male fantasies,
furthering male goals. They characterize countless artistic female characters and include
night, suffering, devotion, childlikeness, love, naivety, faithfulness and religion. Feminist
scholars have pointed out the dangers of such idealization and distanciation, due to its
potential to deprive women of individuality. As I hope to have shown, Schumann viewed
his future wife in a manner akin to idealized female figures in early nineteenth-century
romantic works: as a muse, idealized icon, devoted mother and beloved within the private
sphere. However, conflating his stereotypical feminine ideal with the image of the real
Clara, he also envisioned his wife in a more complex fashion. Other attributes, such as
her leadership and strength in the public sphere, not only masculinised his view of her,
they allowed to break out of the narrow confine of standard romantic archetypes, which
often limited women’s agency and strength.
82
Schumann and Gender: the Social Sphere
The previous sections examined Schumann’s idealization of Clara. Topics such
as love, redemption and religiosity have played a large role in describing three common
literary archetypes: the woman as a redeemer, the woman as a suffering image of the
Virgin Mary, and the woman as an idealized angelic figure. A devoted wife and mother
within the private sphere, Clara Schumann extended these three archetypes via her roles
as performer and composer within the public sphere. The remainder of this chapter,
drawing from the important work of Nancy B. Reich, looks first at Schumann’s
conception of gender in the context of early nineteenth-century society, and how this
influenced his views of his wife Clara. Following this, I show that Clara combined
attributes of both genders in her activities within the private and public spheres.
Schumann often ascribed to women a subordinate, passive role within the private
sphere, and at times explicitly referred to Clara as a housewife. 72 As a devoted mother
and wife, Clara was to remain at home, taking care of her children and ensuring the wellbeing of the family. 73 Schumann hoped to retain for himself the role of pater familias,
72
Reich mentions: “Robert would have been happy to live quietly, to have Clara perform for him and
perhaps some friends and provide a comfortable nest, like a conventional Hausfrau. For Clara, however,
such a life was impossible, and the conflict permeated their married life.” See Clara Schumann: The Artist
and the Woman, 83-84.
73
Both partners frequently referred to Clara as a housewife, particularly before their wedding. Robert:
“Kurz es scheint mir was Du diesmal durchkämpfst, ist eine recht sinnreiche Vorschule zur künftigen
Hausfrau und das Kochen wirst Du schon auch noch lernen.” Letter of January 15th, 1839, in Briefwechsel,
vol. 2, 356. (“In short, it seems to me that what you’re fighting your way through this time is a very
ingenious preparation for the future housewife, and you will learn to cook yet.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 2, 18-19.) Schumann also wrote: “Du mein liebes Hausweib Klara.” Letter of
January 2nd, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 844. (“[M]y dear housewife Klara.” English translation in
Correspondence, 1vol. 3, 6.) Clara viewed her role of housewife as permanent: “Wie gerne wäre ich
Morgen bei Dir und stellte Deine Hausfrau vor – für mein Leben gern!” Letter of January 11th, 1840, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 863. (“I would love to be with you tomorrow and play your housewife!” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 24.) At the end of August 1840, Robert conflated Clara the
housewife with Clara the child: “Deine zwei Briefe gestern hab’ ich, mein Kind. Du schreibst jetzt schon
recht ehefräulich; laβ dich küssen, Geliebte.” Letter of August 29th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1112. (“I
got your two letters yesterday, my child. You’re writing very much like a wife; let me kiss you, beloved.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 272.)
83
concerned about securing a stable position and earning a fixed income. 74 He saw this role
as a masculine and active one, a role he did his best to fulfill. Schumann did eventually
earn enough money to sustain his family: he turned to large-scale orchestral compositions
such as symphonies and oratorios shortly after his marriage, in a likely attempt to gain
wider recognition as a composer.75 His editorial duties for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik,
up to 1844, also provided a stable source of income, and later in life he secured a stable
conducting position in Düsseldorf while enjoying greater sums from the sale of his music.
Nevertheless, in the early years the couple mostly relied on Clara’s gains from her
lucrative concerts and her teaching.76 The role of housewife and mother, for which
women have often been said to possess innate abilities in an attempt to discourage them
from envisioning their lives differently, and which Schumann assumed would bring Clara
fulfillment, seems not to have been natural for her. She had to strive towards it and
74
Schumann wrote to Dr. Klitsch: “Oberländer bat ich, nicht etwa officielle Danksagung in der Leipziger
Zeitung zu veranlassen; eine kurze musikalische Notiz aber in den Kunstnachrichten ware mir sogar lieb,
damit man namentlich hier sähe, daβ man nicht ganz spurlos gearbeitet. Es würde mir sogar bei Hof
Nutzen bringen – denn auch darauf muβ ich, der ich nicht allein mehr stehe, mit einem Worte als besorgter
pater familias, achten und mir eine sichere bürgerliche Stellung anzubahnen suchen.” (“I’ve begged
Oberländer to publish in the Leipziger Zeitung certainly not an official acknowledgment, but I would
appreciate a short musical notice in the arts section, so that one could see that I have not worked in vain. It
would perhaps even be helpful at court – because in other words, I must also seek to secure a stable
position now that I am no longer by myself but head of a household.”) Letter of July 17th, 1847, in Briefe,
274. See also a letter to Kossmaly, the year of his oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri, where Schumann
affirmed that whereas before he cared little about his reputation, now that he has a wife and children, he
sees things differently. Letter of May 5th, 1843, in ibid., 227.
75
Reich mentions: “Yet Schumann (and Clara) firmly believed that it was necessary to prove oneself as a
composer by writing orchestral works in the larger, extended forms. The new head of the household may
also have been moved by practical considerations: recognition as a composer of symphonies would bring
financial rewards as well as status.” See her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 86. At the other
end of the generic spectrum, in an often-cited article, Barbara Turchin points out the complex set of
circumstances which may have led to Schumann’s turn to easily marketable, smaller-scale works such as
Lieder shortly after his marriage, in an attempt to gain wider recognition as a composer and be more secure
financially. See Turchin, “Schumann’s Conversion to Vocal Music: A Reconsideration,” The Musical
Quarterly 67 (1981): 392-404.
76
Reich points out: “They both knew she could earn more in one three-week concert tour than Schumann
obtained from composing and editing in a year. Glorying in her skill as a performing artist and manager,
this daughter of Friedrich Wieck never considered that her husband’s pride might suffer. Independent,
proud, and determined, she persisted in her professional career and savored both the money and the fame.”
Ibid., 90. Reich also points out that the income from Clara’s concert tours helped to pay for the rent and
other basic needs: ibid., 103.
84
doubted her capacities to fulfill this dual womanly role expected of her. 77 Reich even
questions her mothering abilities.78 Unwilling to embrace unconditionally stereotypes of
femininity without questioning or challenging them, she appeared in a very different light
than Schumann’s fiancée in 1833-1834, Ernestine von Fricken, who resembled more
closely the limiting archetypes discussed in Chapter One. While Borchard contends that
Clara exemplified the archetype of the woman-child, she remained an adult as far as work
is concerned. 79 Schumann described Ernestine as an idealized, redeeming figure, an
object curing him of extreme states of mind with her love. His description of her as pure
and childlike remained conventional: she displayed little profundity or psychological
sophistication. He nonetheless viewed her as his ideal wife. She appeared to him as “a
splendidly pure, child-like spirit, tender and thoughtful, with the most heartfelt love for
me and all things related to art – in short, all I could wish for in a wife.”80 Purity,
tenderness and childishness are feminine attributes which Schumann highly valued in
women. In 1829, he had described Clara von Kurrer, once his beloved, thus: “Clara – her
77
Clara: “Ein unbegränztes Vertrauen hab ich zu Dir, Du wirst mich ganz beglücken, aber auch ich will Dir
immer von ganzer Seele ergeben sein, mein ganzes Sinnen und Trachten ist ja Dein Glück. Gieb mir Deine
Hand, mein Robert, treu will ich mit Dir durch’s Leben gehen, Alles mit Dir theilen, und kann ich es, Dir
auch eine gute Hausfrau sein.” Letter of January 1st, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 841. (“I have boundless
trust in you; you will make me completely happy, and I will always be devoted to you with all my heart.
My every thought and wish is focused on your happiness. Give me your hand, my Robert; I will faithfully
go through life with you, share everything with you, and be a good housewife for you, too, if I can.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 3.)
78
“Her children took great pride in their mother but also suffered from the divided life she led. The
triumphant star, the renowned teacher, the successful editor and composer was unable to give her children
the emotional environment they needed.” Reich argues this comes from her own childhood and quotes this
letter from Clara to Schumann: “Father loved me very much, and I loved him too, but I did not have what a
girl needs so much – a mother’s love (…).” Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 133.
79
Borchard describes the blending of feminine attributes and masculine role in conjunction with Clara.
“Sie ist also beides: das Kind als Frau, wie Ernestine von Fricken, und Erwachsene in der Frage der
Arbeit.” (“She is both: woman as child, like Ernestine von Fricken, and grown up as regard questions of
work.”) Borchard, Clara Wieck und Robert Schumann, 81.
80
Schumann’s letter to his mother of July 2nd, 1834. Quoted in Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a
“New Poetic Age,” 139.
85
bridal naivety.”81 Described as pretty, but considered naïve and lacking in intellectual
capacities, Ernestine suffered bad press, both from Schumann’s contemporaries and later
critics and biographers. According to Wasielewski, Schumann was drawn to her because
of her “youthful bloom” and “sensual charms” which only appealed to the composer
because of his love for her, blinding him to her shortcomings.82 According to these
accounts, Ernestine remained bound by her biology, which limited her to love and
motherhood, depriving her of any claims to intellectual abilities.
Schumann expected from Clara a certain amount of submissiveness to his manly
will, reiterating the early nineteenth-century fantasy of men holding power in the social
sphere. In a letter of January 1838, he believed that women should not need more than
their husbands. 83 The following year, in a letter of January 1839, he viewed himself as
the sun, whose glory reflects on women, exemplifying male fantasies of women’s
dependency on them: “Sometimes I feel so blissful that I ask myself whether you will be
happy with me – a very satisfied, steadfast wife, like so many others who shine in the
dignity of their husbands and are attached to them with all their heart.”84 In a letter of
May 1839, Schumann, attempting to act manly and in control, wrote in a marked
81
Robert: “Clara – ihre bräutliche Naivität.” Entry of October 15th, 1829, in Robert Schumann Tagebücher,
Band I, 279.
82
“According to authentic accounts, Ernestine was neither remarkably handsome nor intellectual. It seems
that Schumann was led away by her youthful bloom and sensual charms, and that only the poetry of love
could perceive in those qualities which every man so gladly attributes to his love, even when they do not
exist.” Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski, Life of Robert Schumann, transl. A. L. Alger (Boston: O.
Ditson, 1871), 88. Borchard also discusses the various views concerning Ernestine von Fricken: see her
Clara Wieck und Robert Schumann, 74-80.
83
Robert: “Es ist nähmlich meine Meinung, daβ die Frau nicht mehr brauchen darf, als der Mann, – unter
allen Umständen. Meinst Du nicht?” Letter of January 4th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 70. (“I’m of the
opinion that a wife should not in any case need more than her husband. Don’t you agree?” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 71.)
84
Robert: “Ob Du nun auch bei mir glücklich werden wirst, möchte ich mich dann manchmal in meiner
Seligkeit fragen – ein recht zufriedenens festes Weib wie so manche, die so recht in der Würde des Mannes
glänzen, an ihm hängen von ganzer Seele.” Letter of January 24th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 366.
(English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 29.)
86
patriarchal tone: “Do you promise me that and that you won’t worry unnecessarily any
more and that you will trust me and be obedient to me since women are subordinate to
men?”85 Cooking, considered the domain of women, was a recurrent concern. In a letter
to Clara of April 1838, he asserted that when having guests, he expected her to cook,
remain at his service, and sit on his knees with a glass of champagne. 86 If one takes this
letter at face value, Robert’s image of Clara comes disturbingly close to those typical
patriarchal views of women which limit to the home their usefulness for men. In May
1838, he expressed fears concerning Clara’s cooking skills. 87 A year later, he suggested
that she could happily learn to cook with his sister-in-law Therese, and in another letter
again expressed fears at what he perceived as her inability to cook.88 In a letter to
Schumann of June 1839, however, Clara, who was travelling Europe and giving concerts,
85
Robert: “[V]erspricht Du mir das, Dir keine unnützen Sorgen mehr zu machen, und mir zu vertrauen und
mir folgsam zu sein, da nun einmal die Männer über den Frauen stehen.” Letter of May 18th, 1839, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 524-525. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 197.) Clara concurred, at
least partly, with her husband’s views: “Ueberhaupt sage mir nur immer Alles was Du gern hast, ich lebe ja
nur für Dich, und Dir immer nach Wunsch zu leben ist mein Bestreben. Das weiβt Du auch.” Letter of
August 28th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1108. (“In any case, always tell me what you like; I live only for
you and always strive to comply with your wishes. You know that.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 269.)
86
Robert: “Dagegen werd ich Dich manchmal bitten, für den oder jenen Künstler, den ich mitbringen will
zu Tisch, etwas parat zu halten und zu kochen u. da darf auch ein Glas Champagner nicht fehlen, da ich
Dich so gern schlürfen sehe, weil Du Dich dann (trotz des Gastes) mir auf den Schooβ setzen wirst und
fragen ‘bin ich Dir nicht etwa gut? Von Herzen, bester Mann’.” Letter of April 13th, 1838, in Briefwechsel,
vol. 1, 136. (“On the other hand I’ll sometimes ask you to have something ready to make for dinner when I
invite this artist or that. Then we should have a glass of champagne since I really like to watch you sip it
and since you will then sit on my lap (in spite of the guest) and ask, ‘Am I in love with you? With all my
heart, beloved husband.’.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 139.)
87
Robert: “Aber im Ernst, nun muβt Du Dich schon manchmal umsehen in der Küche u. Keller, und meine
Leibgerichte kochen können.” Letter of May 11th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 171. (“But seriously, you
will have to look after the kitchen and the cellar sometimes, and be able to cook my favourite meals.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 176.)
88
Robert: “Erstens (noch einen Kuβ) müβen junge Frauen gehörig kochen und wirthschaften können, wenn
sie zufriedene Männer haben wollen, das könntest Du aber unter Lachen und Scherzen bei Therese lernen.”
Letter of March 16th 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 443. (“First (another kiss), young wives must be able to
cook and keep house properly if they want to have satisfied husbands; you could laugh and have fun while
learning that from Therese.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 111.) And also Robert:
“‘Kochen?’ – Ich muβ mich doch einmal auch danach erkundigen. Wie ist’s denn mit dieser edeln Kunst.”
Letter of June 13th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 569. (‘“Cooking’ – I’ll have to inquire about that, too.
How are things going with that noble art?” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 244.) Emphasis
in original.
87
poked fun at those fears and, unconcerned by his comments, mentioned that while she’d
like to learn, she lacked time.89
Clara initially seemed willing envision for herself the womanly role of housewife,
explicitly connecting her love with feminine values of devotion, truthfulness and
domesticity. 90 She anticipated with “domestic happiness” her future role as devoted
housewife (but one which, as she implied, she had yet to learn), perfectly at ease in their
household, adamant to fulfill it to the best of her capacities to please her husband.91 The
stress of their legal appeal for the right to marry, combined with the demands of a
performing career which started at a very young age, took their toll. Relying on her
husband and submitting herself to his authority within the domestic sphere may at first
89
Clara: “Mit dem Kochen machst Du mich doch lachen! die Angst darum, diese Wichtigkeit mit der Du
diese Sachen verhandelst! doch glaub mir, ich denke wohl [auch] oft, es wäre doch hübsch, auch diese
schöne Kunst zu erlernen, doch wie soll ich es machen? hier hab ich keine Zeit, und ich denke, ich lerne es
bald, auch noch als Frau – doch ich suche es womöglich noch vorher zu erlernen, daβ ich es wenigstens
verstehe.” Letter of June 21st, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 584. (“What you wrote about cooking made
me laugh! You were so nervous about it and discussed it so officiously. Believe me, I often think it would
be nice to learn that wonderful art, but how am I to do that? I have no time here and think I’ll be able to
learn that soon once I am your wife – but I’ll try to learn before then, if possible, so at least I have some
idea.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 260.) A year later, in 1840, the topic was still on
Schumann’s mind: “September kömmt immer näher, und October, will ich recht bitten, könntest Du schon
das Kochbuch praktisch an mir anwenden?” Letter of February 2nd, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 906.
(“September is coming ever nearer, and I’ll ask you very nicely in October if you could try out the
cookbook on me.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 66.) Reich points out: “Though Robert
presented her with a cookbook inscribed ‘To my little housewife’ when they were first married, she never
did cook. Such tasks were left to servants (…).” See her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman,
275.
90
Concerning love and domesticity, see Clara’s following comment: “Ich liebe Dich doch wie nur Du es
wissen kannst, und ein liebend Weib bekommst Du an mir, häuslich auch, ob ich jedoch Alles recht machen
werde? nun ich lerne es nach und nach – [und] Du lehrst es mich.” Letter of June 27th, 1839, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 599. (“You alone know how I love you; I’ll be your loving wife, and a good
housewife, too. Will I be able to please you? I’ll learn bit by bit – you will teach me.” English translation
in Correspondence, vol. 2, 276.) Furthermore, Reich argues that Clara “always had a lingering fear that she
wasn’t pretty enough or intelligent enough to keep Robert happy.” See her Clara Schumann: The Artist
and the Woman, 78.
91
Clara: “Ach, wie freue ich mich auf unsere nette kleine Wirthschaft, und geht es nach meinem Sinn, so
lerne ich auch recht perfect darin schalten und walten, wie eine [-] Hausfrau, die Du ja so gerne an mir
haben willst – nicht wahr, mein Robert?” Letter of August 20th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1088. (“Oh,
how I’m looking forward to our nice little household, and if things go the way I want them to, I’ll learn to
manage things perfectly like the housewife you want me to be; isn’t that right, my Robert?” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 247.) Reich points out: “At times during and after her marriage
Clara insisted that her love for Robert was the most important consideration in her life, exceeding even her
art and career.” See her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 159.
88
have provided a source of relief. 92 It is perhaps in this light that Clara’s comments, in a
letter of June 1839, may be interpreted: “[Y]ou are my husband; I will do whatever you
want, and you will always find me to be your devoted wife.”93 Around that time, Clara
made comments that show the extent to which she had internalized nineteenth-century
views concerning appropriate womanly behaviour. In the first one (January 1840), she
exclaimed: “[G]ood Heavens, women are weak!”94 A month later she defined women by
their relationships to men: “I am only a tiny portion of myself without you; a woman
without a husband is nothing!”95 And in August 1840, a month before her wedding, she
promised: “I’ll always stick by you and be your devoted and virtuous wife.” 96 Schumann
expected and highly valued such feminine behaviour. Commenting on that last letter he
replied: “And for writing that you will always be devoted to me and want to be my
virtuous wife – I already knew that.”97 Two months after her wedding, forgetting her
subjectivity, she submitted herself to male authority: “I want to be under no-one else’s
92
Clara’s need for some more quiet time lasted for some months. In February 1841, she affirmed: “Wir
geniessen ein Glück, das ich früher nie gekannt – ein sogennantes häusliches Glück verspottete mein Vater
allezeit. Wie bedauere ich Die, die das nicht kennen! Sie leben doch nur halb!” (“We are enjoying a bliss
that I’ve never experienced before – my father always ridiculed this so-called domestic bliss. How I pity
those who do not know it! They are only half-alive!”) Entry for the week of 14-21 February, 1841, in
Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band II, 150.
93
Clara: “Du bist ja mein Mann, ich thue Alles was Du willst, Du sollst in mir immer Dein /Dir/ ganz
ergebenes Weib finden.” Letter of June 7th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 551. (English translation in The
Correspondence, vol. 2, 225.)
94
Clara: “[M]ein Gott, das Weib is nun einmal schwach.” Letter of January 15th, 1840, in Briefwechsel,
vol. 3, 872. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 34.)
95
Clara: “Ohne Dich bin ich nur ein kleiner Theil Ich, eine Frau ohne Mann ist Nichts!” Letter of February
15th, 1843, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1199. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 361.) Emphasis
in original.
96
Clara: “Ich werde immer an Dir halten mit aller Ergebenheit und will immer Dein tugendhaftes Weib
seyn.” Letter of August 20th 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1087. (English translation in Correspondence,
vol. 3, 247.) Reich quotes this telling comment from Clara’s diary made on the day of her wedding: “Now
a new life is beginning, a beautiful life, a life in which love for him is greater than all else, but difficult
duties are nearing as well. Heaven grant me the strength to fulfill them faithfully, as a good wife should.”
In Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 79.
97
Robert: “Und daβ Du mir schriebst ‘daβ Du mir immer ergeben sein, und mein tugendhaftes Weib sein
wollest’ – das hab’ ich wohl schon gewuβt und gedacht.” Letter of August 26th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol.
3, 1101. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 261.)
89
influence other than that of my husband, for whom alone I live.” 98 Despite Clara’s
comments above, however, Reich contends: “More characteristic, and certainly more
consistent with her personality, are the many references to her own artistic sphere found
throughout her letters and diaries.”99
Schumann idealized his future wife and unquestioningly assumed she would
fulfill a stereotypical domestic role, but also recognized Clara’s intellectual abilities and
critical thinking in both literary and musical matters. As such, she shines in a different
light than most early nineteenth-century German women, who were not expected to voice
ideas of their own.100 Her husband valued her opinion and knowledge, repeatedly asking
her to comment on and criticize his works. In this he was no different than other
prominent composers such as Brahms who for most of his creative life not only
welcomed, but relied on, her compositional advice, a topic Reich explores at length. 101 In
a letter of February 1838 while in Vienna, then the musical capital of Europe, Schumann
asked Clara for an honest opinion concerning the Fantasiestücke Op. 12 and the
Davidsbündlertänze Op. 6, affirming that he didn’t have anyone but her with which to
98
Clara: “Ich will unter Niemandes Einfluss jemals leben als unter meines Mannes, für Den allein ich ja nur
lebe.” Entry of November 17th, 1840, in Tagebücher, Band II, 124.
99
Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 160.
100
Henriette Voigt, Schumann’s close friend, also possessed strong intellectual and critical abilities. He
asked her for help in locating a passage in Dante’s Divine Comedy for an article on Ludwig Berger (letter
of August 1834). Schumann wrote to her: “Sagten Sie mir nicht, daβ die letzte Studie nach einer Stelle aus
Dantes Comödie entstanden ist? Wie heiβt die Stelle? Wissen Sie sonst noch etwas, was ich benutzen und
einbauen könnte?” (“Didn’t you tell me that the last etude was inspired by a passage in Dante’s Comedy?
How is this passage called? Do you know anything more that I could use and upon which I could build?”)
In Briefe, 55. Four years later, he welcomed her warm opinion of the Fantasiestücke, affirming to her:
“Daβ sie sich meiner Phantasiestücke so warm annehmen, ist mir schon recht. Ich bedarf solcher
Amazonen.” (“I am pleased by your warm reception of my Phantasiestücke. I need such Amazons.”)
Letter of June 11th, 1838, in ibid., 121.
101
About Brahms, Reich points out: “Soon after their [Clara and Brahms] parting in 1856, Brahms began to
send her his manuscripts for comments, suggestions, advice, and criticism. Of his 122 compositions later
published with opus numbers, he had asked for her advice, reactions, and comments on at least 82.” See
her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 184.
90
discuss his art.102 In January 1840, he sought counsel from her on possible titles for the
Nachtstücke Op. 23.103 In May 1840, he asked for her thoughts on his Humoreske B-dur
Op. 20, wondering about its effect.104 Clara possessed a sharp critical eye: outspoken,
she offered advice on potential revisions to his compositions, and did not uncritically
accept the changes he suggested to hers.105 Two months later, Schumann, considering an
102
Robert: “Schreib mir, wie Dir die Phantasiestücke u. Davidsbündlertänze gefallen – aufrichtig, nicht wie
Deinem Bräutigam, sondern wie Deinem Mann – hörst Du? Die Traumes Wirren, denk’ ich, kannst Du mit
dem ‘Abend’ einmal öffentlich spielen. ‘In der Nacht’ scheint mir zu lang. Schreib mir auch, wie die
Wiener die Etüden aufgenommen haben – hörst Du? Ich hab‹e› Niemanden, mit dem ich über meine Kunst
sprechen könnte – jetzt. Du bist mir Allein.” Letter of February 12th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 105.
(“Tell me how you liked the Fantasiestücke and the Davidsbündlertänze – honestly, write to me not as your
fiancé, but rather as your husband – do you hear? I think you can perform ‘Traumeswirren’ with ‘Abend’
sometimes. ‘In der Nacht’ seems too long to me. Write to me about how the Viennese received the Etudes
– do you hear? I have no one with whom I could speak about my art – now. You’re the only one.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 107.)
103
Robert: “Die Nachtstücke hab’ ich ganz in Ordnung gebracht. Was meinst Du, wenn ich sie so nännte:
1. Trauerzug. 2. Curiose Gesellschaft. 3. Nächtliche Gelage. 4. Rundgesang mit Solostimmen. Ich denke
aber, die Musik spricht das ohnehin deutlich aus. Ist’s nicht so? Schreib mir Deine Meinung!” Letter of
January 17th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 877. (“I have straightened out the Nachstücke. What would
you think if I called them: 1. Trauerzug. 2. Kuriose Gesellschaft. 3. Nächtliches Gelage. 4. Rundgesang
mit Solostimmen. I believe that the music expresses that very clearly anyhow. Isn’t that right? Give me
your opinion.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 39.)
104
Robert: “Sag mir doch, Klärchen, was hältst Du denn von der Humoreske? Macht Manches darin
keinen eigenen Eindruck auf Dich?” Letter of May 22nd, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1044. (“Tell me,
Klärchen, what do you think of the Humoreske? Don’t many things in it have an unusual effect on you?”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 202.) Clara replied: “Deine Humoreske gefällt mir im
Einzelnen ausnehmend, und Recht has Du, Manches macht einen ganz eigenen Eindruck – es sind einige
Stellen darin, die mich immer ganz fortreiβen, aber auch Verschiedenes darin gefällt mir nicht, das ich Dir
zeigen werde, wenn Du mir’s erlaubst.” Letter of May 23rd, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1045. (“I like
your Humoreske exceedingly, and you are right; many passages have an unusual effect – I get carried away
by them sometimes, but there are several things in it that I don’t like; I will show you if you permit me to.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 203.) And in a letter of January 3rd, 1840, Clara reported
having corrected Schumann’s Drei Romanzen Op. 28 and the third Nachtstück in a few places, while
begging for forgiveness if by chance she corrected something wrongly. See her letter in Briefwechsel, vol.
3, 845.
105
Clara: “Sag mir doch, lieber Robert, warum hast Du zu Anfang des Liedes 2 Quinten? das fällt doch ein
wenig auf, jedes Mal wenn ich’s spiele stört es mich. Hast Du’s noch nicht bemerkt? oder is das
absichtlich?” Letter of March 9th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 973. (“But I’ve been wondering about the
two fifths at the beginning of the lied, dear Robert. That’s so obvious and bothers me each time I play it.
Havn’t you noticed it? Or is it meant to be like that?” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 132.)
Conversely, while welcoming them, Clara remained strongly critical of the changes Schumann made to her
own works. She affirmed that the theme to one of her composition, which he modified, is now too simple
and clear: while “more artful,” in her opinion it lacks effect. Clara: “Die Idylle hab ich bekommen und
danke Dir, mein Lieber, dafür, doch verzeihst Du mir gewiβ, wenn ich Dir sage, daβ mir Einiges daran
nicht gefällt. De[r]n Schluβ, mir fast das Liebste, hast Du ganz und gar geändert, und der machte auf Jeden
Effekt, dem ich ihn vorspielte; das Thema scheint mir gleich im Anfang zu gelehrt, etwas zu wenig einfach
und klar, freilich kunstreicher gesetzt.” Letter of June 16th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 577. (“I received
the Idylle, and I thank you for it, my dear, but you will surely forgive me if I tell you that there are some
91
opera on Hoffmann’s novel Doge und Dogaressa, considered her a colleague and asked
her in a letter of March 1840: “Read it very carefully; (…) give me your opinion, your
doubts.”106 Clara readily complied with Schumann’s wishes and was not afraid to state
her opinion: however, in typically feminine fashion, she worried, as late as 1848, about
how her husband would receive her critical comments about his works.107
Clara as Performer
As a performer, Clara saw herself as the equal of male artists, with whom and for
whom she performed from her earliest youth.108 Such assurance in her performing
abilities came from her father, Friedrich Wieck, who, as Reich believes, from the
beginning of Clara’s career treated her as a professional musician and was convinced that
gender was no obstacle to artistic greatness. 109 His house was filled with musicians, most
of them male, and Clara played for Goethe as a child.110 Reich points out that Wieck
treated her as if she were above gender: “From the beginning, at a time when middlethings about it that I don’t like. You completely changed the ending which I liked best; it impressed
everyone for whom I played it; it seems to me that the theme in the beginning is too learned; it’s not simple
and clear enough, although it is more artistically treated.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2,
252.)
106
Robert: “Lies sie Dir recht fleissig durch; (…) sag mir Deine Ansicht, Deine Bedenklichkeiten.” Letter
of March 13th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 981. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 139.)
107
Clara gave an honest opinion about his Sonata in G minor, Op. 22. She immediately added, however:
“Nicht wahr, Du nimmst mir das nicht übel, Du schriebst mir ja ich sollte Dir meine Meinung schreiben als
wärst Du mein Mann.” Letter of March 3rd, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 108. (“You won’t hold this
against me, will you? You did write to me that I should be as open with you as if you were my husband.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 110.) Clara also wrote in the diary: “Einige kleine Urtheile
im Bezug auf diesen Abend hätte ich mir gern noch erlaubt, doch fürchte ich, mein liebert Robert, Du
erzürnst Dich gleich, und ärgern will ich Dich nicht, das weisst Du, wenn ich es auch manchmal in meiner
Einfältigkeit thue.” (“I would have allowed myself a few remarks regarding that evening, but I feared, my
dear Robert, that you would immediately be enraged, and I don’t want to anger you, you know that, even if
I sometimes do so due to my simple-mindedness.”) Entry of January 1841, in Tagebücher, Band II, 144.
108
Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 4.
109
“Convinced that gender was no handicap in the race for artistic greatness, he gave Clara the instruction
and musical understanding that carried her beyond the ranks of the merely gifted to a position in the
constellation of the great nineteenth-century virtuosi.” Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman,
4.
110
Ibid., 27.
92
class girls were expected to learn to tickle the piano keys prettily enough to amuse a
husband but not to attract public attention, Wieck envisioned Clara as a musician – a
great performer – and insisted that she could do anything a boy could do.”111 She
developed traits which conflicted with nineteenth-century norms of femininity. The
conflation, in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst (January 1838), of the names “Clara
Wieck” and “Beethoven” in a poem by Grillparzer, while reinstating stereotypical views
of womanhood, testifies to the high status reached by the performer. To some listeners,
her style of playing blended masculine and feminine attributes. While Clara was in Paris,
Friedrich List reported in the Augsburger Allgemeine (March 1839): “Meyerbeer
allegedly said that she unites masculine strength with feminine grace.”112 And while the
couple toured in Russia, an anonymous witness affirmed that Clara was “a great artist
with masculine energy and feminine instinct in interpretation and execution.”113
In her handling of private and public spheres, Clara assumed male and female
gender roles. Robert Haven Schauffler believes that Clara “also possessed, beneath her
feminine exterior, a doughty gift of truly masculine determination and initiative.”114 A
111
Ibid., 55.
“Meyerbeer soll von ihr gesagt haben, sie vereinige männliche Kraft mit weiblicher Grazie.” Quoted in
Borchard, “Orte und Strategien der Kulturvermittlung. Oder: Clara Schumann als ‘konzertierende
Vermittlerin’ deutscher Instrumentalmusik in Paris,” in Übergänge Zwischen Künsten und Kulturen:
Internationaler Kongress zum 150. Todesjahr von Heinrich Heine und Robert Schumann, ed. Henriette
Herwig, Volker Kalisch, Bernd Kortländer, Joseph A. Kruse and Bernd Witte (Stuttgart and Weimar:
Verlag J. B. Metzler, 2007), 97. Article written on March 4th, 1839. Two months later, again in the
Augsburger Allgemeine, Friedrich List makes similar comments: “Alle unpartheiischen Kunstrichter weisen
ihr einstimmig den Rang neben Liszt und Thalberg an, und als eine noch nie dagewesene
Eigenthümlichkeit der groβen Künstlerin heben sie hervor, dass sie auf bewundernswürdige Weise
männliche Kraft und weibliche Grazie vereinige.” (“Every impartial art critic mentions her rank equal to
that of Liszt and Thalberg and mention, as an idiosyncratic quality of the great artist, that she astonishingly
blends manly strength and feminine grace.”) Quoted in Borchard, “Orte und Strategien der
Kulturvermittlung,” 97. Borchard believes such a synthesis of masculine strength and feminine grace is
due to her unusual repertoire (not so much transcriptions of Italian opera, but the German music of Bach
and Beethoven). Ibid., 98.
113
Quoted in Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 98.
114
Robert Haven Schauffler, Florestan: the Life and Work of Robert Schumann (New York: H. Holt, 1945),
107.
112
93
mother and wife within the private domestic sphere, she retained her performing activities
within the public sphere: Reich provides the full extent of her concertizing activities,
which are far greater than usually assumed. 115 Clara taught and toured extensively, both
close to home and farther abroad, and during her marriage gave important series of
concerts in Copenhagen (1842) and Russia (1844). She performed with such outstanding
musicians as Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Joseph Joachim, Julius Stockhausen
and Jenny Lind, and her musical activities over more than sixty years had a long-lasting
influence for much of the nineteenth century. Reich provides an account in which the
problems of modern-day two-income families are expressed in full force: “This girl, born
in an age when musical talent in a female was generally regarded only as an asset in the
marriage market, subsequently built a glorious career that spanned over sixty years, a
career that influenced the concert and musical life of the nineteenth century.
Acknowledged as the peer of Franz Liszt, Thalberg and Anton Rubinstein, she was a
thorough professional and a working wife and mother, managing the manifold problems
of a career, household, husband, and children.” 116 Both before and after her wedding, she
contributed substantially to the family income by teaching privately and concertizing, in
both public and private venues. Schumann was fully aware that her earnings were
essential, that his income alone would not suffice.117 Clara also displayed strong
115
Reich provides, in the section “The Concert Artist” of her 2001 biography of Clara Schumann, the full
extent of her performing career. Page 267 provides a table of her foreign tours, 38 in total: while curtailed
somewhat during her marriage, it appears that Clara went on tour almost every year during Schumann’s
hospitalization in Endenich and after his death.
116
Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 4.
117
Schumann: “Und da muβt Du Dir freilich Einiges verdienen, was Du ja auch gern thust. Zwar weiβ ich,
gibt’s einen alten Satz, nach dem der Mann die Frau ganz allein erhalten soll – nun, ich mache mir keine
finsteren Gedanken darüber, daβ mir das nicht möglich ist – Du kennst mich, wir werden uns schon
gegenseitig unterstützen, – ein treues warmes Herz lohnt es Dir.” Letter of April 14th, 1838, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 142. (“And then, of course, you will also have to earn something and will gladly do
so. I do know that there’s a saying that the husband has to support his wife entirely by himself – well, I
94
entrepreneurial skills which early nineteenth-century women did not typically possess.
As Reich mentions, she developed these during her teenage years, while traveling with
her father, which also helped her built a strong and assertive character: “In counting on
her need for him as a teacher, father, protector, Wieck ignored all she had learned from
that same source: practicality, self-confidence, and a particular hardheaded
stubbornness.”118 From the age of nineteen, when she became estranged from her father,
the independent Clara was forced to manage her career herself. After initial doubts, she
soon realized she could do just as well without him, and this gave her confidence.
Schumann however, accepted with difficulty Clara’s desire to be professionally
active, even if he eventually did come to terms with her need to perform publicly. 119 He
placed Clara the woman above Clara the artist: at least once, he saw these two positions
as contradictory.120 He strongly encouraged her to remove herself from the public eye, at
least temporarily, stressing her primary duty as a mother and wife within the narrow
confine of the private sphere. Replying to a letter by Clara in which she expressed
concerns about being forgotten after marriage, he wrote in June 1839 a letter in which his
ambivalence about Clara’s career are expressed:
I just read in your letter, ‘If I stay in Dresden for a year, I’ll be forgotten as a
musician’ – Klärchen, you’re not really serious – and if you were forgotten as a
musician, won’t you be loved as a wife? (…) [Y]ou should forget the musician
won’t get depressed because that’s not possible for me to do – you know me; we will support each other – a
faithful and warm heart will reward you.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 146.)
118
Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 65.
119
Reich explores at length the crisis, marital disputes and ambiguities created by this situation in the
section “The Marriage” of her biography of Clara Schumann. She points out: “Schumann was happiest
when Clara could settle down for a few months, as she did on her return to Leipzig in April 1842 [after the
Copenhagen tour], to the life he had envisioned before their marriage: Hausfrau, mother, hostess, student
(with Robert she began to study the string quartets of Haydn and Mozart).” Ibid., 93.
120
Concerning the singer Wilhelmine Schroeder-Devrient, Schumann affirmed: “Aber eine Hausfrau, ein
Weib, eine Mutter kann eine solche Künstlerin nicht sein, und sie ist es wohl auch nicht.” (“A housewife, a
woman, a mother, cannot be such an artist, as she isn’t such one.”) Entry for the week of 14-21 March
1841, in Tagebücher, Band II, 155.
95
the first year of our marriage; you should live for no one but yourself and your
house and your husband, and just wait and see how I make you forget the
musician – no, the wife is more important than the musician, and my fondest wish
will have been fulfilled if I can get you to have nothing more to do with the
public.121
Disturbingly, Schumann’s comment implies that women should only desire the
love of their husbands in a domestic setting. Borchard, discussing this particular
comment, offers an interpretation, arguing that while Schumann needed Clara’s
successes, he also feared them, perhaps explaining why he attempted to hold them in
check.122 A year after their wedding, Schumann stated in their joint diary: “Sure enough,
the artist must sacrifice many hours to motherhood” as if this was a known fact that
should not be questioned. 123 As late as 1850, Schumann, aware of Clara’s “great talent,”
still felt the need to mention with pride that Clara’s “wonderful qualities as housewife”
121
Robert: “Eben las ich Deinem Brief ‘bleibe ich ein Jahr in Dresden, so bin ich als Künstlerin vergeβen’
– Klärchen, das ist doch nicht Dein Ernst – und [bist] / würdest / Du auch als Künstlerin vergeβen, wirst Du
denn nicht als Weib geliebt? (…) Das erste Jahr unserer Ehe sollst Du die Künstlerin vergeβen, sollst
nichts als Dir u. Deinem Haus und Deinem Mann leben, und warte Du nur, wie ich Dir die Künstlerin
vergeβen machen will – nein das Weib steht doch noch höher als die Künstlerin, und erreiche ich nur das,
daβ Du gar nichts mehr mit der Oeffentlichkeit zu thun hättest, so wäre mein innigster Wunsch erreicht.”
Letter of June 13th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 571. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 246.)
Emphasis in original. Clara replied: “Ich bleibe wo Du willst mein geliebter Robert, und ganz Recht hast
Du, als Weib geliebt zu sein ist ja das Höchste! ja, nur Dir will ich leben, und Dich glücklich machen!”
Letter of June 21st, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 582. (“I will go wherever you wish, my beloved Robert,
and I quite agree with you; the greatest thing is being loved as a wife! I want to live for you alone and
make you happy!” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 258.)
122
“Ihr künftiger Mann brauchte zwar ihren Erfolg, fürchtete ihn jedoch gleichzeitig, weil er sie, wie er ihr
schrieb, künftig ‘die Künstlerin vergeβen machen will nein, das Weib steht doch noch höher als die
Künstlerin, und erreiche ich nur das, dass Du gar nichts mehr mit der Öffentlichkeit zu thun hättest, so ware
mein innigster Wunsch erreicht.’” (“Her future husband certainly needed her successes, but he also feared
them, because he wrote to her that he will ‘make you forget the musician – no, the wife is more important
than the musician, and my fondest wish will have been fulfilled if I can get you to have nothing more to do
with the public’.”) Borchard, “Orte und Strategien der Kulturvermittlung,” 95.
123
Robert: “Auch Klara hat eine kleine Composition fertig, die einen recht schönen Charakter athmet.
Aber freilich, die Künstlerin muss der Mutter schon manche Stunde aufopfern.” (“Clara has also finished a
small composition, displaying a truly lovely character. But admittedly the artist must sacrifice many hours
in order to fulfill her duties as a mother.”) Entry for the weeks of September 27-October 24 1841, in
Tagebücher, Band II, 187.
96
were publicly known. 124 Perhaps Schumann’s emphasis on Clara’s exemplary behaviour
within the private sphere and her compliance with stereotypical norms of femininity
served to alleviate his fears and legitimize her public activities in his eyes.
Clara, like countless early nineteenth-century women, initially appeared ready to
sacrifice her career for her husband and children. In a letter of April 1838, she affirmed
her willingness to practice her art privately, as a dilettante and teacher, and not to belong
to the public sphere but entirely to her husband. 125 However, some of Clara’s letters to
Schumann show that she may not have envisioned her future role of mother and wife with
complete happiness, and maternity did not bring her the fulfillment she sought. Already
in November 1837, she voiced concerns at having to “bury her talent” and give up
concertizing after marrying.126 Once married, pregnancies, maternal cares and domestic
duties, as well as her husband’s monopoly of the piano when composing, cut
considerably into her practice time. 127 Schumann recognized that his composing was
detrimental to his wife’s musical activities, but while both partners sought compromises
124
Schumann wrote to J. C. Lobe: “Nun, das Urtheil über sie, ihr groβes Talent, ihre herrlichen
Eigenschaften als Hausfrau, steht ja so ziemlich fest in der öffentlichen Meinung.” (“Now the opinion
about her, her great talent, her wonderful qualities as housewife, they stand quite firm in the public mind.”)
Letter of March 1850, in Briefe, 328.
125
Clara: “[N]ur der Gedanke kann mich erheitern, [mich] 1später der Kunst nur als Dilettantin zu leben,
wohl Stunden Einige zu geben, doch nicht mehr der Welt anzugehören; Dir nur will ich gehören, Du sollt
das Publikum sein, Du wirst mir Kränze winden – die Schönsten Kränze der Liebe.” Letter of April 26th,
1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 159. (“The only thought that can cheer me is to live as an amateur pianist
later, to give a few lessons, and not to play in public anymore. I want to be yours alone; you shall be my
audience; you will make wreaths for me – the most beautiful wreaths of love.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 1, 164.)
126
Clara: “Bedenke daβ, so einfach ich erzogen, ich doch nie eine Sorge gehabt und nun sollt ich meine
Kunst vergraben müssen!” Letter of November 24th, 1837, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 46. (“Bear in mind that
I’ve never had a care, as modestly as I was brought up, and now I would have to bury my talent!” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 45.)
127
Clara: “Ich spiele jetzt fast gar nicht; am Tage geht es nicht, da stört es Robert, und Abends bin ich
immer zu müde dazu, und meine Umstände erschweren mir das Spielen gar zu sehr.” (“I almost do not
play at all at the moment; I can’t during the day since it disturbs Robert, and in the evening I’m always too
tired, and my condition makes playing much too difficult.”) Entry of early April 1843, in Tagebücher,
Band II, 261. Clara was then pregnant with the couple’s second child, Elise, born on April 25th, 1843.
97
and solutions, he was unwilling to make adjustments. He made it clear that his talent had
precedence over that of his wife, a situation he assumed she would fully understand. 128
The energetic Clara, however, never stopped performing publicly, always striving
forward.129 Schumann recognized this and often encouraged her even if he would have
preferred her to teach at home instead, a more typical occupation. In March 1838, he
affirmed that he could not think of her without her art.130 Also in 1838, when the couple
considered moving to Vienna, Schumann realized that Clara’s artistic endeavours as well
as her connections and high position in the Viennese nobility, instead of his journalistic
or composing activities, would enable them to earn a living.131 The year prior to their
128
Robert: “Sorge macht mir oft, daβ ich Klara in ihren Studien oft hindere, da sie mich nicht im
Componiren stören will. (…) Aber jene mechanische Sicherheit zur Unfehlbarkeit gleichsam zu erhöhen,
dazu fehlt es ihr jetzt manchmal an Zeit, und daran bin ich Schuld und kann es doch nicht ändern. Klara
sieht doch auch ein, daβ ich ein Talent zu pflegen habe, und daβ ich jetzt in der schönsten Kraft bin und die
Jugend noch nützen muβ.” (“I’m often concerned that I hinder Clara during her studies, because she
doesn’t want to disturb me when I’m composing. (…) But she sometimes lacks time to bring up her
technique to the point of flawlessness, and I bear the blame for that but cannot do anything about it. Clara
realize that I have a talent to nurture, and that I am now at the peak of my strength and must still take
advantage of my youth.”) Entry of October 1842, in Tagebücher, Band II, 250. Reich succinctly sums up
how the conflict was usually resolved: “She was unhappy, he felt guilty, but both agreed that his work had
to take precedence.” Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 87.
129
The words “immer vorwärts” in conjunction with Clara recur frequently in Schumann’s writings. Apart
from the already cited letter of late June 1843, Robert encouraged Clara, in a letter of March 29th, 1838, to
takes lessons in the (masculine) compositional technique of the fugue because “es erfreut und bringt immer
vorwärts” (“it’s enjoyable and helps you make progress”). In Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 126. And Schumann
wrote to Dr. E. Krüger: “Im Hause sieht es sehr lebendig aus. Fünf Kinder springen herum, fangen schon
an auf Mozart und Beethoven zu lauschen. Die Frau ist die alte, immer vorwärts strebende.” (“In the house
it is very lively. Five children are jumping around, are already starting to look at Beethoven and Mozart.
My wife is the same as usual, always striving forwards.”) Letter of November 29th, 1849, in Briefe, 321.)
Clara’s strivings were not only recognized by Schumann, but this particular character trait constituted such
an obvious part of her personality that it could be almost casually mentioned, without further need for
elaboration.
130
Robert: “[D]enn es / hängt Alles, gehört und stimmt Alles zusammen bei Dir, daβ ich mir Dich gar nicht
ohne die Kunst denken kann.” Letter of March 19th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 128. (“[B]ecause
everything is connected, belongs together and harmonizes in you so that I can’t even imagine you without
your music.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 131.)
131
Robert: “Wirst Du mich denn auch fort und fort lieben? Wird Deine schöne aufopfernde Liebe
ausdauern? Das Wort zeichnete ich aus, weil wir ohne Deine Kunst allerdings nicht bestehen könnten in
einer Stadt wie Wien. Wirst Du Dich nicht nach Ruhe sehnen? Nur ein getreues sorgendes Weib sein?
Werd ich dich so glücklich machen, als Du glaubst, Du es verdienst?” Letter of March 19th, 1838, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 127-128. (“Will you love me forever? Will your wonderful, sacrificing love last? I
underlined this word because we couldn’t last in a city like Vienna without your music. Won’t you long for
peace and quiet? Won’t you want to be just a faithful and caring wife? Will I make you as happy as you
98
wedding, Clara expressed a wish to move to a large city offering opportunities for
professional activity and monetary gains, beneficial both to her sense of fulfillment and
the household finances. 132 Clara’s public performances played an important role in the
promotion of her husband’s compositional career: from her late teens, she had full say
over her concert programs, and could advise him about programming as well. In a letter
of January 1840, she suggested which of his compositions Liszt should perform, which
ones she thought would make the greatest effect.133 As late as 1851, Schumann
commented in letters to friends about Clara’s need to constantly move forward, a fact he
viewed positively. 134 A year later, he remained concerned about employment
think you deserve to be?” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 130-131.) Emphasis in original.
Schumann wrote to his brothers Carl and Eduard: “Der schönsten Aussichten ist meine Zukunft voll –
meine Zeitung nehme ich mit dorthin – Clara ist dort hoch angesehen – kann sich spielend dort soviel
verdienen, auch ich habe einen Namen dort – Clara schreibt mir, daβ es mir nicht schwer fallen wird, eine
Stelle als Professor am Wiener Conservatoire zu erhalten (die Kaiserin hat Clara’n persönlich gern) – kurz,
alles ist dafür (…).” (“My future is filled with the most beautiful perspectives – I will bring my journal
there – Clara is held in high esteem– she can earn quite a bit with her playing, and I too have a reputation
there – Clara writes to me that it won’t be difficult for me to find a position as a professor at the Vienna
Conservatory (the Kaiserin likes Clara personally) – in short, everything speaks for it (…).”) Letter of
March 19th, 1838, Briefe, 113. At this time, Schumann was not a well-enough established composer to earn
a living solely from composition, and difficulties with the authorities made it impossible for him to publish
his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in Vienna.
132
See her letters to Robert of October 16th, 1839 where she suggested a move to Berlin, and her letter of
May 23rd, 1840. From these letters it is clear that Clara needs to be professionally active not only to earn
money, but also to find in herself a deeper sense of fulfillment at being economically independent. Her
letter of May 23rd 1840 for instance reads: “[B]edenke, lieber Robert, wenn ich täglich nur zwei Stunden
gebe (die become ich doch gewiβ in jeder groβen Stadt), so ist das doch kein geringer Zuschuβ, und ich
würde dann auch eine Befriedigung in mir selbst finden, und brauchtest Dich nicht geradezu in Deiner
Klause zu verriegeln.” In Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1045. (“Bear in mind, dear Robert, if I were to give only
two lessons a day (I’m sure I can easily do that in any big city), I would be adding quite a bit to our income.
I would also find satisfaction in my work, and you wouldn’t need to lock yourself in your cell.” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 203.)
133
Clara: “Was für Carnavalstücke hast Du Liszt zum Spielen geschrieben? laβ mich’s wissen. Er soll
doch lieber z. B. den Marsch aus der Fantasie spielen, kannst Du ihm das nicht schreiben? Das wird von
ihm gespielt noch mehr Effect machen.” Letter of January 6th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 852. (“Let
me know which pieces from Carnaval you suggested to Liszt. Can’t you tell him to play the march from
the Fantasy? It would produce an even greater effect if it were played by him.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 14.)
134
Schumann wrote to Dr. E. Krüger: “Die Frau ist die alte, immer vorwärts strebende…” (“My wife is the
same as usual, always striving onwards…”) Letter of November 29th, 1849, in Briefe, 321. Another letter
by Schumann to Moritz Hauptmann views his wife’s activities positively: “Sonst sind wir Alle, dem
Himmel Dank, ziemlich wohl, meine Frau fortwährend thätig, wie Sie sie kennen – und möge es bleiben.”
99
opportunities for Clara (albeit in a private setting), mentioning in a letter of June 1852 to
Kapellmeister Gottfried Hermann: “I would like to have your opinion about whether or
not you think it would be possible for my wife, who is used to accomplish and act, to find
a sphere of activity, perhaps at court.”135
The pragmatic Clara often assumed, with her concert tours, the masculine role of
breadwinner and expressed a need to be economically independent.136 Schumann’s
ambiguities concerning her financial successes and public concertizing activities are
expressed in several letters. In a letter to Therese Schumann of December 1838 he wrote:
“Clara goes to Paris at the beginning of January and then probably to London. We will
then be quite far from one another. Sometimes I can hardly bear it. But you know the
reason: she wants to earn more money, and we need it.”137 On January 1839 he
fantasized about Clara asking him for money, while complaining that she never did. 138
(“Otherwise we’re all quite well, thanks Heaven, my wife is constantly busy, as you know her – and let it
remain that way.”) Letter of May 8th, 1851, in ibid., 342.
135
Schumann wrote to Kapellmeister Gottfried Hermann: “Noch möchte ich auch Ihre Meinung, ob Sie
glauben, daβ sich auch für meine Frau, die zu schaffen und wirken gewohnt ist, irgend ein Wirkungskreis
finden würde, vielleicht auch durch den fürstlichen Hof.” Letter of June 12th, 1852, in ibid., 357.
136
Reich affirms: “She [Clara] perceived herself as a professional and even during her married life took
pride in the fact that she could earn money with her talent and skills, though to some extent she attempted
to conceal it in deference to her husband’s feelings and the tradition of male support of the family.” See
her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 161. Reich also points out: “[Clara] accepted fully the
dictum that the husband was the dominating figure in a marriage, but in this case the situation was
complicated by the fact that Clara Wieck Schumann was a celebrated performer and earned more money
than her husband.” Ibid., 218.
137
Schumann wrote to Therese Schumann: “Clara geht Anfang Januar nach Paris und später wahrscheinlich
nach London. Da wären wir denn in ziemlicher Entfernung von einander. Manchmal ertrag ich es kaum.
Aber du weiβt den Grund; sie will sich noch verdienen, und wir haben’s nöthig. Beschütze sie denn der
gute Gott, dies gute treue Mädchen.” Letter of December 18th, 1838, in ibid., 145.
138
Robert: “Freuen würde ich mich schon, wenn Du mir manchmal schreibst ‘l.R., was meinst Du denn
dazu oder dazu’ oder ‘deine zufünftige Frau braucht dringend viel Geld; schick ihr’ wie gesagt, sehr freuen
würde ich mich. Aber Du läβest mich auch gar nichts für Dich machen.” Letter of January 15th, 1839, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 355. (“I’d be pleased if you were to write sometimes, ‘Dear Robert, what do you
think about this or that? Or ‘Your future wife urgently needs a lot of money; send it to her.’ As I said, I’d
be very pleased. But you don’t let me do anything for you.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2,
18.) Clara, for her part, took pride in being able to earn the money she needed to live while in Paris, in
1839. During Schumann’s illness and after his death, she refused all financial help from friends, preferring
to concertize to meet the needs of her family, but also for her own sake. Reich points out: “[After
Schumann died,] [t]hough friends offered money and established funds to help pay for Schumann’s medical
100
Two letters, written a month apart in 1839, reveal conflicting views about Clara’s
financial successes. In the first one, he encouraged her concertizing activities, asking his
future wife if perhaps she couldn’t use the months of September, October and November
1839, particularly fruitful for concerts, to earn money. 139 In the second, he attempted to
hold her concertizing activities in check, affirming that his “fondest wish” was to earn
enough for her not to have to work so she could remain at home. 140 After their wedding,
especially once Schumann gave up the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1844 to concentrate
on composition, the couple continued to rely on the money she earned, particularly when
Schumann was intensely involved with large-scale works. During the composition of
Genoveva in 1848, Schumann mentioned to his brother Carl: “I’ve been very busy since
the beginning of this year and made significant advances in my opera, which I hope will
bring me some gains in the future. Since this work absorbs me almost exclusively, I
unfortunately cannot earn anything. Clara, who gives a few lucrative lessons, has to lend
me money.”141 It is noteworthy that in this letter, Schumann mentions her teaching
activities within the home, rather than her public concertizing abroad.
expenses, Clara was determined not to be dependent on anyone.” See her Clara Schumann: The Artist and
the Woman, 162.
139
Robert relied on Clara for earning money: “[K]annst Du denn die Monate September, October, und
November, so gute Concertmonate, gar nicht nützen?” Letter of May 4th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 516.
(“And then – can’t you take advantage of the months of September, October and November, such good
months for concerts?” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 187.) Emphasis in original.
140
Robert: “Deshalb könnten wir später immer nach Wien ziehen und uns auch dort erwerben; es wird aber
vielleicht gar nicht nötig sein, und ich glaube ich kann Dich bei mir haben, ohne daβ Du zu arbeiten
brauchtest. Und, Klara, das wäre doch mein sehnlichster Wunsch, daβ Du allein dann mir, Dir, Deiner
Kunst und Deinem Hause lebtest.” Letter of April 17th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 486. (“We could
always move to Vienna later and earn money there, too; perhaps that won’t be necessary, however, and I
believe I can have you with me without your having to work. And, Klara, it’s my fondest wish for you to
live only for me, yourself, your music and your house.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2,
156.) Schumann, however, will continue to rely on Clara’s income during most of his creative life.
141
Schumann wrote to his brother Carl: “Auch sehr fleiβig war ich seit Anfang dieses Jahres und rücke sehr
in meiner Oper vor, von der ich mir in der Zukunft einigen Gewinn verspreche. Da mich aber diese Arbeit
fast auschlieβlich beschäftigt, so kann ich leider auβerdem wenig verdienen. Clara, die einige recht gute
Stunden hat, had mir schon Vorschüsse machen müssen.” Letter of June 19th, 1848, in Briefe, 283.
101
Clara’s concertizing activities provided a positive model for Schumann, but one
which caused him anxiety.142 In 1839 he complained of being idle; he wished he could
achieve more and in a more manly way. 143 His ambivalence towards Clara’s growing
celebrity, overshadowing him at this point with her semi-public career, is encapsulated in
a diary entry of March 1838, shortly after she received the title of Kammervirtuosin from
the Empress of Vienna. She was the first woman to receive such an honour, bestowed
upon her after she gave a series of concerts in the Austrian capital which were greeted
with thunderous applause. While Schumann was proud of his future wife, the slightly
sulky letter he sent her is emblematic of the unease he felt about her successes, both
public (concerts) and private or semi-private (performances at court). His language
juxtaposed the passive and idealized angelic Clara with the active, real-life performing
artist: “Today came the news that my Clara became Virtuoso of the Court – news that I
expected and yet, that could not provide me with true happiness. And why not? Because
142
Reich even speaks of “Robert’s frustrations and ambivalence about her career” while Clara was touring
in Paris in the spring of 1839. See her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 68. Reich also points
out: “The year 1842 brought a full-scale renewal of Clara’s solo career. Once she realized that wetnurses
were available, that the baby could be boarded with relatives, that an additional maid could be hired for a
pittance, that motherhood did not necessarily tie her down, she wasted no time. (…) And all this activity
created a grave crisis. In those years a woman, even a married woman, could not travel alone. Robert had
to accompany her on most of the tours. He did not relish the role of traveling companion and manager, and
though his works for both piano and orchestra were always performed on her programs, he was
uncomfortable about leaving home and child, his editorial responsibilities, and the peace and quiet required
for creative work.” Ibid., 88-89.
143
Robert: “Du bist gut, ganz gut – verdientest einen viel Besseren wie mich – ich muβ wahrhaftig noch
viel mehr arbeiten – ich bin Deiner noch lange nicht würdig. Deshalb gibt das Schicksal Dich mir auch
nicht.” Letter of January 2nd, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 342. (“You’re kind, very kind – you deserve
someone much better than I – I really must work much more – I’m far from being worthy of you. That’s
why fate hasn’t given you to me.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 4.) And also: “Dich hat
der Himmel doch ganz nach meinen Gedanken geschaffen, wie ich mir mein Weib denke. Aber es ist keine
Zeit mehr zum Tätscheln; überhaupt glaub’ ich thu ich’s zu viel und trete nicht genug als Mann auf – es
wird aber schon besser werden.” Letter of January 29th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 896. (“Heaven has
created you in accordance with my wishes, the way I imagined my wife would be. But there is no time left
for caressing; actually I believe I do that too much and don’t behave like a man often enough – but things
will get better.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 57.)
102
I am so little next to this angel.”144 Schumann’s anxieties never completely subsided, not
even in later years when his reputation as a composer was more firmly established.
Planning a trip to London in 1851, he was concerned about not appearing idle next to his
wife.145
While Schumann found it difficult to be separated from Clara while she toured, he
encouraged her and inquired about her successes. 146 On some occasions, gender roles
were reversed: Schumann assumed the position of the passive housewife while the active
Clara traveled. Sustaining a performing career meant for Clara being away from
Schumann and her children. She also planned everything ahead when concertizing out of
town, leaving detailed instructions for her husband to follow. 147 Her concerts in
Copenhagen (March-April 1842) are emblematic of the anguish brought by her
conflicting (gender) roles, triggering in Clara second thoughts and feelings of guilt. 148
144
Robert: “Heute kam die Nachricht, dass meine Clara Kammervirtuosin geworden – eine Nachricht die
ich erwartete u. die mir doch auch wieder keine rechte Freude gab. Warum denn? Weil ich gar so wenig
bin dem Engel gegenüber.” Entry of mid-March, 1838, in Tagebücher, Band II, 52.
145
Schumann wrote to W. Sterndale Bennett: “Ein anderes möchte ich noch erwähnen. Sie werden es
natürlich finden und berühren dies auch in Ihrem Briefe, daβ ich nicht müssig neben meiner Frau dastehen
möchte, sondern mich auch etwas zeigen als Musiker, namentlich als Dirigent, was meine gröβste Lust ist.”
(“I would like to mention something else too. You will find natural and you’ve also raised the issue in your
letter, the fact that I cannot stay idle next to my wife, but on the contrary I would like to appear as a
musician, as a conductor namely, that would be my greatest desire.”) Letter of January 2nd, 1851, in Briefe,
334.
146
While Clara was touring in Vienna at the end of the year 1837, Schumann wrote to Joseph Fischhof:
“Wollen Sie mich nicht so schnell wie möglich auf directem Weg durch die Post immer benachrichtigen,
ob sie in Wien durchbringt als Romantikerin, wie sie und ihre Concerte aufgenommen werden – wahr und
unparteiisch, daran liegt mir.” (“Would you please always inform me by mail, directly and as quickly as
possible, whether she is successful in Vienna as a romantic, how herself and her concerts are received –
truthfully and unbiaised, that’s important to me.”) Letter of December 4th, 1837, in ibid., 104.
147
Clara: “Sey ja Paulinen recht hinterher, daβ sie Dich ordentlich versorgt, sitze nie kalt beim arbeiten, Du
weiβt, wie sehr Dir das schon einmal geschadet hat. Die Amme frage, ob Pauline Alles ordentlich (Essen,
[für] und Milch für Marie, Suppen für die Amme) besorgt, – ich muβ Dich jetzt damit belästigen, da ich
selbst nicht da bin.” Letter of November 15th, 1843, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1208. (“Keep after Pauline to
take proper care of you. And don’t ever sit in a cold room while working; you know how much that has
harmed you already. Ask the wet-nurse if Pauline is preparing everything properly (food and milk for
Marie, soups for the wet-nurse) – I have to bother you with this now because I’m not there myself.”
English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 370.)
148
While concertizing in Berlin, Clara stated: “Bist Du bös, daβ ich die Reise unternehme, wäre es am Ende
doch nicht Dein Wunsch gewesen?” Letter of February 1st, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 901. (“Are you
103
Her absence was emotionally difficult, particularly for Schumann who was sometimes
emotionally unstable.149 I argue that Schuman displayed an unusual brand of
masculinity: this unique brand of masculinity, possibly due to his sensitivity as an artist,
appears to have been wounded by his inability to play the male role of protector, at a time
when women travelling alone were viewed with suspicion. 150 Her absence made him
aware of how indispensable she was to his physical and emotional well-being, and he
frequently complained of mental anguish. In a troubled state of mind, on March 16th,
1842, while Clara is on tour, he complained: “What dreariness in the house, what
emptiness in me!”151 In that same letter, Schumann, in what may be read as a slightly
manipulatory tone, vainly called Clara’s name, was distraught over the empty bed,
believed that he could not endure the situation, and that physically he was most unwell. 152
angry because I’m taking the tour? Would you rather I weren’t going?” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 62.)
149
Reich notes that “the separation proved to be an almost unbearable strain for him” and provides details
about the trip. See her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 88-92. In 1843, 1845 and 1848,
Clara’s absence seemed as difficult for Schumann as it was in 1842. Schumann: “Ich komme mir auch
ohne Dich wie gestorben vor.” Letter of November 19th, 1843, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1213. (“I feel dead
without you.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 375.) Schumann also mentioned: “Arbeiten
kann ich gar nicht; es fehlt mir alle Ruhe und ich suche Dich immer in allen Stuben. Du bist die Ruh.”
Letter of October 5th, 1845, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1225. (“I can’t work at all; I lack the peace of mind,
and I look for you in every room. You are my peace of mind.” English translation in Correspondence, vol.
3, 387.) Emphasis in original. Finally: “Ich irre seit gestern wie ein Schatten herum; nun bald sehe ich
Dich ja wieder.” Letter of April 5th, 1848, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1230. (“I’ve been wandering around like
a shadow since yesterday; well, I’ll see you again soon.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3,
392.)
150
Clara mentioned a certain Herr Olsen in Copenhagen: “[E]mpfiehl mich ferner seinem Schutze, es
macht sich auch gut, wenn Du das thust, da Du mich nicht Selbst beschützen kannst.” Letter of March 22nd,
1842, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1138. (“[C]ommend me to his continued care; it would leave a good
impression if you did that because you can’t protect me yourself.” English translation in Correspondence,
vol. 3, 299.)
151
Robert: “Diese Oede im Hause, diese Leere in mir!” Letter of March 16th, 1842, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3,
1126. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 287.)
152
Robert: “Das war einer der dümmsten Streiche meines Lebens Dich von mir gelassen zu haben, der
gewiβ nicht wieder passiren soll. Wie konnten wir’s nur thun? Gestern Abend hab’ ich zehn u. mehrmal
Deinen Namen laut gerufen! Du kamst aber nicht. Und dann das leere Bett neben mir. Meine beste
Freundin ist fort. Ach Klara komme bald. Das halte ich nicht lange aus. (…) Dazu bin ich auch gar nicht
wohl – körperlich – vom fatalsten Schupfen wieder gepeinigt – und so ohne Ton und Musik. Ist mir aber
erst ein Brief von Dir da, dann wird es wohl beβer werden.” Letter of March 16th 1842, in Briefwechsel,
vol. 3, 1127. (“Having let you leave me was one of the dumbest things I’ve done in my life, and it certainly
104
Two days later, he even suggested she give up the concert tour entirely, no longer unable
to cope with the separation.153 A few days later, he reiterated his pleas for her to come
home, this time including their first child Marie. 154 In early April, he surprisingly
assumed a passive and docile position: he asked her to come back and bind him,
promising her that “I’ll go into my cage myself.”155
During that same trip to Copenhagen in 1842, exhilarated by the joy which
performing before an audience brought her and blessed with health and stamina, Clara
appeared psychologically much stronger than her husband. In a letter of March 1842, she
found it difficult to be away from home, but continued the tour as planned, instead asking
her husband to collect himself, while she remained adamant about making the best of her
won’t happen again. How could we do that? Last night I called your name out loud ten times or more. But
you didn’t come. And then the empty bed next to me. My best friend is gone. Oh, Klara, come soon. I
can’t stand this for very long. (…) What is more, I’m not well at all – physically – tormented again by an
annoying cold – and therefore no sounds or music. Things will probably get better, however, once a letter
from you comes.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 287.) Emphasis in original.
153
Robert: “[I]ch kann es nicht ohne Dich aushalten, Du Leben – und da bitte ich Dich inständig, gieb die
Copenhagener Reise auf und komme so bald wir möglich wieder zu mir.” Letter of March 18th, 1842, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1130. (“I can’t take it without you; you are my life – and so I beg you to give up the
trip to Copenhagen and come back to me as soon as possible.” English translation in Correspondence, vol.
3, 291.)
154
Robert: “Allein aber laβ ich Dich nun nicht nach Stockholm, meine Kläre – und wenn Du mich
manchmal in meiner Trauer sähest, so dächtest Du gewiβ nicht mehr daran. Wir können ja später einmal
die Reise zusammen machen – Du wirst gewiβ auch ein zweitesmal in Copenhagen gut aufgenommen.
Also bitte ich Dich und die Kleine: komme liebe Mutter je eher je lieber zu uns.” Letter of March 28th,
1842, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1149. (“But I won’t let you go to Stockholm alone, my Kläre – and if you
saw my sorrow you certainly wouldn’t think any longer about doing that. We can make the trip together
some day, you know – you will surely be well received a second time in Copenhagen. So the baby and I
are begging you, ‘Come to us, dear mother, the sooner the better’.” English translation in Correspondence,
vol. 3, 309.) A year later, Schumann again uses their child Marie to perhaps instill in Clara a sense of guilt,
as if implying that she were a bad mother: “Es ist gar nicht hübsch ohne Dich, und die Kleine auch gar
nicht munter. Du brauchst Dich nicht zu ängstigen. Aber es fehlt ihr die Ordnung und die liebvolle Pflege
der Mutter (…). Und die Kleine hat auch Sehnsucht nach Dir und lamentirt immer. Drum komme ja. Du
fehlst überall und auch meine Verpflegung war nicht die Beste.” Letter of February 16th, 1843, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1200. (“It’s not at all pleasant without you, and our little girl is not at all cheerful.
You need not worry. But she needs the order and the loving care of her mother (…). And our little girl
also longs for you and is constantly whining. So be sure to come. You are needed everywhere, and the
food here hasn’t been the best either.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 361.)
155
Robert: “Komme nur und lege mir die Fesseln wieder um; ich gehe von selbst wieder in meinen Käfigt.”
Letter of April 5th, 1842, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1166. (“Just come and put my chains back on; I’ll go into
my cage myself.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 327.)
105
stay in Copenhagen. 156 She had faced challenging psychological situations before while
touring, and this one was no different. Acknowledging her husband’s psychological
weakness, she mentioned the power of her love to heal his fragile state of mind: “I know
how you feel and know that things that weigh on your mind tend to affect your health; I
can change and improve that a little when I come back and put my loving arms around
you. I will caress you very tenderly and make up for all the time that I couldn’t be with
you, my sweet, dearly beloved husband.”157 She supported him, urging him to think
about the future. Nonetheless, perhaps sensing the slightly manipulative tone of his
letters, or perhaps simply unable to understand how her absence could cause him such
emotional distress, she did not alter her concert plans.
For a nineteenth-century wife and mother, sustaining a performing career meant
sacrifices. Clara Schumann’s situation was eased by her status as a woman from the
artist-musician class: Fanny Hensel for instance, came from the bougeois aristocracy; for
her, a career in the public eye proved impossible due to social restrictions placed on
female activities in the public sphere. 158 In Clara’s case, her energy, determination and
156
Clara: “Ich weiβ, wie lieb du mich hast, weiβ also auch, daβ Du Dich nach mir sehnst, wie ich mich so
unendlich nach Dir, doch, ich bin nun einmal hier, und kann Nichts, als Dich bitten, Dich möglichst viel zu
zerstreuen, und nur immer an das Wiedersehen zu denken, das, so Gott will, recht schön und freudig sein
wird.” Letter of March 28th, 1842, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1150. (“I know how fond you are of me and that
you are longing for me as immeasurably as I am for you; nevertheless, I am here and can only ask you to
think about other things as much as possible; keep thinking of our reunion which, God willing, will be quite
wonderful and happy.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 311.)
157
Clara: “Ich kenne Dein Gefühl, ich weiβ, wie Dich leicht Alles, was auf das Gemüth Einfluβ haben kann
angreift, und weiβ, daβ nur ich selbst das in etwas ändern und bessern kann, wenn ich zu Dir komme und
Dich mit liebenden Armen umfasse. Ich will Dich recht zärtlich lieben, lieben noch für all die Zeit, wo ich
nicht bei Dir sein konnte, mein guter, über Alles geliebter Mann.” Letter of April 4th 1842, in Briefwechsel,
vol. 3, 1162. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 323.)
158
Reich in her article “The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel” discusses this issue. Reich contends:
“Although it was clear to the family that Fanny had talends equal to those of her brother Felix, she was
reminded by her father of the feminine duties and responsibilities that would not permit the professional
activity open to Felix. When Abraham spoke of her future as a housewife, he envisioned, of course, a
future as the mistress of a Berlin establishment befitting a member of the Berlin Jewish bourgeois
aristocrary.” See her “The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel,” in Mendelssohn and His World, ed. R. Larry
Todd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 87. Reich pursues: “To the Mendelssohn men, a career
106
striving allowed her to overcome the obstacles placed upon her due to her gender. After
marriage, she refused to relinquish the professional activities which had become essential
to her fulfillment. Rather than seeing the public and private aspects of her life as
irreconcilable, she met the requirements of both. In a diary entry of August 1838 she
confided: “Now I try to combine the artist and the housewife as much as possible. That is
a difficult task! I cannot give up my art, I would reproach myself forever.”159 As Reich
rightly points out, she succeeded, pursuing a flourishing performing and teaching career
throughout her long life, while other equally talented female pianists (Marie Blahetka,
Anna de Belleville, Marie Pleyel) “made splashy debuts and brilliant appearances but one
after the other gave up careers when they married or found they could not keep up with
the stresses of combining family and profession.” 160
Clara as Composer
Borchard affirms that the name “Schumann” stood for a “constellation between
(masculine) composer and (feminine) performer.”161 The musical partnership of the
as a musician placed a woman of Fanny’s class in an untenable position: money would be exchanged, her
name would be in print, and she would appear on stage.” Ibid., 92. Reich also makes a similar point in her
Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 276. See also Reich’s “Women as Musicians: A Question of
Class” in Musicology and Difference, ed. Ruth A. Solie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992),
125-148.
159
Entry of August 24th, 1838, from Clara’s diary, quoted in Reich, “The Diaries of Fanny Hensel and
Clara Schumann: A Study in Contrasts,” Nineteenth-Century Music Review 4 (2007), 31.
160
Reich, “Clara Schumann,” in Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950, ed. Jane
Bowers and Judith Tick (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 250-251. Clara’s career recalls that of
her mother, whose marriage and pregnancies did not interrupt her performing career as a pianist and singer.
As Reich points out, Clara’s mother, Marianne Tromlitz, was an “uncommonly talented young woman”
who performed at the Gewandhaus numerous times, both as a singer and pianist. She continued to perform
publictly despite family obligations and pregnancies: see her Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman,
9. Clara also inherited from her mother her “strong character and determination” (ibid., 13).
161
“Zentral für den ‘Bedeutungskomplex Schumann’ ist es, dass – wie bereits erwähnt – der Name
Schumann nicht nur für einen Komponisten und ein Werk steht, sondern für ein Paar, Clara und Robert
Schumann, und für eine Konstellation, nämlich für die Konstellation zwischen (männlichem) Komponisten
und (weiblicher) Interpretin.” (“As already mentioned, the fact that the name Schumann stands not only for
a composer or a body of work but for a pair, Clara and Robert, and for the combination of (masculine)
107
Schumann couple was outwardly a stereotypical one, which implied a hierarchy based on
gender: the male as active, creative artist, while the female remained an executant.
Musing on their impending marriage, Schumann fantasized: “[I]magine all the things I
would compose and you would play.”162 As I demonstrate in this last section however,
Clara exceeded her role of executant. At her father’s urging, she began composing and
improvising at a very young age: she played her compositions in concerts, as was
expected of virtuoso artists, and from her early teens many of her works were published
and reviewed, largely positively. 163 As a complement to her performing career,
particularly in earlier years, her compositional activities granted her access to the
masculine public sphere. Both before and after their wedding, Schumann treated her as a
serious, professional composer: he encouraged her to compose and publish, recognizing
her creative talent.164 As Reich points out, he advised her to organize and catalogue her
manuscripts, urged her to treat them with respect and helped her negotiate with
composer and (feminine) performer, is central to the ‘Schumann network of meaning’.”) Borchard, “Orte
und Strategien der Kulturvermittlung,” 86. After Schumann’s death, this dual constellation is conflated
into one individual: Clara Schumann. “Sie wird als Frau und Witwe Robert Schumann präsentiert, die ihr
Spiel in den Dienst seiner Werke stellt und auf die Präsentation eigener Werke verzichtet (immerhin ist
noch present, dass sie selbst auch Komponistin ist). (…) Sie steht für ein Paar und die Konstellation
männlicher Komponist und weibliche Interpretin und Hüterin des männlichen Erbes, für die Verknüpfung
von Liebe und Musik.” (“She is presented as the wife and widow of Robert Schumann, who uses her
playing to the service of his works and who relinquishes the performance of her own (at least the fact that
she herself is also a composer is still mentioned). (…) She stands for a pair as well as for the combination
of masculine composer and feminine performer, guardian of his heritage, and for the relationship between
love and music.”) Ibid., 101.
162
Robert: “[W]as würde ich Alles componieren und Du spielen.” Letter of March 16th, 1839, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 443. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 111.)
163
Reich affirms: “Her [Clara’s] compositions, published, reviewed, reprinted, and performed throughout
the nineteenth century, were esteemed by Robert Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Brahms.” See her
Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 211. Reich believes that each program of Clara’s up to her
marriage included at least one of her own compositions. Ibid., 254.
164
Robert: “Deine Compositionen will man gewiβ in P. u. London drucken; sieh zu, daβ es Dir auch etwas
einbringt.” Letter of February 20th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 395. (“They’ll certainly want to publish
your compositions in Paris and London; make sure that you make a little money on them.” English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 61.)
108
publishers.165 He even considered collaborative work on large-scale musical
compositions. In a letter to her of November 1837, he suggested they write “the most
wonderful operas” together.166 In September 1843, he again proclaimed: “[W]e
absolutely must write operas.”167 Although this plan came to naught, they did compose a
set of lieder on texts by Friedrich Rückert, with dual opus number for both (Zwölf
Gedichte aus Friedrich Rückerts Liebesfrühling Opp. 12/37). In a letter of June 1839, he
viewed their compositions as a union of “one heart and one soul” without posterity
finding out what is his and what is hers. 168 Their creative endeavours and exchange of
musical thoughts complemented each other.169 In July 1839, Schumann mused:
“Listening once again to your Romance, I see that we have to be man and wife. You
complement me as a composer, just as I do you. Each of your ideas comes from my soul,
just as I owe all of my music to you.”170
165
Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 214.
Robert: “Ich denke, wir werden uns, wie früher, vorphantasieren und die herrlichsten Opern
zusammenkomponieren (…).” Letter of November 29th, 1837, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 51. (“I think we will
continue to improvise for one another, as we used to, and compose the most wonderful operas together
(…).” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 50.)
167
Robert: “[W]ir müssen durchaus Opern schreiben.” Letter of September 8th, 1843, in Briefwechsel, vol.
3, 1203. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 365.)
168
Robert: “Wir geben dann auch Manches unter unseren beiden Namen heraus; die Nachwelt soll uns ganz
wie ein Herz und eine Seele betrachten und nicht erfahren, was von Dir, was von mir ist. Wie glücklich bin
ich.” Letter of June 13th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 571. (“[W]e will publish many things in both our
names; posterity will think of us as one heart and one soul and won’t find out what’s yours and what’s
mine.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 246.) Emphasis in original. The metaphor of “one
heart and one soul” recurs in another letter by Schumann written a month later: “[U]nd dann heiβt es Du
und ich, und Dein und Mein, und Klara und Robert sind eines, ein Herz und eine Seele.” Letter of July
18th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 651. (“[A]nd then it will be you and I, and yours and mine, and Klara
and Robert are one, one heart and one soul.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 331.)
169
Nancy Reich points out: “The influence turned very quickly into a musical partnership that continued on
into their married life. In the songs as well as the instrumental works, we are struck by the continuing
personal cooperation and interchange of musical ideas between the two composers.” Clara Schumann: The
Artist and the Woman, 213.
170
Robert: “An Deiner Romanze hab’ ich nun abermals von Neuem gehört, daβ wir Mann und Frau werden
müβen. Du vervollständigst mich als Componisten, wie ich Dich. Jeder Deiner Gedanken kömmt aus
meiner Seele, wie ich ja meine ganze Musik Dir zu verdanken habe.” Letter of July 10th, 1839, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 629. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 307.)
166
109
Schumann reviewed seriously and positively Clara’s works in the Neue Zeitschrift
für Musik. It is interesting to note that these reviews sometimes blend feminine and
masculine attributes:
The Soirées betray, on the one hand, and plain for anyone to see, a life
effulgent and tender, apparently responsive to the slightest stirring; on the
other hand, a wealth of unconventional resources, a strength to entangle the
secret, more deeply twisting threads of harmony and then to unravel them,
something one is accustomed to expect only from experienced artists – and
males. (…) Where Sebastian Bach so deeply dug, that the light of day
threatened to be extinguished, where Beethoven reached for the clouds with
his titan fist, whatever our own time has produced in terms of heights and
depths, she grasps it all, and recounts it with a charming, maidenly wisdom.171
Feminine tenderness and charm blend with masculine originality (the “wealth of
unconventional resources”), a titan fist and technical skills. He also recognized Clara’s
unique creative gifts, which she recounts by her own musical means, with the “heights
and depths” of Bach and Beethoven.
Schumann trusted Clara’s creative talents: in some ways, her compositional
activities, despite the obvious element of competition and the fact that many of her works
were published, seem to pose less of a threat to her husband than her travels. He
repeatedly asked her to write pieces for the supplement of his journal in a letter of
February 1838.172 He even seems to have viewed her creative gifts as a substitute for his.
Later that year, he wrote: “Have you still not finished anything for my supplements?
171
“Denn einesteils verraten die Soireen doch gewiβ jedem ein so zartes überwallendes Leben, das vom
leisesten Hauch bewegt zu warden scheint, und doch auch wieder einen Reichtum an ungewöhnlichen
Mitteln, eine Macht, die heimlichern, tiefern spinnenden Fäden der Harmonie zu verwirren und auseinander
zu legen, wie man es nur an erfahrenen Künstlern, an Männern gewöhnt ist. (…) Wo Sebastian Bach noch
so tief eingräbt, daβ das Grubenlicht in der Tiefe zu verlöschen droht, wo Beethoven ausgreift in die
Wolken mit seiner Titanenfaust, was die jüngste Zeit, die Höhe und Tiefe vermitteln möchte, vor sich
gebracht hat, von all diesem weiβ die Künstlerin und erzählt davon in lieblicher Mädchenklugheit (…).” In
Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker, 5th ed., vol. 1, ed. Martin Kreisig (Leipzig:
Breitkopf & Härtel, 1914), 251.
172
Robert: “Hast Du gar nichts componirt? ich wünschte so gern etwas von Dir für die nächste Beilage und
bat Dich schon mehrmals (…).” Letter of February 6th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 93. (“Havn’t you
composed anything at all? I’d very much like something from you for the next supplement and have
already asked you several times (…).” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 95.)
110
Since I can’t compose now, at least you should be able to.”173 In a letter of October 1839,
Schumann complained of having lost his imagination: he asked Clara to compose in his
stead.174 In a letter of March 1840, he again exhorted her to write a lied. 175 Clara,
however, despite her compositional talent and the joy it brought her, also had internalized
centuries of prejudice against the creation of artistic works by women. She doubted her
intellectual capacities and believed that women were not born for composition and
abstract thought.176 In a letter of March 1840, she bemoaned what she felt as a lack of
genuine creative talent and spirit.177 Later that month, she admitted that she’d like to
173
Robert: “Hast Du noch immer nichts für meine Beilagen fertig? da ich jetzt nichts componiren kann,
solltest [es] wenigstens Du es können.” Letter of December 29th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 333.
(English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 344.)
174
Robert: “Es geht nicht mehr mit mir. Ich habe meine Phantasie verloren. Lache nur nicht. An meinen
Sprüngen und Gedanken muβt Du merken, daβ es nicht richtig mehr mit mir ist. Jetzt componire Du nur
für mich.” Letter of October 30th, 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 771. (“I can’t do anything any more. I’ve
lost my imagination. Don’t laugh. You can probably tell from my thoughts and the sudden transitions that
things aren’t right with me. You will have to compose for me.” English translation in Correspondence,
vol. 2, 455.)
175
Robert: “Denkst Du denn etwa, weil ich so viel componire, kannst du müβig sein. Mach’ doch ein Lied
einmal! Hast Du angefangen, so kommst Du nicht wieder los. Es ist gar zu verführerisch.” Letter of
March 13th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 980. (“Do you perhaps think that you can be idle because I’m
composing so much? Why don’t you write a lied. Once you begin, you won’t be able to stop. It’s all too
enticing.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 139.)
176
Clara: “Ich kann nicht bei einer Idee bleiben gleich kommt eine Andere – nur Du trägst du Schuld, ich
weiβ nicht was das werden soll. Ich tröste mich immer damit, daβ ich ja ein Frauenzimmer bin, und die
sind nicht zum componieren geboren. Ich zweifle oft ganz an mir.” Letter of March 4th, 1838, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 113. (“I cannot stay with one idea; right away there is another one – the fault is yours
alone – I don’t know what this will lead to. I always console myself by thinking that I am a woman, and
they weren’t born to compose. I often doubt myself.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 116.)
And Clara also wrote: “I once believed that I had creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman
must not wish to compose – there never was one able to do it. Am I intended to be the one? It would be
arrogant to believe that.” Quoted in Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 216. As Marcia J.
Citron points out, artistic creativity, while involving emotions, is largely concerned with the workings of
the mind, a fact which contributed to women’s exclusion. “The mental, or the mind, has been considered
fundamental to creativity. While this might seem odd given a general understanding that art deals in
emotions, an oppositional concept to mind, the emphasis has provided a means of excluding women.” See
her Gender and the Musical Canon (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 52.
177
Clara: “Componieren aber kann ich nicht, es macht mich selbst zuweilen ganz unglücklich, aber es geht
wahrhaftig nicht, ich habe kein Talent dazu. (…) Und nun vollends ein Lied, das kann ich gar nicht; ein
Lied zu componieren, einen Text ganz zu erfassen, dazu gehört Geist.” Letter of March 14th, 1840, in
Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 983-984. (“[B]ut I can’t compose; I’m quite unhappy about that at times, but it simply
doesn’t work; I don’t have a talent for it. (…) I absolutely cannot compose a lied; a person has to be a
genius to compose a lied and to undersand everything about a text.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 142.) Emphasis in original.
111
learn how to write fugues, but did not deem her spirit fit for such a study.178 Schumann
appeared more optimistic as regard her creative talent. Two years previously he had
advised her not to miss the opportunity to learn fugue in Vienna, pointing out the benefits
of such a rigorous study. 179 As their marriage neared, however, Schumann’s position
altered. He discouraged her from taking fugue lessons with Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen,
telling her instead that maybe he would teach her some of the basics, perhaps in an
attempt to control her learning. 180 Indeed, after their wedding they studied and sight-read
Bach’s preludes and fugues together.181 Fugues were deemed a masculine genre in the
178
Clara: “Eine Frage: was meinst Du wohl, wäre es nicht gut wenn ich bei Rungenhagen ein wenig die
Fuge studierte? ich hätte groβe Lust, nur weiβ ich nicht ob mein Verstand, auf / den / ich nicht viel gebe,
reif zu solch einem Studium ist!” Letter of March 20th, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 993. (“I have a
question for you. Wouldn’t it be good if I studied the fugue with Rungenhagen? What do you think? I
would really like to, but I don’t know if I am ready to undertake such a study; I don’t rate my mental ability
very high.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 3, 152.) The previous year, however, Clara
seemed more optimistic: “[M]einst Du, ich wisse nicht auch Fugen aufzufassen? O mein Freund, Du
kennst noch wenig meine Fugenkunst. Ich verstehe sie und kann mich Stunden lang darin vertiefen.”
Letter of February 29th 1839, in Briefwechsel, vol. 2, 424. (“[D]o you think I don’t know anything about
fugues? Oh, my friend, you underestimate my skills. I understand fugues, and I can become engrossed in
them for hours.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 2, 91.)
179
Robert: “Gewünscht hätte ich, Du lerntest den Fugenbau, da es ja in Wien gute Theoretiker giebt –
versäume das nicht, wo sich wieder einmal Gelegenheit findet; es erfreut und bringt immer vorwärts.” In a
very long letter of March 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 126. (“I wish that you would learn about the
structure of the fugue since there are good theorists in Vienna – don’t neglect to do that if you have the
opportunity; it’s enjoyable and helps you make progress.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1,
129.)
180
Robert: “Wegen der Fugenstunden bei Rungenhagen möcht’ich Dir nicht abraten. Aber, Klärchen, das
ist nichts für die Brautzeit. Und dann würdest Du wohl oft unterbrochen – erst von mir, dann denke ich
doch ganz sicher, daβ Du mich im Sommer einmal auf längere Zeit besuchst, gewiβ auf einem Monat
rechne ich. Ich kann nicht immer fort, Du immer, und bleibst also wenigstens vier Wochen bei mir,
miethest Dir eine Stube bei Carl’s bekommst einen schönen Flügel v. Härtels, und dann will ich Dich selbst
vielleicht in die Lehre nehmen.” Letter of March 22nd, 1840, in Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1001. (“I wouldn’t
like to advise you against the fugue lessons with Rungenhagen. But, Klärchen, that’s not something for a
fiancée. And then you would probably be interrupted often – first by me, and then I’m really quite sure that
you will visit me in the summer for a long time, certainly for a month, I figure. I can’t always get away;
you always can and will therefore stay here for at least a month; you will rent a room at the Carls,’ get a
nice piano from Härtel’s, and then perhaps I’ll give you lessons myself.” English translation in
Correspondence, vol. 3, 160-161.) Emphasis in original.
181
On Robert and Clara sightreading fugues together in 1832, see Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a
“New Poetic Age,” 108. Reich mentions the couple’s joint study of fugues, undertaken in 1845: see her
Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 102 and 214. Robert was proud of Clara’s abilities to master
fugues. As Reich points out: “He [Schumann] informed Heinrich Dorn, their [Robert’s and Clara’s] old
teacher, that Clara had published a volume of fugues, and added that he wished Dorn could get to know
them.” Ibid., 109.
112
nineteenth century. Clara, however, was far from a beginner in such matters: she had
studied theory and composition with some of the best teachers in Germany as a child.
Her joint studies with Schumann in 1845 rekindled her interest in counterpoint, and she
produced four preludes and seven fugues, of which three pairs were published as Drei
Praeludien und Fugen für das Pianoforte, op. 16, that same year. Schumann believed
(mistakenly) that she was the first woman to do so. As Marian Wilson Kimber mentions:
“That [Clara] Schumann was sufficiently proficient as a composer to produce learned
fugues was considered unusual at the time.”182
While encouraging Clara to compose, Schumann deemed her creativity
incompatible with what he (and his society) saw as her higher calling as a mother, and
felt the need to reinforce what he viewed as innate womanly qualities.183 In a letter of
March 1839, he encouraged Simonin de Sire to acquire Clara’s compositions published in
Paris, but affirmed that while she was an excellent artist, she was an even more excellent
maiden. 184 Contrary to her decision not to significantly cut back on performing, she did
curtail her compositional production somewhat. While Clara continued to compose
throughout her married years, like most female composers she mostly wrote small-scale
works such as piano pieces or lieder, and stopped composing almost entirely after
182
Marian Kimber Wilson, “From the Concert Hall to the Salon: The Piano Music of Clara Wieck
Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel,” in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. R. Larry Todd, 2nd
ed. (New York: Schirmer, 2004), 327-328.
183
Reich emphasises Schumann’s ambiguous position as regard Clara’s creative activities: “Although
Robert Schumann encouraged and praised her original efforts and exerted his influence to have them
published, he had mixed feelings about her creative activities.” Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the
Woman, 214.
184
Schumann wrote to Simonin de Sire: “Von Clara Wieck, die im Augenblick in Paris, sind bis jetzt acht
Werke erschienen; suchen Sie sich sämmtlich zu verschaffen; das ist eine höchst treffliche Künstlerin und
ein noch trefflicheres Mädchen.” (“Eight works by Clara Wieck, who is in Paris at the moment, have
appeared in print; try to get hold of them all; she is a highly felicitous artist, and an even more felicitous
maiden.”) Letter of March 15th, 1839, in Briefe, 149.
113
Schumann’s death.185 She wrote a piano trio, but did not tackle large-scale orchestral
compositions, perhaps either due to lack of time, insufficient experience in writing for
orchestra, or lack of self-confidence. Her role within the private sphere came first
(closely followed by her performing activities), a role Schumann assumed brought her joy
and which neither spouse questioned. He wrote in February 1843:
Clara has written a series of small pieces, very tender and musical, more
imaginative than her previous ones. But to have children and a husband who is
always living in the realms of imagination do not go together with composing.
She cannot work at it regularly, and I am often disturbed to think how many
profound ideas are lost because she cannot work them out. Clara, however,
knows her primary duty as a mother, and I think she is happy given the
circumstances, which cannot be altered.186
Later that year Schumann voiced similar thoughts, a month after completing the
oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri: “Clara is ordering her lieder and many keyboard
compositions; she wants to press onward; but Marie hangs on her skirt, Elise also needs
attention, and her husband sits deeply sunk in Peri thoughts.”187 The fact that Clara
composed, displaying creative and intellectual skills instead of mere reproductive
abilities, put her on a par with her male colleagues. However, it is evident that social and
family circumstances, as well as her own inner psychological barriers, prevented her from
185
Reich believes that the “question of why she gave up composing after 1856 can perhaps best be
explained in the context of the astonishing number of responsibilities as mother and musician.” See her
Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, 211.
186
Robert: “Klara hat eine Reihe von kleineren Stücken geschrieben, in der Erfindung so zart und
musikreich, wie’s ihr früher noch nicht gelungen. Aber Kinder haben und einen immer phantasierenden
Mann, und componieren geht nicht zusammen. Es fehlt ihr die anhaltende Uebung, und dies rührt mich oft,
da so mancher innige Gedanke verloren geht, den sie nicht auszuführen vermag. Klara kennt aber selbst
ihren Hauptberuf als Mutter, dass ich glaube, sie ist glüklich in den Verhältnissen, wie sie sich nun einmal
nicht ändern lassen.” Entry of February 17th, 1843, in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, Band II, 255.
187
Robert: “Jetzt ist Clara am Ordnen ihrer Lieder und mehreren Claviercompositionen. Sie will immer
vorwärts; aber rechts hängst ihr Marie am Kleid, Elise macht auch zu schaffen, und der Mann sitzt in
Perigedanken vertieft.” Entry from the end of June 1843, in ibid., 267.
114
broadening her compositional output despite encouragement and support from her
husband.188
Conclusion
It is evident that in Schumann’s mind, Clara reiterated the three literary archetypes
commonly used for the portrayal of idealized female figures in artistic works, discussed
in Chapter One and which form the backbone of my analysis in Chapters Three, Four and
Five. Nonetheless, Clara expanded all three, blending both feminine and masculine
gender roles and attributes by her performing and composing activities. She seems to
have displayed greater strength and independence than other women in Schumann’s
writings. Idealized by her husband, but also portrayed as a real woman, she thwarted
nineteenth-century expectations of womanly behaviour. Schumann was often surprised at
the extent of her agency and assertiveness. I argue that Clara’s moral strength,
determination and striving, but also her feminine attributes (her love and devotion),
provided the model for the three female characters in Schumann’s dramatic works
discussed in Chapters Three Four, and Five. Such idealized female characters depend on
male characters, and their subjectivity appears to evolve from their relationship with male
figures: in so doing, female characters reiterate the noxious archetypes discussed above
and are regulated by patriarchal norms of behaviour which I argue constrain feminine
subjectivity. However, their strength and powerful impact on the psyche of male
188
Reich affirms: “Clara Schumann felt ambivalent about her creative work.” Reich, Clara Schumann: The
Artist and the Woman, 215. She then resumes the situation well: “Societal attitudes toward women
composers, especially as revealed in newspaper reviews (which she read), played a large part in her feelings
of discomfort about composing. Her improvisations and compositions were acclaimed by audiences and
reviewers, but the praise was almost always for the work of a woman composer: critics compared her work
with that of male composers or expressed surprise that a female could compose with such skill.” Ibid., 218.
Emphasis in the text.
115
characters allow them to challenge, to some extent, those androcentric literary models,
notably, by their use of the musical and psychoanalytical concepts of the gaze and the
voice.
116
SECTION TWO
CHAPTER THREE
GRETCHEN’S ROLE AS LEADER AND JULIA KRISTEVA’S CONCEPT
OF THE SEMIOTIC CHORA
Commentators on Schumann’s dramatic works, among them John Daverio and
Laura Tunbridge, have noted similarities between the characters of Faust and Manfred:
both are brooding, misanthropic anti-heroes whose psyche appears to be feminized by
strong female figures. While Faust features prominently in most discussions of Goethe’s
drama, the character of Gretchen is seldom given the same amount of critical attention:
however, as an embodiment of the literary archetype of Ewig-weibliche she is central to
the last scene of Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust. More importantly, Schumann’s
music appears to be mostly concerned not only with her development and her actions, but
also with her influence on other characters in the drama, particularly Faust. Gretchen,
which I see as embodying an archetype of femininity recurrent in Schumann’s works and
represented by the idealized figure of Clara Schumann, will thus be placed at the center
of the following analysis. As of yet, no music scholar has thoroughly investigated how,
recurring under many guises, the concept of female redeeming love, soothing and
providing rest, pervades the last scene of Faust.
As discussed in Chapter One, the workings of love have both positive and
negative implications on the development of female characters. They afford the latter
considerable impact on male characters’ psyche, but also typically render such figures
idealized objects to be mastered by the male hero and used at his convenience. Love sets
117
Goethe’s last scene in what I see as a flexible higher realm of hovering dominated by the
presence of Gretchen and the Virgin Mary. This flexible higher realm recalls the early
romantic notion of the Absolute, as discussed in Chapter One: it is also akin to Julia
Kristeva’s psychoanalytical concept of the semiotic chora. The workings of semiotic
processes, as theorized by Kristeva, occur in a pre-Oedipal realm which she ambiguously
views as both feminine and maternal, and also lying beyond fixed gender categories,
challenging the Lacanian notion of the masculine symbolic, bound by rationality and
language. Unlike the symbolic’s teleological leanings, the semiotic expands fixed
boundaries of time and space: feminine qualities such as feelings and love occupy pride
of place. I argue that within this fluid semiotic sphere, Gretchen develops a gender
transitive identity. Against the backdrop of documentary evidence from diaries and
letters presented in Chapter Two, spanning the whole of their courtship and married
years, I claim that Clara Schumann, idealized by her husband as a comforting, soothing
and redeeming figure, but also a real woman with assertiveness and strength, was
envisioned as a model for Gretchen’s gender transitive nature. Examining how the music
reinforces or thwarts Gretchen’s literary portrayal, I investigate in what ways the focus on
song, lyricism, and a flexible, non-teleological conception of time, which I see as
connected to the semiotic chora, mirrors her gender transitivity already evinced by the
text.
Both Schumann spouses seem to have been aware of some elements present in
Goethe’s drama which blur expected gender attributes and roles: for instance, Faust’s
feminine interiority combined with his masculine strivings, and Gretchen’s feminine love
enabling her masculine role of leader. In particular, Faust’s last scene arguably
118
impressed the Schumann couple most: I examine in what ways the gender transitivity of
Gretchen, and also that of Faust, at this moment reflects the psychological outlook of the
Schumann couple. Tunbridge’s dissertation cites letters from Schumann’s friends and
colleagues, providing evidence that Schumann’s contemporaries linked him with
Manfred and Faust’s inner, passive, qualities. 1 Clara, while not referring explicitly to
Goethe’s drama, linked herself with both Faust and Gretchen. In a letter to Schumann of
January 1838, she assumed a gender ambiguous position similar to that of Faust in
Goethe’s last scene: the latter appears as both a masculine character and a feminine
follower. Clara affirms that Schumann could never lose her since her soul would follow
him forever: she assumes a position which recalls that of Faust in Faust’s last scene, as he
is led through higher regions by Gretchen and her love.2 Two days later, the thought of
Schumann led her to “hover in other beautiful spheres,” which again recalls this higher
realm which, as I show below, is also that of Gretchen and the Mater gloriosa in Faust’s
last scene.3 Later that year, Clara explicitly associated herself with Gretchen: she
reiterates the stereotypical archetype of Ewig-weibliche which, in her mind, appears
associated with Gretchen’s death and her disembodiment. These are two attributes
which, as feminist writers have pointed out, deprive her of subjectivity while they
constitute the condition for her beneficial powers on Faust. Clara asks: “Do you love
1
This is explored in Chapter Four of her dissertation. See Laura Tunbridge, “Euphorion Falls: Schumann,
Manfred and Faust” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2002). Richard Pohl for instance recalls of the
premiere of the work: “Totally immersed in the score, completely oblivious to the public, and paying very
little attention even to the musicians, he lived in the tones, molding them to his mission: he himself became
Manfred.” Letter quoted in “Euphorion Falls,” 203.
2
Clara: “Verlieren kannst Du mich nicht, das ist nich möglich, mein Geist würde Dir doch ewig folgen.”
Letter of January 21st, 1838, in Clara und Robert Schumann Briefwechsel, vol. 1, ed. Eva Weissweiler
(Basel: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1984), 80. (“You cannot lose me; that would be impossible; my spirit
would follow you forever.” English translation in The Complete Correspondence of Clara and Robert
Schumann, Critical Edition, vol. 1, ed. Eva Weissweiler, transl. Hildegard Fritsch and Ronald L. Crawford
[New York, Berlin and Vienna: Peter Lang, 1994], 81.) Emphasis in original.
3
Clara: “[I]ch schwebe in anderen schöneren Sphären.” Letter of January 23rd 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol.
1, 81. (“[M]y head is in the clouds.” English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 82.)
119
Gretchen’s song, too? I always play it, and all the while I would like to die. I feel as if I
were Gretchen, as if her words were mine.”4 Two weeks later, she again links herself
with Gretchen; death is again mentioned, this time adding the image of submission to a
male figure for whom alone she lives: “I feel more and more that I live only for you;
nothing matters to me but my music, which I find in you; you are my world, my joy, pain,
everything, everything – oh, if only I knew how to say it! I could die like Gretchen.”5 I
discuss below how the complex and ambiguous character of Gretchen, stereotypical and
submissive, yet leading Faust to higher spheres via her feminine redeeming love, reflects
both sides of Clara’s multifaceted personality. As I argued from my reading of the
diaries and her correspondence with Schumann in Chapter Two, and as I examine in
greater depth below, Clara internalized stereotypical womanly behaviours, and yet also
sought to work against these in her daily life. Perhaps as a result, Schumann’s
idealization of her as a passive muse figure interacted and conflicted with his relationship
to the real Clara Schumann, who with her musical activities remained an active and
strong woman.
As Schumann conceived them, Parts I and II of his Szenen aus Goethes Faust are
concerned with Gretchen and Faust, respectively. Part I is taken from the “Gretchen
tragedy” which occurs during the last half of the first part of Goethe’s Faust: I discuss
below how it presents Gretchen as stereotypically naïve and passive, with womanly
4
Clara: “Du liebst das Gretchen so sehr? ich spiele es immer und möcht vergehen dabei, mir ist als sey ich
das Gretchen, als wären es meine Worte.” Letter of July 10th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol. 1, 195. (English
translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 201-202.) Clara referred in that letter to Liszt’s transcription of
Schubert’s song “Gretchen am Spinnrade” which contains the verses: “An seinen Küssen/Vergehen sollt’!”
(“I will disappear in his kisses.”) Robert also appropriated Gretchen’s experience, writing “Meine Ruh’ ist
hin” (“My peace is gone”) at the end of the Intermezzi Op. 4, No. 2 (1832).
5
Clara: “[J]a, immer mehr fühl ich es, daβ mein Leben nur für Dich ist, alles ist mir gleichgültig auβer
d[ie]er Kunst, die ich in Dir finde, Du bist meine Welt, meine Freunde, Schmerz, Alles, Alles – ach, könnt
ich es doch nur sagen! vergehen möcht ich wie Gretchen.” Letter of July 26th, 1838, in Briefwechsel, vol.
1, 210. (English translation in Correspondence, vol. 1, 216-217.)
120
attributes of religiosity, love and devotion defining her character. Part I, No. 1 (“Szene
im Garten” (Goethe: “Garten” and “Ein Gartenhäuschen”) [“Garden”]: 3163-3192 and
3207-3210) presents the second encounter between Gretchen and Faust.6 It is the only
scene from Part I in which Faust is present: all others focus on Gretchen. Part I, No. 2
(“Gretchen vor dem Bild der Mater Dolorosa” (Goethe: “Zwinger”) [“By the City
Wall”]): 3587-3619) shows a despairing and submissive Gretchen kneeling in front of the
Virgin Mary, a gesture efficiently conveying her feminine religiosity and devotion. Part
I, No. 3 (“Szene im Dom” (Goethe: “Dom”) [“Cathedral: Mass, Organ and Singing”]:
3776-3834) shows her again in a religious setting, at a church service: her guilt and fears
trigger hallucinations of the “Böser Geist” (“evil spirit”). Part II is drawn from various
moments throughout the second part of Goethe’s Faust. Its three scenes are dominated
by Faust: Gretchen is totally absent and returns only in Part III. Faust however, does not
appear particularly active or heroic. Part II, No. 4 (“Ariel. Sonnenaufgang” (Goethe:
“Anmutige Gegend”) [“Charming Landscape”]: 4621-4727) presents Faust in a passive
position. Asleep, he needs the intercession of the spirit Ariel to overcome feelings of
guilt (triggered by his role in Gretchen’s downfall at the end of the first part of Faust)
before he can move on with his quest. In Part II, No. 5 (“Mitternacht” (Goethe:
“Mitternacht”) [“Midnight”]: 11384-11510), Faust is under the control of an evil,
feminine force named Sorge (Care), which despite his attempts he cannot withstand and
who easily blinds him. No. 6 (“Fausts Tod” (Goethe: “Groβer Vorhof des Palasts”)
6
Throughout this chapter, the numbers in brackets or parentheses refer to specific lines from Goethe’s
Faust, from Goethe’s Sämtliche Werke, ed. Albrecht Schöne, part 1, vol. 7/1 (Frankfurt am Main: Deutsche
Klassiker Verlag, 1994). All English translations are taken from Faust: A Tragedy: Interpretive Notes,
Contexts, Modern Criticism, 2nd ed., ed. Cyrus Hamlin, transl. Walter Arndt (New York: W.W. Norton,
2001). I have sometimes felt the need to adjust Arndt’s translations, and when I do the reasons are clearly
stated.
121
[“Great Outer Precinct of the Palace: Torches”]: 11511-11594) depicts his death:
enraptured but deceived by his inner vision, he affirms in his blissful state that he might
ask time to stop, and in so doing he loses his wager with Mephisto.7
In Part III, Gretchen returns and becomes a key player in Faust’s redemption.
From a literary standpoint, both Goethe and Schumann construct her role similarly,
emphasizing her influential redeeming love, but also her lack of bodily substance
following her death. I argue that the transcendental sphere of the semiotic chora, as
theorized by Kristeva, may be the site where some of her agency and power over Faust’s
destiny is located, while she remains an idealized character fabricated by male artists.
From a passive object subjected to Faust’s gaze in Part I, she becomes a subject due to
the beneficial effect which her love operates on Faust. This process reaches its final stage
in Part III, as she leads Faust to higher spheres transcending time and space. It involves
not only a reversal of fixed categories of masculinity and femininity, but also perhaps a
stepping out of gender on Gretchen’s part which is facilitated by her death and the
annihilation of her body.8 Thus, gender transitivity, as will become clear, does not
always go hand in hand with emancipation for women: the power it seemingly grants
them often coexists with stereotypical representations of idealized artistic female figures,
reiterating oppressive literary archetypes discussed in Chapter One.
The Kristevan Semiotic Chora
7
Faust: “Zum Augenblicke dürft’ ich sagen:/Verweile doch, Du bist so schön!” (“I might entreat the
fleeting minute:/Oh tarry yet, thou art so fair!”: 11581-11582) Part II, No. 6.
8
Gail K. Hart, “Das Ewig-weibliche nasführet Dich,” in Interpreting Goethe’s Faust Today, ed. Jane K.
Brown, Meredith Lee and Thomas P. Saine (Columbia: Camden House, 1994), 112.
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In this chapter, what I term the semiotic chora is defined, from a psychoanalytical
point of view, as a maternal realm, both feminine and beyond gender: in its use in works
of fiction, it may best be thought of as a process in which both textual and musical
elements participate. As a psychoanalytical concept, the chora is a realm in which preOedipal drives such as life, death and love, play a crucial role. It appears maternal due to
its life-giving and rejuvenating qualities. The chora, as a fluid, atemporal sphere, is
frequently linked in fiction with ethereal and evanescent elements such as air, water and
light. It may affect masculine and feminine fictional characters alike: in the Szenen aus
Goethes Faust, semiotic processes, by blending gender attributes, seemingly work
differently depending on the gender of each character, empowering female figures and
softening male ones. Semiotic influence can be detected in all three works under
discussion in this dissertation: however, it is in the Szenen aus Goethes Faust that its
workings seem most apparent. While the semiotic is particularly susceptible to musical
underpinnings, it cannot be linked to specific gestures. Rather, like Carolyn Abbate’s
concept of the voice, its manifestations are varied, and depend on the musical context.
The semiotic offers a disjunction, which can be temporal, spatial, or both, with the music
surrounding it: its gestures may occur on a melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic level, often
in combination with one another. The semiotic is also not located solely within the
singing voice: its processes may be felt in the orchestra. Semiotic moments sound
uncanny: in the Szenen aus Goethes Faust, they shift our perception of characters
depicted in the literary text, which in such instances tend to acquire stereotypical
attributes of the opposite gender. In order to show the workings of the semiotic in
Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust, I examine how song and lyricism foster a non-
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teleological and flexible conception of time: I show how through musical processes, with
the use of specific musical gestures, past and present at once merge and reflect on each
other within an atemporal, semiotic sphere. Song and lyricism are two musical elements
within this semiotic sphere: already present in Part I and II, they occur more insistently in
Part III.9 I claim that both appear to involve a turn inward from male protagonists: a
process which in the Szenen aus Goethes Faust appears to carry gendered connotations
since, following Kristeva’s theorizing, it perhaps signifies a return to origins, to a preOedipal realm in which the mother, emblematized by the image of the Virgin Mary, is the
leading figure to which the male hero of Bildungsromane longs to return.
Edda Burger-Güntert has pointed out that Goethe’s Faust has been perceived as a
literary work with strong musical qualities. 10 Schumann recognized the additional power
music brought to an understanding of Goethe’s words.11 The semiotic moments in his
9
Schumann mentions his melodic style of writing in a letter to Camille Stamaty: “Ich selbst bin in meinen
Compositionen heiterer, weicher, melodischer geworden. Du wirst es wohl schon in den ‘Kinderscenen’
gefunden haben. Dies sind aber nur Bagatellen, und ich habe mich in weit gröβeren Formen noch geübt.”
Letter of September 28th, 1840, in Briefe, Neue Folge, ed. Gustav Jansen, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Breitkopf &
Härtel, 1904), 197. (“I myself have become in my compositions more jovial, tender and melodic. You
have probably observed this already in the Kinderszenen. These however are only bagatelles, and I have
tried my hand at larger forms.”) The presence of song and lied-like elements in large-scale compositions
such as the Szenen aus Goethes Faust is significant, particularly for the female character of Gretchen, in
light of her influence on Faust.
10
“Daβ sich der ‘Sprachklangzauber’ dieses Werkes in den ‘Bergschluchten’ verdichtet, die Borchmeyer
als ‘metaphorisches Oratorium’ begreift, ist wohl im Zusammenhang mit der sich hier vollziehenden
Läuterung Fausts vom ‘Erdenrest’ und seinem Aufstieg in höhere Sphären zu sehen, die sich in der
Entmaterialisierung der Sprache durch ihre Musikalisierung spiegelt.” (“That the ‘magical soundscape’ of
the work becomes more dense in the ‘Bergschluchten,’ understood by Borchmeyer as a ‘metaphysical
Oratorio,’ is to be seen in conjunction with Faust’s sublimation from the ‘strains of mortality’ and his
ascention to higher spheres, reflected by the dematerialization of language through music.”) Edda BurgerGüntert, Robert Schumanns ‘Szenen aus Goethes Faust’ (Freiburg: Rombach Verlag, 2006), 80. And also:
“Ohne Zweifel war Goethe für Schumann mehr als ‘musikalischer’ Dichter – dank seiner umfassenden
Lektüren hatte der Komponist bereits ein sehr modern anmutendes Verständnis der Musikbeziehung und
Musikliebe des Dichters, das sein unzeitgemäβes Goethes-Bild vervollständigt.” (“Without doubt, Goethe
was more than a ‘musical’ poet to Schumann – thanks to his extensive readings the composer had already a
modern understanding of the poet’s relationship to music and love of music, which completed his
unfashionable image of Goethe.”) Ibid., 110.
11
Schumann wrote to Franz Brendel: “Am liebsten war mir, von Vielen zu hören, daβ ihnen die Musik die
Dichtung erst recht klar gemacht. Denn oft fürchte ich den: ‘Wozu Musik zu solch vollendeter Poesie?’”
(“I am particularly pleased to hear from many that the music rendered the poetry fully comprehensible.
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music for the Szenen aus Goethes Faust provide a vehicle for Gretchen’s gender
transitivity: I argue they enable Gretchen, by her influence on Faust, to progress beyond
stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, while at the same time reaffirming the literary
archetype Ewig-weibliche. In the last section of this chapter, I look at specific musical
moments which I consider strongly semiotic and discuss in what ways I believe some
specific gestures may allow Gretchen to overturn conventional gender boundaries. I
investigate the workings of the semiotic, evinced by a non-teleological conception of
time: from a literary and musical perspective, I believe love and song play an important
role in such processes. I examine in what ways they allow Gretchen to speak with her
own voice in Part III, which appears to be her sphere of action: I intend to show the
extent of her influence not only on Faust, but on other male characters as well.
Gretchen’s voice and influence, however, as one must constantly be aware, remain
controlled by male artists: ultimately she is only allowed to speak within the literary and
musical limits set both by Goethe and Schumann.
From the perspective of Hélène Cixous’ psychoanalytical theories, song appears
to be deeply involved in semiotic processes, as an element pervading the chora. Cixous
has argued that song is a powerful feminine element linked with love, providing female
figures with a voice: she emphasizes its originary, pre-Oedipal dimension by linking it to
“the first voice of love alive in every woman.”12 Song is instrumental in portraying
Gretchen’s character throughout Goethe’s work: it also constitutes a major aspect of
Because I often feared the reproach: ‘Why music to such accomplished poetry?’”) The sentence
immediately following, far less often quoted, is equally enlightening: “Anderntheils fühlte ich es, seitdem
ich diese Scene kenne, daβ ihr gerade Musik gröβere Wirkung verleihen könnte.” (“On the other hand, I
felt, since I got acquainted with this scene, that precisely music could provide it with great effects.”) Letter
of July 3rd, 1848, in Briefe, 285.
12
From Hélène Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” (Signs 1 [1976], 881) quoted in Pam Morris,
Literature and Feminism, 12. Also see Chapter One.
125
Schumann’s general aesthetic outlook. He transcribed in his Mottosammlung a number
of quotes concerning song. Most were compiled between 1836 and 1838, the years
immediately before Schumann embarked on his “year of song” (1840).13 Quotes
depicting song in ways similar to the Goethean conception of female love, as a gift
leading the male hero to a higher realm, seem to have particularly interested the
composer. A few examples below show in what ways I believe some may be linked to
semiotic processes which I see in the Szenen aus Goethes Faust. As with Gretchen’s
love, song is a gift from Heaven, evinced in a quote from Friedrich Schiller, twice
excerpted by Schumann in his Mottosammlung: “Freue dich, daβ die Gabe des Lieds vom
Himmel herabkömmt/Daβ der Sänger dir singt, was ihm die Muse gelehrt” (“Rejoice, that
the gift of song from Heaven comes downwards/That the singer sings to you, what the
muses taught him”).14 Like the figure of the Virgin Mary, song acts as an intercessor,
leading the soul upward to a higher realm of love: “Auf des Lieds melodischer
Brücke/Stieg der Geist zum alten Glücke/In der Liebe goldnes Land” (“On the lied’s
melodious bridges/The soul rises to old joys/In love’s golden land”).15 Song and love are
brought together in another quote by Schiller emphasizing the life-giving and
rejuvenating qualities of both: “Gesang und Liebe, in schönem Verein/Sie erhalten dem
Leben den Jugendschein” (“Song and love, in beautiful union/Preserve to life the
appearance of youth”).16 I discuss below how in Part III, song and love, in their
13
Song remains crucial to Schumann’s aesthetic choices and creative output, and plays a major role in the
two other works under discussion here, Das Paradies und die Peri and Genoveva. Song and lyricism will
thus be discussed in further chapters in conjunction with these works as well.
14
Friedrich Schiller. Quoted in Robert Schumanns Mottosammlung: Übertragung, Kommentar,
Einführung, ed. Leander Hotaki (Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach, 1998), 161 and 164.
15
Theodor Körner. Quoted ibid., 152. For Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué, love also leads upward: “Laβt
sich doch die Menschen drängen/Aufwärts geht des Liedes Bahn.” (“Let human beings press
onward/Upwards goes love’s path.”) Quoted in ibid., 165.
16
Friedrich Schiller. Quoted in ibid., 355.
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mediating and redeeming functions, are positive attributes linked to the idealized female
figures of the Virgin Mary and Gretchen. Both have a similar rejuvenating effect on
Faust, bringing him back to life and leading him to a higher realm which, like the
semiotic chora, suspends temporal boundaries. However, the benefits are reaped almost
exclusively by the male hero: it is unclear how Gretchen’s actions, while allowing her
some agency and possibility for growth, are ultimately beneficial for her personally.
The teleology of the narrative plot, already weakened by Schumann’s conception
of his work as tableaux isolating specific moments of the action instead of developing a
coherent, continuous storyline, appears to break down completely in Part III. Two
important psychoanalytical drives mentioned by Kristeva as operating within the semiotic
chora, love and death, play an important role. Gretchen’s redeeming love is central to
Faust’s last scene while the deaths of Faust and Gretchen, both of which have occurred
by now, disembody them and enable them to access a higher sphere. The action proceeds
on a plane which could be termed pre-Oedipal and semiotic due to its focus on a less
goal-oriented, more flexible conception of time and its impression of unbounded space.
William H. McClain discusses the concept of space in Goethe’s last scene, which occurs
in a higher sphere without fixed spatial boundaries, populated by angelic, otherworldly
and religious figures: “By conceiving the scene in terms of levels Goethe has succeeded
in representing spatially Faust’s progress toward ‘Erlösung’ by placing in ‘der höheren
Atmosphere’ the angels who bear his immortal parts.”17 Martin and Erika Swales have
argued that temporality lies at the heart of Faust.18 In their view, time in Goethe’s work
17
William H. McClain, “Goethe’s Chorus Mysticus as Significant Form,” Modern Language Notes 74
(1959), 45.
18
Martin and Erika Swales, Reading Goethe: A Critical Introduction to the Literary Work (Rochester, NY:
Camden House, 2002), 143. This play with linear time is a pervasive feature of nineteenth-century novels.
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appears at once linear and non-linear, diachronic and synchronic; Faust’s quest lies in
closing the gap between these two temporal conceptions. 19 Ellis Dye also points out the
importance of time, particularly for Faust’s constitution as a masculine subject. She
argues that “temporal metaphors dominate Faust’s projection of the outcome if he loses
the wager” and affirms that Faust will lose “his being as a separate, individual self,
constituted by time” (by which she means Faust’s death).20 As we know, Faust, by
experiencing bliss and asking the moment to stop, loses the wager with Mephisto:
appropriately, a novel conception of time is put in place after his death. Envisioning this
non-teleological conception of time in Part III as a semiotic process, one which following
Kristeva’s theorizing occurs in a higher realm at once maternal but, prior to origins and
the full formation of subjectivity, nonetheless does not remain bound to fixed conceptions
of gender, may allow us to see in a new light the figures of Gretchen and the Virgin
Mary.
Goethe’s Faust and the Archetypal Figure of Gretchen
In this section, I investigate how the figure of Gretchen is depicted in Goethe’s
Faust. The first part of the drama presents her in a supporting role: she shows strong
similarities with other female figures in nineteenth-century literary works. She is
stereotypical, presented as naïve, passive and featureless: a generic figure with scant
Eric Blackall, concerning Novalis’ novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen, affirms: “The first part of the novel
moves in time and space and is therefore diachronic, the second part is synchronic, the third part would
have been exochronic.” In his The Novels of the German Romantics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1983), 121.
19
“Faust’s quest is to close the gap between diachrony and synchrony, between the necessary linear
sequence of particular events and deeds on the one hand and, on the other, the mind’s ability to seize, in a
moment’s awareness, the conceptual totality of experience.” Swales, Reading Goethe: A Critical
Introduction to the Literary Work, 142.
20
Ellis Dye, “Figurations of the Feminine in Goethe’s Faust,” in A Companion to Goethe’s Faust: Part 1
and II, ed. Paul Bishop (Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2006), 113.
128
attributes truly her own, she is little more than an idealized object to be mastered by
Faust. A very young girl, socially and emotionally inexperienced, she devalues her
intellectual capacities: her unconditional love for Faust, which overwhelms her, defines
her character. When this love turns sour she is overcome by fear and guilt. These
emotions were typical in depictions of nineteenth-century bourgeois women: they were
emphasized by authors to keep them in their place, and many real women struggled with
guilt and fear when they tresspassed social norms of feminine behaviour. Thus in many
nineteenth-century literary works, representations of women reflect a lack of character
and strong defining attributes. As Dye points out, in the first part of Faust “Margarethe
[a name also used for Gretchen] is a kind of ‘noble savage’ and the product of the
ideological conflict that made the primitive admirable and naiveté in women
endearing.”21 Her character and role within the plot remain conventional: Dye insists on
her function as an abstract signifier and points out that she “remains present to the reader
as an ideal and icon of exploited and abused womanhood.”22 With her earthly and
sensual love, Gretchen is a necessary step in Faust’s moral education. Her main role,
typical of women in romantic novels focusing on male protagonists, is to function “as
erotic adventures for the hero on his journey to self-discovery.”23
Gretchen appears in the first part of Faust as an object to be mastered by the male
hero Faust: she is in a position Barbara Becker-Cantarino has described as typical of
women in early nineteenth-century literary works, who lose their contour and
21
Ibid., 100.
Ibid., 101.
23
Todd Kontje, Women, the Novel, and the German Nation, 1771-1871 (Cambridge, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 9.
22
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individuality. 24 During their second meeting, Faust describes her as an angel: “Du
kanntest mich, o kleiner Engel, wieder” (“You knew me then, dear little angel”: 3163)25
Concerned about proper womanly behaviour, she unsurprisingly blames herself for
Faust’s interest in her as she left church earlier in the drama: “Ach, dacht’ ich, hat er in
deinem Betragen/Was Freches, unanständiges gesehn? Es schien ihn gleich nur
anzuwandeln,/Mit dieser Dirne g’rade hin zu handeln.” (“Has he in my deportment seen,
I wondered, something unseemly, forward, crass? Here is a wench, he seemed impelled
to say, you’d come to business with right away”: 3171-3174). Faust easily manipulates
her: her earthly love leads her to despair, madness and guilt due to her involvement in the
three deaths of her mother, brother and newborn child.26
Despite outwardly unassuming features, however, Gretchen does show some
degree of agency at various moments in the plot, departing from stereotypical
conceptions of women as embodied by the literary archetypes discussed in previous
chapters. Her first words in the drama refuse Faust’s leadership and reject his offer to
take her home: “Bin weder Fräulein, weder schön,/Kann ungeleitet nach Hause gehn.”
(“I’m neither fair nor lady, pray,/Can unescorted find my way”: 2607-2608).27 Gretchen
immediately vanishes after having pronounced these words: ungraspable, she escapes
Faust’s gaze and control. Faust becomes obsessed with possessing her: unable to do so
24
For Becker-Cantarino: “Die Frau verlor ihre Kontur und Individualität. Sie wurde den Objekten
zugestellt, die der männliche Held meistern muβ, ehe er seine eigentliche Bestimmung erreicht.” (“The
woman lost her features and her individuality. She is set up as an object to be mastered by the male hero
before he can gain his own identity.”) See her “Priesterin und Lichtbringerin,” in Die Frau als Heldin und
Autorin, ed. Wolfgang Paulsen (Bern: A. Francke, 1979), 122.
25
In this sentence Arndt translates “Engel” as “elf” in English. I believe that “angel” is a more appropriate
term in this context.
26
This is particularly apparent in “Cathedral: Mass, Organ and Singing” where Gretchen, overcome by fear
to the point of hallucinating, imagines that she hears the voice of the Devil speaking to her.
27
About this moment Hart mentions: “Whatever Gretchen does for Faust, she does not ever follow him, not
here, not in their courtship interludes in the garden (‘macht sich los und läuft weg. Er steht einen
Augenblick in Gedanken, dann folgt er ihr’ [after 3194] and not when he attempts to lead her out of her cell
to escape execution.” Hart, “Das Ewig-weibliche nasführet Dich,” 116.
130
by his own means however, he enlists Mephisto’s help. Later in the drama, after having
spent time in the garden with Faust, Gretchen again refuses his offer to escort her home:
“Die Mutter würde mich – Lebt wohl!” (“My mother would – Farewell!”: 3209).
Gretchen’s song to the Mater dolorosa, the only one of the three which Schumann
retained from Goethe’s text, swerves from an earthly, eroticized dimension of love: it
presents its asexualized, heavenly and religious side, the one which appears particularly
prominent in the second part of Goethe’s Faust. The song is a moving plea from
Gretchen to the Mater dolorosa, asking for emotional and religious support: it
encapsulates her sufferings caused by love, establishing a powerful bond between both
female figures. Love is a catalyst for Gretchen’s transition from an earthly being akin to
the sinful and guilty Eve to a heavenly being close to the Virgin Mary. The conception of
love as I see it at work in this song remains, on a literary level, close to semiotic
processes due to its religious atemporal and unbounded dimension, and the maternal
presence of the Virgin Mary: it affords a better understanding of Gretchen’s character in
the later half of the drama, as I discuss more fully later in this chapter.
In the “Dungeon” scene at the end of the first part, Gretchen again refuses to
follow Faust, who attempts to rescue her from death.28 Faust is powerless to alter her
decision: she appears to possess a great amount of moral strength and courage, and
unflinchingly chooses to face her ordeal. Her psychological qualities, positive as they
are, do not ensure that she will be treated fairly (she clearly is not): but they do provide
her with the necessary means to lead Faust in the afterlife. Gretchen is executed: her
death (whose depiction Schumann omits) acts as a counterpart to Faust’s later death in
28
Gretchen: “Ich darf nicht fort; für mich ist nichts zu hoffen./Was hilft es fliehn?” (“It must not be; for me
there is no hoping./What use is fleeing?”: 4544-4545)
131
the second part of the drama. It appears to grant her the necessary strength to deliver
Faust from his earthly condition: it is only once dead, after her body no longer poses any
threat, that her beneficial effect can be operative. After her death, a crucial shift in her
character occurs. Unlike Faust, who must be shown the way to the heavenly realm of
light, she is granted immediate access to a higher otherworldly sphere, without need for
earthly or divine intercession. In order to act of her own free will, she must first
relinquish her bodily materiality. In other words, she must die and become an idealized
figure before she can gain strength.
Faust, for his part, does not appear to possess strong psychological features, nor
does he commit heroic deeds as one would expect of a male hero. The following
discussion is not meant to ignore Faust’s strivings, but to shed a different light on them
by placing them in a feminist perspective and suggesting they may not be as extensive as
one may think. Already in Goethe’s work, Faust appears as a male hero evincing
characteristics typically reserved for female figures. His intellectual endeavours, usually
considered a male prerogative and an important source of prestige, do not procure him
satisfaction: early in the drama, suffering from a deep depression and disillusioned by
academic life, he almost commits suicide. The sound of church bells, with their aura of
religiosity, reminds him of his childhood and holds him back: signifying, perhaps, a
desire to return to a pre-Oedipal moment prior to his formation as a masculine subject.
Significantly, Faust’s strivings are channelled by Mephisto’s guidance: Faust needs a
leader, just as in the last scene, he will need Gretchen to lead him. Mephisto leads Faust
wherever Faust likes, enticing the latter to lie and commit deeds to which he only halfheartedly agrees. Gail K. Hart notes Goethe’s fondness for destabilizing gendered male-
132
female/active-passive opposition: she hints at Faust’s gender ambiguity by underlining
the fact that “a ceaselessly striving protagonist lingers briefly with a young girl.” 29 Under
Gretchen’s spell, his masculine strivings come to a halt: he temporarily assumes the
position of a passive subject, controlled as he is both by his desire to possess Gretchen
and his need for Mephisto to procure her for him. Faust proves ineffective in
withstanding otherworldly powers, whether feminine (Care) or masculine (Mephisto),
both of which play a role in his death, the first one by blinding and deceiving him, the
second by proposing the wager which ultimately ends his life. At the end of his quest,
Faust appears even less powerful and less in control of his destiny: he is unconscious as
he is dragged upward to his salvation, following Gretchen, unable to resist. While he is
saved via feminine intervention, given his dubious morality and the havoc he has created
around him, it remains unclear exactly in what ways he has evolved as a male individual,
and on what counts he deserves such redemption.
Faust’s dependence on Gretchen seems most obvious in the last scene of Goethe’s
drama in which, almost as a non-presence, he takes no active part in the plot: he appears
only when he is referred to by other characters (angels, the Mater gloriosa, Gretchen).
Faust, who has been blinded by Care, is cut off from the masculine gaze: in order to
follow Gretchen to higher spheres, he must access his own inner sphere and his feelings,
thus putting himself in a position considered feminine by nineteenth-century society, and
perhaps by ours as well. I hope to show in what ways Faust’s redemption occurs in part
through the workings of the semiotic, primarily linked with love. As a typical male hero
of Bildungsromane, Faust relies on the redeeming love of a female figure. Love plays a
29
Hart, “Errant Strivings: Goethe, Faust and the Feminist Reader,” in From Goethe to Gide: Feminism,
Aesthetics and the French and German Literary Canon 1770-1936, ed. Mary Orr and Lesley Sharpe,
(Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2005), 20.
133
crucial role in forming his subjectivity: it is seen as a strong, feminine and positive force
connected with both Gretchen’s love and the maternal Mater gloriosa. Dye’s analysis of
this love as a gift freely given, here by the twin figures of Gretchen and the Virgin Mary
reiterating nineteenth-century views of female characters as mother and beloved for the
male hero, seem the most apt for my interpretation of Gretchen and her role as a leader:
“Love is a female donation, embodied in the Mater gloriosa and the transfigured
Margarete who intercedes on Faust’s behalf.”30
Schumann’s Reading of Faust: Literary Evidence for Gretchen’s Gender
Transitivity
This section looks at how Schumann’s selection of scenes from Goethe’s original
text reflects his understanding of Gretchen’s character, and her influence on Faust. The
scenes he chose for the first two parts of Szenen aus Goethes Faust retain Gretchen’s love
and womanly devotion: these two feminine characteristics glorify her but also thwart her
psychological growth. Thus his literary portrayal of Gretchen does not differ
significantly from Goethe’s: she initially appears equally stereotypical and submissive,
placed at the service of the male hero Faust. Schumann however, focuses on her to a
much greater extent than Goethe’s drama does. The importance of Gretchen allowed
Schumann to explore poetic themes such as love and redemption, which carry clear
gendered connotations. 31 While in Part I she appeared as a stereotypical suffering female
30
Dye, “Figurations of the Feminine in Goethe’s Faust,” 117. Dye also points out that “to recognize the
emphasis attached to ‘das Ewig-Weibliche’ as the subject of the last sentence in a twelve-thousand line
poem presuppose no ‘gynokratische These,’ nor should a sexist prejudice in favor of the ‘active’ principle
oblige us to resist Goethe’s unambiguous point that redemption is not to be earned through striving or any
other exercise of autonomy.” Ibid., 114-115.
31
Laura Tunbridge notes the presence of similar gendered themes in Schumann’s late lieder: “Almost all of
Schumann’s late songs, in fact, were written for female voices or at least female protagonists. Beyond
134
figure, the inner psychological evolution she undergoes in Part III is considerable.
Schumann toned down the theatrical moments of Goethe’s work, preferring to focus on
the private and inner nature of the drama. For Daverio, “Schumann, ever the sensitive
student of world literature, must have realized that at bottom the bipartite ‘Tragedy’ was
hardly a drama at all: its outward recourse to the dialogic form, no less than the
apparently dramatic thrust of its First Part, does not conceal a pervasive reflective spirit
that has far more to do with the inwardness of the Roman, the novel, than with the
teleology of the drama.”32
Schumann’s understanding of Goethe’s drama perhaps explains why he not only
chose to focus on Gretchen’s love, but also eliminated crucial moments in which Faust
appears assertive and intellectually active. He curtailed Faust’s emphasis on striving, a
defining feature of his psychological outlook in Goethe’s work, by omitting his
monologues, which define his personality, and large segments of the plot concerned with
him, toning down most of the moments in which he appears active. Schumann
downplayed his intellectual achievements: all the scenes in Faust’s study, in which he
appears to us as an academic, are absent, and he also omitted the moments where
Gretchen marvels at Faust’s knowledge and intelligence.33 However, Schumann retained
important moments in which Faust appears in a passive state. In Part II, No. 4, Faust is
questions of practicality and preference we might ask whether the appeal of such a gendered perspective
was also that it allowed particular poetic themes to be explored, among them two of Schumann’s favourites
in his last years: childhood and redemption.” In her Schumann’s Late Style (Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007), 26.
32
John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age” (New York: Oxford University Press,
1997), 368. Daverio further argues that “the novelistic principle of reflectivity animates not just the part
but even more important, the whole of his final literary opera.” Ibid., 368-69.
33
After their second encounter Gretchen exclaims: “Du lieber Gott! was so ein Mann/Nicht alles alles
denken kann!/Beschämt nur steh’ ich for ihm da,/Und sag’ zu allen Sachen ja./Bin doch ein arm unwissend
Kind,/Begreife nicht was er an mir find’t.” (“The things and things a man like he/Can think of in his mind
–dear me!/I stand and gape in shy distress,/And all I find to say is Yes./I’m such a poor goose, and he –/The
Lord knows what he sees in me.”: 3211-3216).
135
sleeping, while in Part II, No. 6, Mephisto mocks Faust’s ineffective strivings as the latter
attempts to reclaim land for his fellow citizens by constructing dams against the
overflowing water from the sea. As a result, Schumann’s Faust appears to the listener as
a character with a feminine psyche, perhaps also resembling more closely the composer
himself. The lack of strong masculine features in Schumann’s delineation of Faust’s
character reflects Schumann’s idiosyncratic view of Goethe’s protagonist: it perhaps also
helps explain his emphasis on Gretchen and the Virgin Mary in Part III, and the influence
of their feminine values at that crucial moment in the plot.
Schumann preferred to emphasize the inner and psychological nature of Goethe’s
characters rather than the external manifestation of their lives. To a greater extent than in
Goethe’s drama, Schumann’s Faust is presented as a feminine character, highly receptive
to female love and displaying an even less active behaviour than Goethe’s. The feminine
elements present in Schumann’s portrayal of Faust are reinforced by the composer’s
omission of what Robert Tobin has termed “the male-male dynamics of the pact”
between Faust and Mephistopheles. 34 The wager between both male characters is
implied, but never presented as such. Furthermore, while Schumann changed little of the
portions of Goethe’s text he set to music, the figure of Gretchen is envisioned from a
different angle due to the new contexts, both literary and musical, in which she appears.
34
“The entire Faust tradition, beginning long before Goethe, has always contained a bargain or deal,
usually a male-male affair. The resonance of Goethe’s addition of the feminine to the masculine Faustian
world is audible in the common currency of the phrase “eternal feminine,” along with the popularity of
Margarete, whose tragedy within the drama has captured the sympathy of countless readers since its first
publication. In adding the feminine to the Faustian tradition, Goethe does not, however, displace the malemale dynamics of the pact. Instead, he established a triangle of desire which confounds and upsets
traditional gender dichotomies: Faust’s masculine desire for the eternal feminine must be routed through
the male Mephistopheles, in the process putting into question the nature of male and female.” Robert
Tobin, “Faust’s Membership in Male Society: Prometheus and Ganymede as Models,” in Interpreting
Goethe’s Faust Today, ed. Jane K. Brown, Meredith Lee and Thomas P. Saine (Columbia, SC: Camden
House, 1994), 17. Emphasis added. The pact between Faust and Mephisto keeps matters between men. In
Schumann’s work, however, it is never presented as such: the listener must rely on her/his memory of
Goethe’s work.
136
Two factors may have influenced Schumann’s artistic decisions: his conception of female
redeeming love (discussed in Chapter One), and the influence of his wife Clara
Schumann (discussed in Chapter Two). I have explained how Schumann’s conception of
feminine love blurs gender boundaries, thus linking his nineteenth-century views of love
with what I see as semiotic processes. Furthermore, the double-pronged influence of his
wife Clara as both a strong, active woman and a passive, devoted muse figure might also
have played a role in how Schumann chose to portray Gretchen.
The remainder of this section will be concerned with Gretchen’s evolution, and
her influence on Faust. Schumann, more than Goethe, not only emphasized the female
figure of Gretchen, but also accentuated the contrast between the Gretchen of Part I and
her reappearance in Part III. Her love, naivety, dependency and passivity appear in
sharper relief in Part I, undiluted by other portions of the “Gretchen tragedy” or moments
of the drama unconcerned with her. Her portrayal initially remains indebted to
nineteenth-century conceptions of literary female figures as passive, suffering and
subordinate, little prone to psychological development. In Part I, No. 1, Faust’s very first
words depict her angelic nature: “Du kanntest mich, o kleiner Engel, wieder,/Gleich als
ich in den Garten kam?” (“You knew me then, dear little angel,/Right as I came into the
garden?”: 3163-3164) Gretchen lowers her eyes as she sees Faust (3165), plays childlike
games, and fears his mockery (3180).35 Faust uses belittling and infantilizing epithets
such as “Süβ Liebchen!” (3179) and “mein Kind!” (3184) to describe her. The
inexperienced Gretchen cannot foresee love’s catastrophic consequences: Faust asks her
if she fully understands what being loved means. His question is stunning in view of her
35
Gretchen: “Saht ihr es nicht? ich schlug die Augen nieder.” (“I dropped my eyes, you must have seen
yourself”: 3165). “Nein , es soll nu rein Spiel. (…) Geht! ihr lacht mich aus.” (“You’ll laugh, just stay
away.” [3180])
137
actions in Part III, and shows his inability to fully grasp her character as a human being.
Once Gretchen is aware of her pregnancy, she appears as a suffering, powerless
embodiment of the sinful Eve imploring the Virgin Mary for help (Part II, No. 2). She is
crushed by evil powers outside her control in the Cathedral Scene (Part I, No. 3).36 While
Schumann omits Gretchen’s death, he eliminated most of the brief moments in Goethe’s
drama, discussed above, in which she is presented to the reader in an active position.
Also toned down are the earthly and physical aspects of her love for Faust with the
omission of her spinning song (“Gretchens Stube” [“Gretchen’s Chamber”: 3374-3413]).
Schumann emphasized Gretchen’s naivety, interiority and religiosity while downplaying
her earthly and seductive features. She remains close to his idealization of Clara as a
loving, devoted wife: he thus rendered Gretchen akin to both the religious ideal of the
Virgin Mary, as well as with the sinful Eve.
In Part III, Schumann emphasized a higher eternal realm pervaded by love and
populated by angelic and religious figures, transcending time and space: I argue that this
higher realm reflects, on a literary level, the semiotic, non-teleological aspects of love in
Goethe’s last scene. Schumann’s selection of events allows Gretchen’s and the Virgin
Mary’s love to appear more concentrated than in Goethe’s drama, where Faust’s
redemption occurs only after a long series of tragedies.37 Each number in Part III
presents the workings of love from a different perspective: love is presented as a
powerful, mediating, creative force, at once protective, holy, glowing, and eternal. Most
36
Gretchen: “Wär’ ich hier weg! Mir ist als ob die Orgel mir den Atem versetzte, Gesang mein Herz im
Tiefsten löste.” (“Would I were far! I feel as though the organ here/Stifled my breath,/The singing
severed/My very soul.” [3808-3812])
37
As pointed out by Hermann Jung in his “‘Wozu Musik zu solch vollendeter Poesie?’,” in Eine Art
Symbolik furs Ohr: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lyrik und Musik (Frankfurt am Main and New York:
Lang, 2002), 116.
138
mentions of love appear to be linked with semiotic processes, most powerful in an eternal
temporal sphere and unbounded higher regions. In No. 1, love provides protection
against natural forces: the chorus speaks of a “Heiligen Liebeshort” (“Refuge of sacred
love”: 11853). In No. 2, Pater Ecstaticus sings of the “Glühendes Liebeband” (“Love’s
ever-glowing bond”: 11855) and the “Ewiger Liebe Kern” (“core of eternal love”: 11865)
triumphs.38 In No. 3, Pater Profundus mentions “allmächtige Liebe” (“all-potent love”:
11872), while the “Liebesboten” (“Love-envoy” 11882) who proclaim what “ewig
schaffend uns umwallt” (“works its eternally-creative will”: 11883), has the power to
deliver from harsh binding chains. 39 Later in that number, the eternal component of love
is mentioned. Pater Seraphicus speaks of “Ewigen Liebes Offenbarung” (“love’s eternal
revelation”: 11924), “Die im freisten Äther waltet” (which is “Found where ether is most
free”: 11923) and which “zur Seligkeit entfaltet” (“[U]nfolds to ecstasy”: 11925).40 In
No. 4, the angels speak of “ewige Liebe” (“eternal love”: 11964), conferred upon Faust
by higher powers.41 The younger angels reveal the source of this love: the “Liebendheiliger Büsserinnen” (“loving holy penitents: 11943), with Gretchen among them. 42
38
Arndt translates “Ewiger Liebe Kern” as “Timeless love’s core” which I believe is rendered more
accurately as “core of eternal love.” Love was equated with fire in Part II, No. 1, where Faust,
overwhelmed by the powerful nature surrounding him, asks: “Nun aber bricht aus jenen ewigen
Gründen/Ein Flammen-Übermaβ, wir stehn betroffen;/Des Lebens Fackel wollten wir entzünden,/Ein
Feuermeer umschlingt uns, welch ein Feuer!/Ist’s Lieb? Ist’s Haβ?” (“There will erupt from those eternal
porches,/Dumbfounding us, exorbitance of fire;/We only meant to kindle life’s torches,/And flame engulfs
us, seas of torrid blazes!/Love? Hatred?”: 4708-4711). These two questions, the first pertaining to love,
the other to hate, are asked on the same three pitches, G, D-sharp and E, perhaps signifying that Faust
cannot yet distinguish between them and needs to be enlightened.
39
Arndt translate this by the “all-creative will” which I have changed for “eternally-creative will” since I
believe Arndt’s translation misses the explicitly “eternal” component of this love, mentioned in the original
German.
40
Arndt translate this by “Timeless loving’s revelation” which seems odd and has therefore been changed
for “love’s eternal revelation.”
41
Angels: “Und hat an ihm die Liebe gar/Von oben Teil genommen,/Begegnet ihm die selige Schar/Mit
herzlichem Willkommen.” (“And when on high, transfigured love/Has added intercession,/The blest
throng to him above/With welcoming compassion.”: 11938-11941)
42
Arndt’s translation is: “From the hands of pure contrition.” I believe a more accurate translation would
be: “loving holy penitents” which retains the loving and holiness of this contrition.
139
Love entails suffering and bliss, both of which are linked with Gretchen and the Virgin
Mary, in her embodiment as Mater dolorosa (Part I, No. 2) and Mater gloriosa (Part III,
No. 6). In No. 4, love triggers suffering and “Liebesqual” (“love’s torment”: 11950),
while in No. 5, Doctor Marianus asks the Virgin Mary to accept what a man’s heart has
brought her with “heiliger Liebeslust” (“holy bliss of love”: 12003).43 In No. 6, the
Magna Peccatrix speaks of the love that the Mater dolorosa showed at the feet of her
transfigured son, emphasizing its religious dimension.44
Schumann’s focus on the figures of Gretchen and the Virgin Mary, combined with
the inner nature of these scenes, emphasizes an eternal, heavenly love from above,
reflected in the numerous metaphors of floating. Gretchen is intimately associated with
this view of love presented in Part III: semiotic processes evinced both in the text and, as
I discuss in the next section below, in Schumann’s music, bear significant implications
for her character, underlining its gender transitive dimension. She is vested with a
leading role: she is far removed from derogatory epithets such as “Süβ Liebchen!”
(“Sweet love”: 3179), with which Faust greeted her in Part I. While she embodies the
ideal figure of Ewig-weibliche which places her in a higher sphere at once feminine and
maternal, her character lies outside fixed categories of gender. Perhaps as a result of her
gender transitive status, she eludes the grasp of male characters such as Faust and Doctor
Marianus. They strive to reach her and attain the semiotic sphere in which she evolves:
nonetheless, they need her intercession and guidance to do so. For Doctor Marianus, the
43
Arndt translate this by “Sacred love’s revealing” which misses the blissful component of love in the
original German text, which I believe is an essential component of this feminine love. I have therefore
translated this passage as “holy bliss of love.”
44
Magna Peccatrix: “Bei der Liebe, die den Füβen/Deines gottverklärten Sohnes/Tränen lieβ zum Balsam
flieβen” (“By the love that at the feet/Of Thy son and Savior lying,/Poured them tears for unguent meet”:
12037-12039)
140
Virgin Mary is a powerful but stereotypical figure, a “Jungfrau, rein im schönsten
Sinn,/Mutter, Ehren würdig/Uns erwählte Königin,/Göttern ebenbürtig.” (A “Virgin
Thou immaculate,/Rich in grace maternal,/Chosen for divine estate,/Crowned our Queen
Eternal”: 12009-12012), in Part III, No. 5.45 She provides strength to male heroes: for
Doctor Marianus, the courage of men is invincible when she commands and guides
them.46 The presence of Gretchen and the Mater gloriosa (Part III, No. 6) is hailed as the
last step in the experience of a love which has become idealized and raised to a religious
plane. 47
In the semiotic context of Part III, with its emphasis on love, the gaze, gendered
masculine by feminist literary and film scholars such as Rosolowski and Laura Mulvey,
acquires a new dimension. References to the act of gazing, or the inability to do so, are
found in almost all numbers of Part III. These moments involve female characters, but
instead of objectifying them as is traditionally the case, I examine how the gaze does
grant them some measure of agency. This is perhaps linked to Gretchen’s gender
transitivity, her role as leader and her position outside time and space after the loss of her
body at death: I argue this allows her (with the Mater gloriosa) to return and control the
male gaze, a process Rosolowski has termed “specular reciprocity.” The Virgin Mary
emerges as a key player: the gaze is in her power. Already in Part I, No. 2, the Mater
dolorosa had established a visual link with two powerful male figures: Christ and God.
Gretchen mentioned in her prayer to the Mater dolorosa: “Blickst auf zu deines Sohnes
Tod” (“Thou gazest up to thy dead son’s face”: 3592) and “Zum Vater blickst du” (“To
45
He reiterates these words at the end of No. 6: “Jungfrau, Mutter, Königin,/Göttin bleibe gnädig.” (“Holy
Virgin, Mother, Queen,/Goddess, pour Thy mercies!”: 12102-12103).
46
Dr. Marianus: “Unbezwinglich unser Mut/Wenn du hehr gebietest” (“As invincible we stood/When Thou
badest the pious”: 12005-12006).
47
See Gisela Probst in her Robert Schumanns Oratorien (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1975), 32.
141
Him in the highest/Thou gazest”: 3593). Each instance began on a diminished 5th, an
emblem of Gretchen’s sufferings and her guilt. In Part III, No. 5, Dr. Marianus asks the
Virgin Mary to let him gaze at her mystery. In Part III, No. 6, he encourages the
reciprocity of the gaze, urging other male characters: “Blicket auf zum Retterblick”
(“Gaze to meet the saving gaze”: 12096). In the context of the work, this rescuing glance
may refer to that of Gretchen or the Virgin Mary, so close have the two female figures
been brought together. Gretchen’s ability to gaze at this moment is a reversal from Part I,
No. 3, when the “Böser Geist” mocked her: “Ihr Antlizt wenden/Verklärte von dir ab.”
(“Transfigured spirits/Avert their countenance.”: 3828-3829). Looking at female figures
grants male characters strength. This gaze seems controlled by female figures: in Part III,
Gretchen’s gaze critiques and contests, but also assumes, the authority of the masculine
position. She provides a strong contrast to Faust who, blinded by Care in Part II, No. 5, is
unable to see. Gretchen assumes a heroic subjectivity, stemming from her ability to lead
Faust upwards: in line with Schumann’s conception of Goethe’s drama, this heroism is of
a more interiorized, one could term feminine, kind, occurring via feminine values such as
love, sacrifice and devotion.
Upon attaining a higher, transcendental sphere, Gretchen’s emotional and
intellectual powers surpass those of Faust. Elevating Gretchen’s character above worldly
concerns, Schumann not only retained but emphasized her role as a leader. For Hart, “the
partial abdication of authority or self-determination that constitutes ‘following’ appears to
involve a projection of self onto a muse figure, an objectification of self – here as a
feminine spirit preoccupied with the education or salvation of the subject.”48 Gretchen
leads a blind and unconscious Faust to higher spheres, imploring the Mater gloriosa:
48
Gail K. Hart, “Das Ewig-Weibliche nasfüret dich,” 112.
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“Vergönne mir ihn zu belehren,/Noch blendet ihn der neue Tag.” (“Vouchsafe me
through new morn to lead him,/Too bright as yet for him to see”: 12092-12093.) She
points out: “Er ahnet kaum das frische Leben” (“He hardly recognizes the fresh life”:
12086.)49 Not only does blinding undercut the masculine gaze, stripping Faust of agency,
but it renders him powerless to actively look actively upon the Mater gloriosa for grace,
or even to resist this female intercession. The blinding powers of the new day hint at two
earlier moments: the blinding powers of sunlight, which Faust avoided by turning his
back to it (Part II, No. 4), and Care’s blinding of Faust (Part II, No. 5: 11497-11498),
which she easily does with her breath. When the sun’s rays touch Faust in Part II, No. 4,
he howls: “Sie tritt hervor! - und, leider schon geblendet/Kehr’ ich mich weg, vom
Augenschmerz durchdrungen.” (“Alas, already blinded,/I turn aside, my mortal vision
smarting.”: 4702-4703.) Just as he proved too weak to sustain the sun’s blinding light
and Care’s power in Part II, the unconscious, blind Faust cannot counter the power of
Gretchen’s feminine redeeming love in Part III. The ability to gaze and influence male
characters with their love, however, comes at a price for female figures: the loss of the
body in death, that earthly dimension which, due to its seductiveness at once desired and
feared, poses the greatest threat to male figures. Hart has pointed out that Gretchen’s
agency occurs only via her sufferings and death: “The subtraction of body – though it
does not de-gender the heroine – lends her the massive authority to lead Faust to heaven
and his salvation (at the Virgin Mary’s urgings). She who was misled or seduced in life
leads her seducer to glory in the afterlife.”50
49
Arndt translates this by “The novice scarce regains his wit” which misses the fact that Faust doesn’t only
regains his wit, but a fresh new life, which is not only present in the original German text but also an
essential component of my argument concerning Gretchen’s and her love’s impact on Faust’s psyche.
50
Hart, “Das Ewig-Weibliche nasfüret dich,” 113.
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Musical Evidence for the Workings of the Semiotic Chora
The following musical analysis discusses in what ways certain musical gestures
convey semiotic processes, linked with love and a higher sphere, in support of my
reading of the figures of Gretchen and Faust discussed above. What can musical gestures
tell us about Gretchen’s, and Faust’s, psychological mindset? Faust’s inwardness and
reflexivity in Part II may perhaps musically reflect a less teleologically-oriented
conception of time. On a literary level, Faust’s psychological mindset is linked with
feminine values common in romantic novels such as devotion, life-giving qualities, and
the love which Faust needs, leading him towards light and the higher sphere which is the
goal of his striving. 51 Despite attempts by Faust at various moments in the drama to
musically reassert his masculinity and his active, striving nature, which will be discussed
below, it is his powerlessness when faced with higher forces that constantly shows
through, as well as the influence of semiotic processes on his masculine psyche.
In Part I, No. 1, semiotic processes occur immediately after Gretchen sings: “Er
liebt mich!” (“He loves me”: 3185), the musical climax of the number (ex. 3.1). Faust
completes Gretchen’s phrase and abruptly interrupts her cadence on an F dominant 7th
chord with a cadence of his own, on a B-flat major chord. He provides the expected
resolution of her cadence on the dominant at the precise moment when he confirms his
love to her, cutting off her voice, and asserting his authority (bars 45-46). For a brief
moment, the music gives the impression that time has been suspended. This sweeping
lyrical outburst contrasts with Gretchen’s preceding stuttering melodic line interspersed
with rests, over a static bass-line (standing on C at bars 41-43), as she plays her childish
51
Daverio links reflexivity with the novel, noting its pervading presence: “The novelistic principle of
reflexivity animates not just the part but even more important, the whole of his final literary opera.” See
his Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 368-369.
144
game “he loves me, he loves me not.” Faust’s musical language seems more assured,
contrasting for the moment with Gretchen’s insecurities in matters of love. He appears
sure of himself and more experienced, mirroring Gretchen’s strong impression of him
after their first meeting. 52
52
Gretchen: “Ich gäb’ was drum, wenn ich nur wüβt’/Wer heut der Herr gewesen ist!/Er sah gewiβ recht
wacker aus,/Und ist aus einem edlen Haus;/Da konnt’ ich an der Stirne lessen – /Er wär’ auch sonst nicht so
keck gewesen.” (“I’d give a deal if I could say/Who was that gentleman today./I liked his looks and how
he spoke;/He must be born of noble folk,/That I could tell from brow and eyes –/Would he have been so
forward otherwise?”: 2678-2683.) Those lines were not set by Schumann.
145
Ex. 3.1, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part I, No. 1, mm. 40-47
146
At the end of this emotionally-charged highpoint, Faust affirms: “Laβ diesen
Blick,/Laβ diesen Händedruck dir sagen,/Was unaussprechlich ist:/Sich hinzugeben ganz
und eine Wonne/Zu fühlen, die ewig sein muβ!” (“Let this gaze,/this pressure of my
hands express to you/What is ineffable:/To give one’s whole self, and to feel/An ecstasy
that must endure forever!”: 3188-3192.) Masculine gaze unites with feminine love to
undercut symbolic language, bringing both partners into an eternal, atemporal sphere of
jouissance and ecstasy symbolized by this brief, semiotic moment (bars 45-49).
Schumann twice repeats the words “ewig” (“eternal”), underscoring the atemporal and
eternal component of love. Faust, however, proves unable to fully master love, whether
in this number or anywhere else in the drama. Mephisto’s arrival abruptly undercuts this
semiotic moment and interrupts Faust’s declaration of love, accompanied by a winding
motive connected with evil on the bassoon (ex. 3.2).53
Ex. 3.2, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part I, No. 1, mm. 56-59
53
Mephisto: “Es ist wohl Zeit zu scheiden.” (“It must be time to part.”: 3207) Daverio notes the motive’s
importance: “While recurrent musical materials play only a limited role in the Faust scenes, there is
nonetheless one idea that emerges as a kind of signature motive at key points throughout.” Daverio, Robert
Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 370. The motive’s connection with evil, shown by its first
presence here in conjunction with Mephisto, is reinforced by its connection, in Genoveva, with the witch
Margaretha: see Chapter Four below.
147
Daverio affirms that this sudden turn of events “casts Faust’s expansive declaration of
love for Gretchen in an ironic light.”54 At this precise moment, Gretchen, despite being
depicted with stereotypical feminine attributes, displays some assertiveness and free will:
she rejects Faust’s offer to lead her home, affirming that her mother would be opposed,
and bids him farewell. Faust does not appear again in Part I, and never again is he
presented in such an assertive manner: his brief control over Gretchen, love and the
semiotic do not lead to lasting consequences for himself.
Gretchen’s song to the Mater dolorosa (Part I, No. 2), the only Goethe poem for
her that Schumann set to music, is a self-contained event: set apart from the narrative and
bringing the latter to a halt, the song enlightens us about Gretchen’s psychological
outlook. She outwardly remains naïve and helpless: however, Schumann’s music reveals
some strength, foreshadowing her more active role in Part III. It is the only number in
Part I in which she appears musically powerful. Her agency occurs at the climax of the
number: semiotic processes give her courage and strength, stemming, I argue, from her
visual connection with the Virgin Mary (ex. 3.3).
54
Ibid., 370.
148
Ex. 3.3, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part I, No. 2, mm. 53-57
This event is set apart from the rest of this number by the sudden loud dynamics, the held
notes in the oboes and clarinets, as well as Gretchen’s high voice and the wide leaps she
sings (from A4 to A5 and from B-flat4 to B-flat 5). This fortissimo section is also
harmonically a surprise; the previous two bars are in A minor, with a dominant chord (E
major) immediately before the double-bar: the arrival of F major (bar 54) is therefore a
149
deceptive harmonic progression.55 Gretchen looks upwards to the Mater dolorosa,
imploring her help: “Hilf! rette mich von Schmach und Tod!” (“Mercy! Save me from
shame and death!”: 3616), on two fortissimo B-flat5, her highest note in the entire opera.
I argue that such a display of power exemplifies Michel Poizat’s notion of the musical
cry: occurring high in her vocal range, her voice further dissolves language in this
number, and time, due to the influence of semiotic processes, momentarily stops during
these two bars. The nature of Gretchen’s love undergoes a change: instead of a
heterosexual and oppressive love (for instance, the asymmetrical hierarchical relationship
between her and Faust in Part I, No. 1), a more positive, egalitarian female homosocial
bond is established between her and the Mater dolorosa. Both women, incidentally, are
motherly figures. Two tragic events connected with motherhood have occurred in
Gretchen’s life. She is bearing Faust’s illegitimate child at this point in the drama, which
she later kills out of guilt and shame. In addition, she acted as a surrogate mother for her
younger sister, who died before the drama begins. The bond between her and the Mater
dolorosa is strengthened by an act of reciprocal gazing, expressed by Gretchen’s first
words in this number, as she asks the Mater dolorosa to look down at her: “Ach neige,/Du
Schmerzenreiche,/Dein Antlitz gnädig meiner Not!” (“Ah, bend down/Laden with
sorrow/Mercifully thy face upon my woe!”: 3587-3589).56
Despite Gretchen’s complete absence from Part II, semiotic processes, with their
flexible conception of musical time, occur in Schumann’s musical interpretation of the
scenes concerned with Faust. In each number of Part II, musical time either dramatically
55
I am grateful to Nicole Biamonte for bringing this to my attention.
Arndt translates this as: “Incline,/Thou rich in grief, oh shine/Thy grace upon my wretchedness!”: 36173619, a translation which I believe misses that crucial reciprocal act of gazing between Gretchen and the
Mater dolorosa.
56
150
slows down or is suspended immediately preceding Faust’s appearances: this effect is
achieved most often in the orchestra, when it holds a given pitch, or oscillates between
two pitches. 57 Sometimes the sheer power of a character’s voice appears to stop time.
Part II, No. 4 provides instances of semiotic processes, most of which are linked to
evanescent qualities such as light and air, and the dark realm of night. Faust, however,
appears weak: Ariel, a spirit of the air, summons other spirits of the air to lead him
towards the healing powers of holy light. Faust’s rejuvenation and “rebirth” occur in the
darkness of night, the latter associated in early romantic writings with women and death,
but also, as Ariel mentions, with healing virtues.58 Perhaps too, from a psychoanalytical
perspective, it signifies a return to origins before the establishment of fixed gender
boundaries, to the pre-Oedipal darkness of the mother’s womb from which the subject is
born and rejuvenated, as symbolized by the water imagery of the river Lethe mentioned
by Ariel. 59 Opposed to night, light is also an element able to trigger semiotic processes.
The ethereal, high range of the soprano solo’s sweeping melodic line beginning on a Bflat5 emphasizes light’s curing virtues with her words “Du wirst gesunden” (“You will be
cured”: 4652), soaring above orchestra and chorus, exhorting Faust to trust the healing
powers of light (ex. 3.4).
57
See Part II No. 4 (bars 269-273), No. 5 (bars 120-136), and No. 6 (bars 222-306), which I discuss below.
Each of these suspensions of musical time may be explained by Faust’s state of mind. In No. 4 he is halfasleep. In No. 5 he is in deep depression while in No. 6 he is awed by his treacherous inner vision.
58
Ariel addresses the hovering spirits thus: “Die ihr dies Haupt umschwebt im luftgen Kreise,/Erzeigt euch
hier nach edler Elfen Weise,/Besänftiget des Herzens grimmen Strauβ,/Entfernt des Vorwurfs glühend
bitter Pfeile,/Sein Innres reinigt von erlebtem Graus./Vier sind die Pausen nächtiger Weile,/Nun ohne
Säumen füllt sie freundlich aus.” (“Ye who surround this head with aerial wheeling,/Here prove the noble
elfin way of healing,/Soothe now the wearied heart’s contention dire,/Withdraw the searing arrows of
remorse,/Of horrors suffered cleanse his soul entire./Four are the vigils of the night’s dim course,/With
kindly care to plenish them conspire.”: 4621-4627.)
59
Ariel: “Dann badet ihn im Tau aus Lethes Flut” (“Then bathe him in the dew of Lethe’s bourn”: 4629.)
151
Ex. 3.4, Schumann, Faust-Szenen, Part II, No. 4, mm. 127-129
This voice appears to introduce a different, lyrical time strongly contrasting with the
more animated music previously heard from the chorus, focusing the listener’s attention
on this luminous musical moment.
Another semiotic moment occurs in Part II, No. 4, which again appears triggered
by light’s evanescent, ephemeral and otherworldly qualities. Ariel warns the spirits that
the sun is about to rise: “Horchet! Horcht! dem Sturm der Horen,/Tönend wird für
Geistes-Ohren/Schon der neue Tag geboren.” (“Hark the storm of hours rounding,/Clear
to spirit ear rebounding,/Knell of day’s renewal sounding!”: 4666-4668,). Ariel’s words
emphasize the sheer power of sound at light’s arrival, overcoming sight, the latter which
belongs to the masculine visual order. Telling is how Schumann chose to depict this
moment in music. The music accompanying the new day’s light hovers for several bars:
the instruments either play a single pitch, arpeggiate chords, or oscillate between two
pitches, as Ariel greets the new day’s thunderous arrival. One harmony carries over
several bars, emphasized by tremolos which heighten the dramatic impact of this moment
(ex. 3.5). The music at this point abruptly undercuts the chorus’ appraisal of those
blessed with a quick spirit: “Alles kann der Edle leisten,/Der versteht und rasch ergreift”
(“the noble human being who quickly understands/Can accomplish everything”: 46644665), values associated with masculinity. 60
60
Nicole Biamonte points out that the transformation of night into day at this precise moment, linked with a
non-teleological conception of musical time, is also accompanied by a harmonic transformation. The music
preceding this excerpt has prolonged the dominant of B-flat and thus setting up strong expectations for an
152
Ex. 3.5, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 4, mm. 215-225
arrival in B-flat, enhanced by the linear descent in the bass line from F – E-flat – D – C – B-flat. When the
B-flat chord arrives, however, it is not a stable tonic harmony but the dominant of IV (E-flat).
153
Another semiotic moment occurs immediately before Faust’s arrival, again
associated with light. It occurs just after Ariel warns that sound accompanying the new
day is so powerful that it may deafen. The first violins and first cellos hold the pitch D
while the other instruments oscillate between fixed pitches in their respective parts (ex.
3.6). Time comes to a halt at bar 271, with a fermata for full orchestra over a half-rest.
Ex. 3.6, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 4, mm. 269-273
Further semiotic processes in this number can also be associated with light. Time
is dramatically suspended as Faust, with an emphatic octave leap, utters
“Hinaufgeschaut!” (“Raise up your gaze!”: 4695) towards the new day’s eternal light (ex.
3.7). He attempts to raise his masculine gaze, but the descending octave in fact tell us of
his inability to master it, to counter the masculine sun’s powerful light. Faust’s inability
to gaze is again borne out in the next number, as Faust is blinded by Care. When
154
associated with light and blinding, therefore, semiotic processes have the power to render
Faust helpless, passive and feminized, a position clearly expressed in Part III, due to
Gretchen’s influential love.
Ex. 3.7, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 4, mm. 294-298
Another semiotic moment occurs a few bars later, as Faust greets light’s imminent
arrival and complains of the blinding powers of the sun. Oscillations between chords,
underscored by tremolos and repeated figuration, contribute to a non-teleological
conception of musical time (ex. 3.8). Light seems in this instance to trigger semiotic
processes, due to its evanescent quality and its potential to undercut the masculine gaze,
155
depriving Faust of sight. The latter, actively and consciously turning his back from this
threatening source of light, willingly refuses the power to gaze and thus, perhaps,
surrenders masculine privileges.
Ex. 3.8, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 4, mm. 316-333
156
Semiotic processes recur later in the number as Faust speaks of a rebirth brought
about by the rainbow’s constantly changing “farbigen Abglanz (ex. 3.9).61 Light can
blind, “de-masculinizing” Faust by depriving him of his gaze: but it can also provide life.
Ex. 3.9, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 4, mm. 403-414
61
Faust: “Am farb’gen Abglanz haben wir das Leben” (“That life is ours by colourful refraction”: 4727)
and “Der spiegelt ab das menschliche Bestreben” (“This mirrors all aspiring human action”: 4725). The
rainbow, as Tunbridge mentions, is a powerful symbol associated not only with light but also with time
(rainbows vanish as swiftly as they arrive) and space (the ability to see the rainbow depends on the precise
angle between the observer, the sun, and the water droplets that reflect the rays of light). For Tunbridge,
the elusive nature of rainbows links them with Schein, “an artistic semblance that both accentuates the
subjectivity or relativity of the viewing process (perceiving as Schein) and privileges the immaterial,
evanescent qualities of landscape.” Tunbridge, “Euphorion Falls: Schumann, Manfred and Faust” (Ph.D.
diss.: Princeton University, 2002), 99. By rendering the categories of space and time unstable, I argue that
rainbows partake of the semiotic chora. The translation “many-hued splendors of reflection” is from
Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 368.
157
The shimmering chords, long note-values and sustained pitches on the woodwinds
undercut Faust’s heroic music heard in the bars immediately prior to this moment, as he
marvels, beginning with three repeated C-sharp’s, at the elusive, life-giving rainbow, that
“spiegelt ab das menschliche Bestreben.” This brightening effect, as if the sun were
coming out, is enhanced by the tonal mixture: the beginning of this excerpt end in Csharp minor (bar 403-404), but Faust’s first C-sharp is on a C-sharp major chord, a sort of
Picardy third (bar 401).62 Daverio comments on this suspension of previous heroic
gestures: “To establish the atmosphere for Faust’s assertion that ‘In the many-hued
splendors of reflection we find life,’ Schumann suspends the heroic gestures prevalent up
to that point, offering in their stead a series of sustained, chromatically shifting harmonies
in the winds.”63 These harmonies produce an ethereal effect: I argue that the music
unfolds within the realm of the semiotic chora, symbolized the rainbow. Faust, in fact,
cannot withstand the powerful light that almost blinds him: he only benefits from its
effects in an oblique way, by turning his back to it which allows him to see the rainbow.
In Part II, No. 5, time markedly slows down immediately before Faust, now
disillusioned and depressed, appears. The music contains gestures such as repeated
triadic patterns, oscillations between two pitches, sustained pitches and tremolos (ex.
3.10). Telling is the presence of the evil motive connected with Mephisto within this
semiotic realm, on the same instrument as in Part I, No. 1 (on the bassoon, with the
violas). Faust cannot withstand this evil power: Mephisto undercuts his love for
Gretchen (Part 1), and Care blinds him (Part II). In Part III however, evil is musically
transcended due to the influence of Gretchen and the Virgin Mary, as I discuss below.
62
63
I am indebted to Nicole Biamonte for pointing this out to me.
Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 368.
158
Ex. 3.10, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 5, mm. 120-136
159
Time again slows down considerably, later in the number, as Care blinds Faust on
a B minor chord, moving to an F-sharp minor chord on her word “Ende” (ex. 3.11). The
orchestra oscillates between two pitches or sustains one given pitch. The passage creates
a sense of cadential closure, as the B minor chord in second inversion on “Ende” (bar
297) sounds uncanny within the musical context and the sliding chromaticism, moving to
a root position F-sharp major chord.
160
Ex. 3.11, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 5, mm. 296-299
Faust’s blinding happens swiftly, despite his feeble attempts to withstand it: it is achieved
by a female power over which he has little control. Evil powers, under Mephisto’s
control in Part I, are personified by the female figure of Care in Part II: Faust, helpless
and diminished, can counter the influence of neither figure.
After being blinded, Faust withdraws into his inner self where ironically night
creeps in: he trusts his inner light and inner vision, both of which deceive him. He
attempts to appear musically heroic as he imagines his ideal world, at the end of Part II,
No. 5 (ex. 3.12). The woodwinds and strings utter a motive consisting of a dynamic
161
rising arpeggio with its recognizable quarter-note triplets (associated with Siegfried’s
heroism in Genoveva: see next chapter), heard immediately after Faust has uttered his
monologue in which he expressed his grandiose plans, issuing from his powerful,
masculine mind.64 Faust’s feminine emphasis on his inner self, a common feature of
male protagonists of Bildungsromane, combines with his assertiveness and the presence
of the masculine heroic motive. However, Schumann’s use of heroic codes is ironic: far
from empowering Faust, his sudden burst of activity stems from his inability to see,
which leaves him vulnerable, and results in his demise and death.
The music at the end of this number, as I hear it, again appears to display nonteleological temporal processes: while the harmony remains functional and the passage
creates a sense of cadential closure, this moment seems to evince semiotic processes,
operative in a higher transcendental sphere at once maternal and above gender, to which
Faust, via Gretchen’s love, accedes in Part III.
64
I link this assertive motive to Siegfried’s heroism in Genoveva: see Chapter Four. Faust’s words are:
“Die Nacht scheint tiefer tief hereinzudringen/Allein im Innern leuchtet ein helles Licht:/Was ich gedacht
ich eil es zu vollbringen (…). Daβ sich das gröβte Werk vollende/Genügt Ein Geist für tausend Hände.”
(“The night, it seems, turn deeper still – but shining,/The light within continues ever bright,/I hasten to
fulfill my thought’s designing;/The master’s word alone imparts his might. (…) To bring to fruit the most
exalted plans,/One mind is ample for a thousand hands.”: 11499-11502 and 11509-11510.) Part II, No. 5.
162
Ex. 3.12, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 5, mm. 370-393
The most striking semiotic processes occur at the end of Part II, No. 6: they mirror
the numerous references to a non-linear conception of time found in the literary text.
163
Suspending a teleological progression of time, such moments link the temporal and
earthly world of Part I and II to the atemporal and otherworldly sphere of Part III. Faust
would like to see free people working on free land. He is blind however, cut off from the
gaze: he confuses the sound of fantastic creatures (the lemurs) digging his grave with that
of the workers who he imagines are realizing his inner vision. Faust’s words, “Verweile
doch, Du bist so schön!” are uttered as he finally experiences the bliss he has been
striving for all along. With these words, Faust loses the wager and ceases to exist as a
striving individual evolving within a teleological temporal frame. Immediately after his
death, several instruments play descending lines: sustained pitches bring musical time to
a halt. Semiotic processes are heard as Faust utters: “Genieβ ich jetzt den höchsten
Augenblick.” (“I savor now my striving’s crown and sum.”: 11586.), over a series of
repeated Gs resolving to the tonic C (ex. 3.13).
164
Ex. 3.13, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 6, mm. 219-231
165
Mephisto confirms the suspension of time: “Der mir so kräftig widerstand,/Die Zeit wird
Herr” (“Here he who fought me off so well –/Time triumphs”: 11591-11592), on a single
pitch D (ex. 3.14).
166
Ex. 3.14, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 6, mm. 253-256
Two bars later he adds: “Die Uhr steht still” (“The clock is muted”: 11593), uttered on
scant orchestral support (ex. 3.15). Both time and Faust’s strivings have come to an end.
An otherworldly chorus repeats “Steht still!” (“Mute”: 11593): its sudden harmonic shift
(bars 259-266) to the Neapolitan key with a plagal cadence G-flat – D-flat, moving on to
A-flat, stands out amidst the C major surroundings.65
Ex. 3.15, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 6, mm. 259-266
65
At bars 257-258, Mephisto uttered, alone, “Der Greis hier liegt im Sand” on a dominant G moving up to
the tonic C. Immediately afterwards (bars 259-260 of Ex. 3.15) Mephisto sings A-flat moving to D-flat. At
bar 267, the music returns to C major, with the chorus singing “Der Zeiger fällt!” on C moving down to the
dominant G.
167
A few bars later, the chorus is musically static due to the slow tempo and sustained notes:
the sopranos, tenors and basses utter “es ist vollbracht” (“it is fulfilled”: 11594), on a
single pitch C while the altos outline a plagal cadence (bars 270-273).
Goethe’s Last Scene and Gretchen’s Influential Love
In this last section, I examine how the feminine influence of Gretchen and the
Virgin Mary is clearly asserted in Part III, despite their physical absence for much of it.
The semiotic moments from Parts I and II discussed above set the atmosphere for Part III,
in which both female figures’ influence is felt most strongly. This is particularly
noticeable in the effects which the semiotic has on Faust’s strivings, which are brought to
a halt. In both Goethe’s drama and Schumann’s libretto, Gretchen returns at the end of
the work after a prolonged absence: she becomes an important figure, essential to Faust’s
salvation. 66 Semiotic processes in Part III entail both temporal and spatial components:
they are linked to important attributes and events in the plot, such as light, hovering, and
Faust’s salvation. I argue that Schumann’s music draws the listeners into a feminine
semiotic realm by displacing our attention from the more linear events in Part I and II to
those of Part III, which occur in an atemporal sphere.
Poizat links a halting of musical time by way of pedal points, evinced at several
moments in Part III, to an infinite space, close to silence and thus, the breakdown of
66
Christopher E. Schweitzer notes that “in ‘Bergschluchten’ the male principle – let me for the sake of
simplicity connect it with streben – has receded and yielded to that of the feminine.” Schweitzer,
“Gretchen and the Feminine in Goethe’s Faust,” in Interpreting Goethe’s Faust Today, ed. Jane K. Brown
Meredith Lee and Thomas P. Saine (Columbia: Camden House, 1994), 138.
168
language, where in his view the meeting with God occurs.67 Daverio links musical
gestures to the concept of space which also bear on my understanding of the semiotic: he
examines Schumann’s “theme of ascent” connected with ascending intervals or rising
lyrical melodic lines connoting sanctity and purification brought about by female
characters. He argues that by doing so, Schumann musically portrays the unbounded,
spatially expanded dimension of Faust’s last scene.68 Ascending gestures occur in the
last bars of Part II, with upward leaps of major sixths on long-note values (ex. 3.16).
67
“La pédale (…) est en effet la modalité d’écriture privilégiée dès qu’il s’agit du néant, du silence, celui
des espaces infinis, comme celui où doit s’effectuer la rencontre avec Dieu.” Poizat, L'Opéra, ou, Le cri de
l'ange: Essai sur la jouissance de l'amateur d'opéra (Paris: A.M. Métailié, 1986), 128. (“The pedal (…) is
in fact the privileged mode of musical writing whenever the composer wishes to evoke nothingness, the
silence of infinite space, the silence in which the encounter with God is to take place.” English in The
Angel’s Cry: Beyond the Pleasure Principle in Opera, transl. Arthur Denner [Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1992], 88)
68
Daverio discusses this rising gesture in his Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 378. The
reference to what he terms a “theme of ascent” is found on p. 380.
169
Ex. 3.16, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part II, No. 6: mm. 293-306
This process is carried on in the first bars of Part III: the interval expands to octave leaps
moving upwards from a lower to higher register within the orchestral texture (ex. 3.17).
170
Ex. 3.17, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 1, mm. 1-6
Daverio contends that the octave leaps “create a sense of immense space, an aural
metaphor for the vast, untamed landscape (…) in which the final act of redemption will
171
play itself out.”69 The blurring of spatial and temporal boundaries, on a musical level, is
supported by pervasive literary references throughout Part III to eternity and “schweben”
(“hovering”). Part III is overwhelmingly populated by otherworldly, angelic figures
portrayed as hovering. This flexible conception of time and space provides a frame of
reference, both literary and musical, to understand Gretchen’s overcoming of boundaries
associated with stereotypical notions of femininity.
The workings of non-teleological musical time can be observed at various
moments in Schumann’s setting of Goethe’s last scene. Most are associated either with
female characters or the love they embody. Long-held notes and other musical gestures
suspend musical time, reinforcing textual references to a higher realm which I see as
Gretchen’s and the Virgin Mary’s sphere of action. I consider the focus on lyricism as a
feminine musical influence: while in Part I and II Faust was the male character who most
strongly acquired a feminine mindset due to lyricism, in Part III all characters, male or
female, appear to be psychologically affected by it. The semiotic drive of love controls
Pater Ecstaticus (Part III, No. 2), Pater Profundus and Pater Seraphicus (No. 3) and
Doctor Marianus (Part III, No. 5), discussed below. Each is linked with various semiotic
elements discussed above, such as atemporality, feminine redeeming love and light.
Pater Ecstaticus’ solo (Part III, No. 2) is concerned with love’s powerful effects.
His words as he hovers above, “Glühendes Liebeband” and “Ewiger Liebe Kern,” are
sung on a long, sweeping melody: they emphasize the eternal bond of love (ex. 3.18).
69
Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 379.
172
Ex. 3.18, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 2, mm. 1-14
The chromatically descending evil motive linked in Part I with Mephisto (Part I, No. 3),
is transfigured by lyricism. The change one perceives in the motive’s configuration
seems to be triggered by the redeeming powers of feminine love, reflected by the solo
cello’s mellow tone (in contrast to the piercing timbre of the bassoon in Part I, No. 1).
Burger-Güntert notes its liberating potential: she affirms that in Part III the motive of evil
is heard in conjunction either with masculine figures wishing to free themselves from
173
their earthly condition (Faust and Pater Ecstaticus), or with female ones (the Büsserinnen
and Gretchen) who have already done so.70
During the first six bars of Pater Profundus’ solo (Part III, No. 3), the string
instruments hold one pitch, while the trombones slowly move from a B-flat chord to an
E-flat chord, then an A-flat chord, before returning to the tonic, B-flat (ex. 3.19).
Ex. 3.19, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 3, mm. 1-5
The slow harmonic rhythm halts musical time: the impression of monumentality mirrors
the immensity of the surroundings, and acts as a backdrop against the triumphant “So ist
es die allmächt’ge Liebe,/Die Alles bildet, alles hegt.” (“all-potent love effected,/Which
70
Bürger-Güntert affirms that in Part III: “Erscheint das Motiv im Zusammenhang mit solchen Figuren, die
sich – wie Faust – von eben diesem ‘hinab’ ziehenden Materiellen zu lösen suchen wie der Pater Ecstaticus,
dessen Auf und Ab-Schweben zwischen ‘Himmel’ und ‘Erde’ den Kampf gegen den hemmenden
‘Erdenrest’ versinnlicht, oder wie im Falle der Büβerinnen bereits durch ‘Umkehr’ und ‘Buβe’ als Formen
der verinnerlichenden Reinigung vom rein Materiellen bereits davon gelöst haben.” (“The motive is heard
in conjunction with figures – such as Faust – which seek to liberate themselves from precisely this
materiality which drags one down, in the manner of the Pater Ecstaticus whose constant hovering up and
down between ‘Heaven’ and ‘earth’ sensualises the struggle against the ‘strains of mortality,’ or figures of
inner purification from pure materiality like the penitents which, through ‘change’ and ‘repentance’ have
already liberated themselves.”) See her Robert Schumanns ‘Szenen aus Goethes Faust,’ 210.
174
fashions all, and fosters all.”: 11872-11873) mentioned soon afterwards in the number.
Another instance of a non-teleological, semiotic use of musical time is found at the end of
that same solo. The orchestra stops its oscillating motion: the sustained notes in the
strings, horns and trombone halt the momentum as Pater Profundus invokes higher
instances to infuse light into his heart (“erleuchte mein bedürftig Herz!”; ex. 3.20).
Ex. 3.20, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 3, mm. 76-85
Some instances of the semiotic appear linked to Daverio’s theme of ascent, and its
mystery of transcendence. The theme of ascent, as found in Part III, No. 4, represents the
freeing of Faust’s soul, rising towards higher spheres as angels bear his remains, led by
175
the influence of Gretchen and the Virgin Mary’s “eternal love” (11964). The chorus of
blessed boys utters: “Löset die Flocken los/Die ihn umbegen” (“Loosen the flaking
film/Left yet to bind him”: 11985-11986). This is a crucial moment in the plot, as Faust
is lifter to higher spheres. Part of the orchestra remains semi-static, moving slowly and
hovering above, while voices, flutes, oboes and clarinets rise upward, outlining a major
sixth (ex. 3.21). Semiotic processes are triggered by the lyricism, slow harmonic motion,
sustained G-flat pedal in the bass, and staticity of the orchestra.
Ex. 3.21, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 4, mm. 324-341
176
Later in that number, the angels’ words, “‘Wer immer strebend sich bemüht/Den
können wir erlösen’.” (“‘Whoever strives in ceaseless toil,/Him we may grant
redemption’.”: 11936-11937), are sung numerous times on an ascending melodic line
spanning an octave (ex. 3.22). Semiotic moments again occur at the mention of Faust’s
salvation, via Gretchen’s love: the one who constantly strove is now brought to rest.
Ex. 3.22, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 4, mm. 411-417
The soloists stand still on a dominant seventh (C – E – G – B-flat) in a high register upon
reaching the climax of this ascending line. The resulting hovering effect momentarily
suspends musical time, placing Faust’s masculine strivings within the workings of the
feminine and gender ambiguous semiotic chora.
Doctor Marianus’ solo in Part III, No. 5 shows other semiotic processes at work.
Schumann’s music, with its slow tempo, slow harmonic rhythm and long-held notes,
depicts the hovering Mater gloriosa, who is not yet present but described with words
asserting her strong power, such as a “Himmelskönigin” and “Höchste Herrscherin der
177
Welt,” high above among a crowd of penitent women, with Gretchen in their midst. He
recognizes the Virgin Mary “high at their center” and surrounded by “star-garlands” (one
of the Virgin’s attributes), because of the light glowing around her.71 Witnessing the
passing crowd of saintly women, he asks her for grace and to look at her mystery. At the
end of the number, Doctor Marianus sings in a very soft, falsetto high voice: its uncanny
sound when the singer sings the highest notes suggested by Schumann (the option to be
privileged), renders this moment particularly striking, a witness perhaps to his inner
transformation (ex. 3.23).
Ex. 3.23, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 5, mm. 55-57
From the semiotic surroundings outlined above, Gretchen and the Mater gloriosa,
spiritually present from the beginning of the last scene, make their first appearance in Part
71
Dr. Marianus: “Die Herrliche mitteninn/Im Sternekranze,/Die Himmelkönigin,/Ich seh’s am
Glanze./Höchste Herrscherin der Welt/Lasse mich, im blauen,/Ausgespannten Himmelszelt,/Dein
Geheimnis schauen.” (“Star-garlands burgeon,/High at their center/Heaven’s crowned Virgin,/Known by
her splendour.”: 11993-12000). Part III, No. 5.
178
III, No. 6. The Mater gloriosa’s first appearance, as she hovers above, is singled out for
special musical treatment (ex. 3.24).
Ex. 3.24, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 6, mm. 32-37
179
Musical time conveys to the listener an impression of hovering: the low strings play
quick arpeggiated oscillations on G- flat major followed by an A diminished 7th chord,
both standing on root B-flat. In my view, the impression here is one of halted musical
time, despite the functional harmony. Daverio mentions the musical closeness of the
moment with the sun’s appearance in Part II, No. 4 (discussed above), both of which, I
argue, display semiotic processes. Daverio contends that the recall of the sun’s powerful,
eternal light “serves to infuse Faust’s spirit with light.”72 Both instances feature luminous
chromaticism, similar orchestral color and shimmering arpeggios in the low strings,
which in Part II, No. 4 were connected with sound and light (on Ariel’s words “Welch
Getöse bringt das Licht!” [“What great din the dawning brings!”: 4671). The feminine,
life-giving eternal light, which had such a strong influence on Faust in Part II, is
musically reappropriated by the feminine figure of the Virgin Mary in Part III. A chorus
of penitent women, referring to the Mater gloriosa, reinforces this higher sphere with
metaphors of floating: “Du schwebst zu Höhen/Der ewigen Reiche” (“Thou who art
soaring/In realms undying”: 12032-12033). Finally, a few bars later semiotic processes
are again heard as the chorus sings “Gnadenreiche” (“Rich mercies”: 12036). As I hear
it, the lush sound underlines the otherworldly, evanescent and luminous qualities of this
transcendent moment.
72
Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 381. Daverio notes the shimmering
chromaticism and similar orchestral color in both instances.
180
Ex. 3.25, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 6, mm. 61-72
Gretchen’s first words in Part III, No. 6, “Neige neige/Du Ohnegleiche,/Du
Strahlenreiche,/Dein Antlitz gnädig meinem Glück.” (“Incline/Thou past
comparing,/Thou radiance bearing,/Thy grace upon my happiness.”: 12069-12072),
directly address the Mater gloriosa: they recall her pleas to the Mater dolorosa in Part I,
No. 2 (Ach neige,/Du Schmerzenreiche,/Dein Antlitz gnädig meiner Not!), reinforcing
the bond between both women established in the earlier number (ex. 3.26). Time appears
suspended: after a half-rest in all voices, her voice is heard over a static diminished 7th
harmony (bar 106), which sounds luminous and uncanny, underlined by a sudden shift of
mode, moving from A minor to a bright A major.
181
Ex. 3.26, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 6, mm. 103-111
The contrast, both musical and psychological, between Gretchen in Part I and Part III
appear to indicate that she and the Mater gloriosa have become one entity in the later
moment. Their fusion is emphasized by the fact that both women, when they first appear,
are musically singled out. Dr. Marianus’ words in the previous number (“Die Herrliche
mitteninn/Im Sternekranze,/Die Himmelskönigin,/Ich seh’s am Glanze.”) could apply to
182
both characters. First defined as “Una poenitentum” (“One penitent”) and thus still
tainted by sin, Gretchen regains her name moments later as she asks the Mater gloriosa to
look at her, reinstating the homosocial bond established in Part I: she is now “Die eine
Büsserin, sonst Gretchen gennant” (“the one penitent, else called Gretchen”). When the
Mater gloriosa finally speaks, her musical gestures consist of a recitation on two notes, E
and F, in a low register. Time slows as she directly addresses Gretchen: “Komm! Hebe
dich zu höhern Sphären,/Wenn er dich ahnet folgt er nach.” (“Come, soar to higher
spheres, precede him,/He will divine and follow thee.”: 12094-12095; ex. 3.27).
Ex. 3.27, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 6, mm. 197-204
183
This is an important moment in the drama: Gretchen, with the help of the Virgin Mary,
appears at the height of her powers as she leads Faust, unconscious, blind and passive, to
salvation. The orchestra accompanying her words sound hovering gestures: the violins
and altos oscillate between two pitches while the remaining instruments sustain a single
pitch.
The “Chorus mysticus” affirms Gretchen’s triumph as a transcendental being
embodying the idealized, romantic conception of Ewig-weibliche. The presence of the
semiotic is evinced by the failing of language which, as Schweitzer argues, gives way to
music. 73 The longest number in the work, it is also the one making use of the least
amount of text. This lends it an atemporal, almost obsessive quality, culminating with
“Das Ewig-Weibliche/Zieht uns hinan.” (“The Eternal-Feminine/Draws us on high.”:
12110-12111). Semiotic processes are emphasized by Schumann’s fluid harmony, due to
the interlocking of various contrapuntal voices, over a slowly but inexorably rising bass
line bringing the music forward. The main motive, a series of falling fifths separated by a
rising second, seemingly cadences on temporary “tonics” in the course of the first fifteen
bars, undermining the tonic A minor (ex. 3.28).
73
Schweitzer notes: “Language must fail here, and the ‘Unbeschreibliche’ (12108) is ultimately left to the
‘Chorus mysticus,’ to music.” See his “Gretchen and the Feminine in Goethe’s Faust,” 137.
184
Ex. 3.28, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 7, mm. 1-4
The resulting contrapuntal, fugato textures, which during the early nineteenth century
connoted masculine values of intellect and abstract thought due to their complexity and
the skills they required, occur within a semiotic context in which religiosity and its
redeeming powers, symbolized by the female character of Gretchen, occupies pride of
place. According to Gisela Probst, the fugal treatment of the chorus in the last number
crystallizes the theme of religion, symbolizing the redeeming principle operating
throughout the work.74 Schumann thus referred to a compositional technique typically
considered masculine, the fugue, to symbolize Gretchen’s feminine redeeming love and
religiosity, emphasized by her bond with the Virgin Mary. Both the figure of Faust
74
See Probst, Robert Schumanns Oratorien, 25.
185
(which as I claimed above, in fact never really appears as heroic) and his strivings are
overshadowed, appearing almost inconsequential: Daverio argues that “any residual
elements of Faustian striving are effectively transcended.” 75 This transcendence is
brought about by Gretchen’s love, which brings Faust into the semiotic sphere
suspending boundaries of time and space, a process evinced in Goethe’s text and
reinforced by Schumann’s music. Such gestures perhaps provide musical examples of
what Hans Eichner has termed an androgynous “synthesis of the active and contemplative
principles that functioned as the counterpoles of Goethe’s ethical system.”76 In this last
number, one may hear Gretchen and the Virgin Mary reclaiming their voices, as
contrapuntal devices are incorporated within semiotic drives: female voice and masculine
counterpoint blend, subsumed within the semiotic sphere, symbolizing Gretchen’s gender
transitivity.
Semiotic processes surface at bars 23-27: time is suspended as chorus and
orchestra, on “das Ewig-Weibliche/Zieht uns hinan,” stand hovering on the dominant of
the following key, F major, with shimmering chords as the sopranos hold a G5 for three
bars (ex. 3.29).
75
76
John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 386.
Ibid., 386.
186
Ex. 3.29, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 7, mm. 23-27
The soprano solo rises upwards, climaxing on a B-flat5 on “hinan” (bar 26), symbolizing
Faust’s soul raised to higher spheres, the ungraspable, indefinable higher realm of “Das
187
Unbeschreibliche” or “the undescribable” (also translated by Arndt as “the unattainable”:
12106), outside boundaries of space and time.
At the end of the number (ex. 3.30), the chorus sings an A5, held for three bars,
again on “hinan” (bars 194-197): this powerful moment evinces Poizat’s concept of the
cry in its high register, with its power to destroy language, to destabilize various
boundaries. It is preceded by two lesser occurrences of the cry, again on an A5 (bars
187-188 and 191-192).77
Ex. 3.30, Schumann, Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Part III, No. 7, mm. 187-198
77
Nicole Biamonte points out that the falling-octave motive on “Hinan” is strongly reminiscent of Faust’s
“Hinaufgeschaut!” (see ex. 3.7).
188
In his Szenen aus Goethes Faust, Schumann presents his own interpretation of
Goethe’s drama: the power of feminine values, embodied by Gretchen and the Virgin
Mary in both text and music, to impact Faust’s destiny is not only acknowledged but
given considerable space to unfold. Gretchen’s suffering nature, passive at the beginning
of the drama, becomes increasingly influential during the last scene as Faust retreats into
interiority, dependency and passivity. Part III shows Gretchen’s evolution. Faust, which
does not seem to be depicted by either Goethe or Schumann as an assertive character, is
further feminized by being led, unconscious, to the semiotic realm, feminine and
maternal, of “Das Unbeschreibliche” where words and language fail. The feminine, as I
hope to have demonstrated, it is integral to Schumann’s conception of the Faust myth in a
way which, I argue, confounds and upsets traditional gender dichotomies. 78 In Goethe’s
last scene (and Schumann’s interpretation of it), both the Mater gloriosa and Gretchen
embody, but also in large measure eschew, conventional representations of EwigWeibliche. Gretchen remains like the typical muse-like female figure which remains
passive, presented as an object essential to the male hero. Nonetheless, she challenges
the literary archetype embodied by idealized figures who, as Ricarda Schmidt contends,
undergo “no significant conflict or development and thus, while intellectually superior”
are only “of limited interest to the reader.”79 Gretchen, while manipulated, abused and
exploited by Faust in the most abject ways, appears in a different light than most other
female figures in that she both embodies and exceeds her status as stereotypical religious
78
Tobin, “Faust’s Membership in Male Society: Prometheus and Ganymede as Models,” 17.
Schmidt discusses the character of Clara in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Der Sandmann.” See her “Male Foibles,
Female Critique and Narrative Capriciousness: On the Function of Gender in Conceptions of Art and
Subjectivity in E.T.A. Hoffmann,” in From Goethe to Gide: Feminism, Aesthetics and the French and
German Literary Canon 1770-1936, ed. Mary Orr and Lesley Sharpe (Exeter: University of Exeter Press,
2005), 59-60.
79
189
symbol, emblematic of a particular kind of femininity. Her psychological evolution
renders her character not only complex and appealing, but also gender transitive, while
she remains a figure bound by her love and dominated, on the one hand, by the male
figure of Faust and on the other, by male artists (Goethe and Schumann).
190
CHAPTER FOUR
GENOVEVA: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER, THE
GAZE, AND THE VIRGIN MARY
My analysis of Schumann’s opera Genoveva Op. 81 attempts to reveal how the
composer’s depiction of Genoveva and Siegfried mirrors his own complex conception of
gender relations discussed in Chapters One and Two. The work narrates the story of
Genoveva, a chaste wife falsely accused of adultery while her husband Siegfried is
fighting a holy war. The libretto, fashioned by Schumann himself with help in the early
stages from German poet Robert Reinick, is drawn from two different plays on the same
subject: those of Ludwig Tieck (1799), based on the popular medieval legend, and
Friedrich Hebbel (1841), written partly in reaction to that of Tieck.1 This chapter
examines the evolution of Genoveva’s character throughout the work from multiple
perspectives, to show how the libretto’s ending, as crafted by Schumann, extends her
sphere of influence beyond the boundaries set by the plots of Tieck and Hebbel in a way
that allows her to appear gender transitive, while simultaneously reinstating stereotypical,
nineteenth-century norms of gender.
According to John Daverio, the German literary genre of the Trauerspiel, from
which Tieck and Hebbel’s plays evolve, typically puts to the fore two different kinds of
character: either a male tyrant of a female martyr.2 The character of Genoveva clearly
belongs to the latter category: unjustly accused, her ordeals entail great psychological
1
Schumann had asked the poet Robert Reinick to provide him with a suitable libretto. Dissatisfied with its
sentimentality, Schumann ultimately decided to write it himself. The different phases of the genesis of the
libretto, and the collaboration with Reinick, are explained by John Daverio in Robert Schumann: Herald of
a “New Poetic Age” (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 338-339.
2
Ibid., 350.
191
suffering. The events of this eighth-century medieval tale, concerned mostly with the
accusations of adultery brought upon Genoveva, combined with the final reunification of
both spouses (Genoveva and Siegfried), render the work a deeply poignant, psychological
drama in which love and redemption play a significant role. In Act IV, two important
religious symbols, the cross and an image of the Virgin Mary, become the source of her
psychological power and allow her to play an active role in her redemption. Daverio
argues that the moment when Genoveva beholds both symbols “articulates the crucial
shift from deception to religious transcendence.” 3 Taking my point of departure from
Linda Siegel, who argues that Schumann portrayed Genoveva as both an idealized
religious icon and real-life medieval noblewoman, I hope to show that Genoveva’s
character may be seen from multiple perspectives: like Clara Schumann, she appears as
both a private and public figure, ideal and real, passive and active, submissive yet morally
strong.4 In Act I, Genoveva remains a stereotypical figure emblematic of early
nineteenth-century norms of feminine behaviour with her interiority, child-like features,
submissiveness, faithfulness, womanly love and boundless devotion. In Act IV, she
appears in a different light: her assertiveness at the beginning of the last act seems heroic
as she courageously faces her execution. I examine the role played in this act by the
religious female figure of the Virgin Mary, with whom Genoveva establishes a powerful
bond, in her psychological transformation. Furthermore, I discuss Genoveva’s
considerable influence on her husband Siegfried by means of her love for him once they
3
Ibid., 355-356.
Linda Siegel mentions: “The heroine of Genoveva, as Schumann conceived her, is a good example of the
synthesis of the real and unreal (…). Schumann’s heroine (…) represents both the spiritual and material
worlds: she is symbolic of the spiritualizing power of mediaeval Christianity and at the same time the
earthly symbol of the chaste wife falsely accused by a rejected suitor.” See her “A Second Look at
Schumann’s Genoveva,” Music Review 36 (1975), 20.
4
192
are reunited. However, despite the strength displayed by Genoveva, she is placed back
within a confined, domestic private sphere: she not only reiterates stereotypical literary
archetypes for female characters, as described in Chapter One, but also mirrors
Schumann’s expectations, as well as those of the nineteenth-century society in which he
lived, of womanly behaviour.
My reading of the music and the text hopes to show in what ways Schumann’s
music portrays Genoveva’s gender transitivity, presenting her ambiguously as both strong
and submissive, a character displaying feminine and masculine attributes of gender. I
investigate the evolution of her character from three perspectives, discussed in three
separate sections below: 1) the use, and undermining, of nineteenth-century gender
stereotypes, 2) the gaze, traditionally considered a male prerogative, and 3) the role
played by the Virgin Mary. I hope to show that while Genoveva initially displays
conventional attributes of femininity (submissiveness, devotion, and love) she also gains
a certain amount of agency and moral strength due to two factors: her use of the gaze and
her link with the image of the Virgin Mary. Genoveva displays a certain amount of vocal
virtuosity, which I explain using Michel Poizat’s concept of the musical cry. Usually
located at dramatic highpoints, these are moments when her strength appears to be
particularly evident. Schumann also used motives of reminiscence to depict important
moments in the plot and convey greater depth in the literary characters’ musical
characterization. What I term motives of reminiscence are either small melodic
fragments or musical gestures akin to, but different from, the more elaborate and focused
concept of Wagnerian Leitmotiv. Scholars such as Hermann Abert, Steven Miles
Billington, Siegel and Daverio have discussed the importance of these motives, used in a
193
flexible manner by Schumann, for the delineation of characters and plot. According to
Siegel, those motives “are also employed in a flexible manner, contracting, expanding
and constantly undergoing harmonic, intervallic and orchestral modifications for the
purpose of psychological characterization.”5 She notes: “Schumann (…) relied heavily
on the technique of thematic transformation as a means of portraying, for example, the
complex personality of Golo and the reactions of the other characters to his hero and
heroine.”6
I interpret these motives from the perspective of gender to shed light on
Genoveva’s literary and musical character. Genoveva and Margaretha, for instance, in
their portrayals as a saint and a witch, respectively, are diametrically opposed. Their
relationship, however, is an important one, evinced by Schumann’s use of motives for
both characters. For the purposes of the following discussion, I have identified four main
ones: each appears in the Overture and is connected not only with one of the four main
protagonists (Genoveva, Golo, Margaretha and Siegfried), but also with certain
psychological characteristics which each possesses. These motives are subjected to
transformations throughout the opera, and this way shed light on particular dramatic
situations. Furthermore, the end of each act presents a dense motivic web. As Siegel
points out: “There are few critics who have not failed to comment on the effectiveness of
the conclusions of each of the acts of Genoveva; musically they are the logical climax of
5
Ibid., 24.
Ibid., 35. My own gendered analysis of the motives in Genoveva, the basic outlines of which were
discussed in my M.A. thesis (2002), is indebted to Hermann Abert, Linda Siegel and Steven Miles
Billington, whose work is cited below. None of the three, however, discuss the use of these motives from
an explicitly gendered perspective, a lack which this discussion attempts to bridge.
6
194
a melodic line which increases in tension aided by the persistent orchestral transformation
of motives throughout each of the scenes of the opera.”7
The Genoveva motive begins with a move downwards, usually a perfect fifth. It
may also be a perfect fourth or a diminished fifth: the subtle change mirrors the dramatic
action. In each case the downward leap is followed by a stepwise ascent, here on the
violins and clarinets (Ex. 4.1).
Ex. 4.1, Schumann, Genoveva, Overture, mm. 2-7
When beginning on a diminished fifth, I argue that the interval signifies Genoveva’s
seductiveness and her influence on Golo. Differing interpretations arise concerning this
motive: Abert and Siegel link it with Golo while Billington connects it with Genoveva
(he calls it “Genoveva’s fate motive”). Billington’s interpretation, which emphasizes the
7
Ibid., 37.
195
motive’s links to Genoveva, seems to me the most apt for two reasons: the motive
appears with the chorale in the very first number (Act I, No. 1), and thus mirrors the
religiosity which constitutes a crucial trait of her character. Furthermore, Genoveva’s
first words in the opera are sung on this motive. By examining the context in which it
occurs, I hope to demonstrate its role in portraying Genoveva’s seductive powers over
Golo, as well as her religiosity, domesticity, sufferings and helplessness. The Golo
motive consists of a quickly stepwise ascending pattern of three notes, which then
descends back to the initial pitch. This motive is the least prominent of the four, but its
strategic location at the precise moment in Act II, as Genoveva defiantly stands up to
Golo’s attempts at seducing her, followed by his curse of Genoveva, provides it with
meaning, here on the celli, violas and bassoons (Ex. 4.1). The Siegfried motive consists
of certain musical characteristics, such as a rising arpeggio and an assertive rhythm, often
triplets. The motive is typically heard on loud, brass instruments, particularly well-suited
to such arpeggiated gestures, often horns or trumpets. The assertiveness and vitality of its
configuration conveys an impression of energy, heroism and strength (Ex. 4.2).
Ex. 4.2, Schumann, Genoveva, Overture, mm. 78-82
Its sforzandi, dotted rhythm and octave leaps render the motive particularly dynamic,
musically reinforcing Siegfried’s masculinity and masculine values of heroism, courage
196
and war in the text. The last motive is associated with Margaretha: it consists of a
descending chromatic line whose outlines are very similar to the motive associated with
Mephisto in the Szenen aus Goethes Faust discussed in Chapter Three (Ex. 4.3).
Ex. 4.3, Schumann, Genoveva, Overture, mm. 27-31
The intertextuality of both motives is highly interesting, showing that Margaretha and
Mephisto share a number of defining traits: both are evil figures, one male and one
female, with highly developed manipulating skills, with a high degree of influence and
displaying values traditionally considered masculine (assertiveness, self-determination,
leadership), who are nonetheless ultimately defeated.
The Public/Private Spheres and Traditional Gender Stereotypes
Act I takes place in a masculine realm in which Genoveva struggles to find her
identity: stereotypical gender attributes and roles are evident. The public realm of the
Crusades and war within which Siegfried’s character evolves is contrasted with the
private and domestic one of Genoveva. While Genoveva is not strictly a Bildungsroman,
its plot archetype is typical of such works, and its construction of gender roles appears
similar. Men actively seek out adventures while women, defined by their relationships to
men and existing for the latter’s purposes, either passively remain at home or act as erotic
obstacles for the male hero during the process of questing. In Act I, Genoveva embodies
both dimensions: she remains within Siegfried’s castle, but is also a seductive object for
197
Golo. The first number opens on the Genoveva motive, heard as a chorale sung in unison
with both chorus and full orchestra (Ex. 4.4).8 In this number, the motive appears to be
ambiguously gendered: as a chorale, it is linked with values traditionally considered
feminine, such as religion, devotion, submission and obedience to God. However, due to
the context of the Crusades, the text of this chorale also appears linked to other attributes
deemed masculine, such as heroism, courage, war and violence (see footnote 9 for
examples of this in the text).
8
In my analysis of this motive, I strongly disagree with Siegel, who attributes this motive to Golo. Its
presence here on the highly charged religious signification of the chorale, at the beginning of the first
number, seems to me to be clearly linked to Genoveva’s own religiosity. Furthermore, Siegel seems
unaware that Genoveva’s very first words in Act I, No. 3 are sung on that motive. Her analysis is found in
ibid., 24-26.
198
Ex. 4.4, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 1, Chor und Recitativ, mm. 1-4
Uttered by the male Crusaders in Act I, who appear to take control of her motive, the
chorale manipulates Genoveva, physically absent from that number: it reinforces her
199
status as a passive object put on display, submitted to masculine domination. Most of the
figures present are male (noblemen, knights and warriors), whose duty is to protect
Christianity, symbolized by the cross: Genoveva, in this context of war, appears to have
no place, to play no part in the action. The emphasis on leadership is symbolized by two
male figures: Karl Martell and Count Siegfried. Both are historical figures who played an
important role during the medieval Crusades. Karl Martell, the leader of the Crusade, is
presented by Bishop Hidulfus as “der gewalt’ge Karl Martell” (“the mighty Charles
Martel”), calling to arms “die Tapfern dieses Landes” (“the courageous of this realm”).
Siegfried is the commander of his own troops. Masculine values of courage and war are
emphasized: the chorus, ready for fight and battle, affirms its willingness to die for
Christianity. 9 After Bishop Hidulfus’ exhortation of courage and faith, the Genoveva
motive undergoes important transformation: sung fortissimo and “mit aller Kraft” by the
male chorus, it becomes increasingly pervaded by musical gestures which in my view can
be said to connote masculinity and heroism, far removed from the devotional atmosphere
of the opening chorale (tremolos, loud dynamics, and energetic, arpeggiated melodic
lines in the strings recall the Siegfried motive and contribute to increase the musical
tension and excitement as the events of the war are about to unfold; ex. 4.5; the English
text for this example reads: “Then go to war, brave warriors”).
9
Chorus: “Wir sind bereit,/Zu Kampf und Streit,/Für Christ den Herrn/Zum Tod zu geh’n.” (“We are
ready/To do battle,/To go to our death/For Christ our Lord.”) Act I, No. 1. Throughout this chapter,
English translations are drawn from the liner notes to Robert Schumann, Genoveva, Chamber Orchestra of
Europe, dir. Nikolaus Harnoncourt, with Ruth Ziesak, Marjana Lipovšek, Deon van der Walt, Oliver
Widmer, Rodney Gilfry, Thomas Quasthoff and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir (1996: original sound
recording made by Teldec 0630-13144-2 [2 compact discs]). In some instances, I have edited the
translation.
200
Ex. 4.5, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 1, Chor und Recitativ, mm. 66-68
Despite her lack of authority in Act I, No. 1, Genoveva appears influential at other
moments during this first act: her seductiveness is felt by Golo (Act I, No. 2), while
Siegfried lauds her moral strength (Act I, No. 3). In Act I, No. 2, Golo is excluded from
the public events of the war: Siegfried has ordered him to remain passively behind. His
masculinity is severely wounded by being denied access to the masculine sphere of the
Crusades and war: remaining with the confines of the castle, he appears in a feminine,
domestic position. 10 Siegfried appoints him as Genoveva’s protector, a role mostly
considered masculine by nineteenth-century society, especially when it involved the
physical protection of women, deemed weak and helpless. Gail K. Hart points out the
widespread “patriarchal fantasy of women’s natural instinctual need for male dominance
and guidance.”11 However, not only does this role procure him little reward, but he also
appears daunted by the task even before Siegfried officially appoints him, perhaps
10
Golo: “Wer doch wie sie in blut’ger Feldschlacht könnte werben,/Um Ruhm, den Tod der Ehre sterben!”
(“How happy is he who, in cruel battle,/Can strive for glory and can die a hero.” Act I, No. 2.
11
Gail K. Hart, “The Women’s World of Goethe’s Stella,” in Tragedy in Paradise: Family and Gender
Politics in German Bourgeois Tragedy, 1750-1850 (Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1996), 50.
201
already fearing Genoveva’s powers. Plagued by self-doubts, placed in a passive and
feminized subject position, he admits that he is ill-suited to the task.12 In Act I, No. 3,
Siegfried praises his wife’s moral strength: he affirms that Genoveva is “ein deutsches
Weib” (“a German wife”), and will not complain, to which she agrees.13 By her moral
strength, Genoveva resembles Clara Schumann, who from the letters and diaries seemed
more stable and emotionally stronger than her husband. Both women appear with
stereotypical female attributes such as love, devotion, submission, and sacrifice, but also
masculine assertiveness and moral strength. Schumann’s Genoveva seems much stronger
than Tieck’s, who is described as very young, and who appears helpless when Siegfried
leaves: the latter is annoyed by her constant attempts at holding him back, but he readily
pardons her emotional outbursts when she tells him that she is pregnant.14 Schumann, in
contrast to Tieck and also Hebbel, cut the references to Genoveva’s child. In so doing, he
unleashes her from her role as mother: perhaps this allows Genoveva to envision her
femininity differently and more imaginatively, without being tied to maternity.
Genoveva’s first words in the opera are sung on the motive associated with her:
“Ob auch getrennt, uns eint ein heilig Band” (“Though we’re apart, a sacred bond unites
us”), in Act I, No. 3 (Ex. 4.6).
12
Addressing an absent Siegfried, Golo affirms: “Zum Hüter deines Weibes hast du mich bestellt!/Und ich,
ein Mensch, soll diesen Himmel wahren!” (“You have appointed me your wife’s guardian./And I, a mere
mortal am to protect this angel!”) Act I, No. 2.
13
Siegfried: “Du bist ein deutsches Weib, so klage nicht!” (“You are a German wife, so do not complain!”)
To which Genoveva replies: “Und keine Klage sendet’ ich dir nach” (“And not a single complaint I’ll send
your way.”) Act I, No. 3. Eric Frederick Jensen points out a connection between Genoveva’s Germaness
and her moral strength: “It is her German nature that is presented as the source of her strength and much of
her nobility.” Eric Frederick Jensen, Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 250.
14
Ludwig Tieck, “Leben und Tod der Heiligen Genoveva: Ein Trauerspiel,” in Die Märchen aus dem
Phantasus: Dramen, vol. 2 (Munich: Winkler Verlag, 1978), 374.
202
Ex. 4.6, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 3, Duett, mm. 18-25
Her words reinstate stereotypical notions of femininity by emphasizing her devotion to
Siegfried and the bond of love uniting both spouses: interestingly, and importantly for the
argument developed in the next section below, this bond, this “Liebeblick” (“Look of
love”) appears to be a visual one. Genoveva’s words also, by linking the motive with the
opening chorale, establish a connection between religion and love, two qualities largely
considered feminine during the nineteenth century. Moments later, Genoveva mentions
the sustaining quality of her love, which reinforces the powerful bond between her and
her husband: “Wo du auch weilst, dir folgt die Liebe nach” (“Wherever you are, my love
will follow you”; ex. 4.7).
Ex. 4.7, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 3, Duett, mm. 45-49
In anticipation of the end of the opera, as Siegfried and Genoveva reunite, love brings
both partners together, even if only in their thoughts: at bar 47, both Genoveva and
203
Siegfried sing “Liebe” and “Freuden” on a diminished fifth, their union reinforced by
voice exchange (ex. 4.7).15
There follows a swift change of mood. At the end of Act I, No. 3, the heroic
Siegfried motive is heard on the horns and trumpets (bars 79-80 and 85-89), calling
Siegfried to order after his brief moment of tenderness with Genoveva (ex. 4.8).
Ex. 4.8, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 3, Duett, mm. 85-89
The Siegfried motive shows a different cast than its original configuration shown in ex.
4.2 (the rhythm, with its two sixteenth-notes instead of triplets, is markedly different), but
I argue that its timbral connection (on trumpets), its heroic sound, its energetic rhythm, its
pompous sound, and its arpeggio outline (from E to G to C down to G), mark it as
masculine and connects it with Siegfried, who dominates over this scene due to his
leadership role. The motive brings the listener back to the masculine atmosphere of Act
I, No. 1, one in which women play a minor role. At the beginning of Act I, No. 4,
Genoveva once again recedes into the background. She remains under her husband’s
domination: as Siegfried prepares to leave, giving orders to those remaining behind, she
is objectified, presented as “meiner Güter Bestes” (“my dearest treasure”), needing
15
The interval of the diminished fifth (or its equivalent, the augmented fourth) plays an important role
throughout the opera. In Act I, No. 6 for instance, Genoveva appears to Golo as a cherub in Paradise, on
that interval at bar 55.
204
protection.16 Siegfried sees his wife as helpless, passive, and unable to take care of
herself. He believes Golo is the most suited to protect her: “Meines Weibes nimm dich
an,/Wo sie Mannes Schutz bedarf!” (“Be the guardian of my wife,/When she is in need of
male protection.”) The interaction between Genoveva, Siegfried and Golo in this number
reinforces traditional gender stereotypes. Genoveva unquestioningly welcomes Golo’s
protection (“Gern nehm’ ich Euch zum Ritter an!” [“Gladly will I have you as my
knight!”]): the piccolo (which, as I discuss below, is linked with Margaretha) repeats the
last pitches on which her words are uttered (bars 81-82). This signals the power of
Margaretha, who has yet to appear. Golo appears in this number in a feminine manner:
he is reluctant to accept Siegfried’s task and tells Genoveva that she thinks too highly of
him. 17 He previously affirmed to Siegfried: “Einen Würd’gen wohl als mich/Möcht’ ich,
daβ Ihr fändet.” (“I wish that you could find/Someone worthier than me.”) His words
are preceded by an inverted variant of the Margaretha motive, hinting at her power over
him, and a symbol of his inability to counter it (ex. 4.9).
Ex. 4.9, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 4, Recitativ, mm. 73-76
Siegfried seems annoyed by what he perceives as Genoveva’s attempts to hold him back
from his duties. He does not understand his wife’s feelings, lacking the capacity to grasp
16
Siegfried: “Sieh, nur dem Besten möcht’ ich/Meiner Güter Bestes anvertrau’n./Der bist du!” (“My
closest friend is worthy/Of caring for my dearest treasure,/And that is you!”) Act I, No. 4.
17
Golo: “Edle Gräfin, viel zu gut denkt Ihr von mir!” (“Noble Countess, you esteem me far too much!”).
Act I, No. 4.
205
certain elements of feminine love. Unlike Golo, he displays heroism and masculine
values: he has little patience for emotional effusions, and wishes to leave swiftly as he
hears the trumpet call at the end of Act I, No. 4: “Spart die Worte! (…)/Kostbar, kostbar
ist die Zeit,/Der Ruf der Trompete sagt’s.” (“Save your words! (…)/We’re wasting
precious minutes,/The trumpet call tells me so!”). Siegfried’s heroism is underscored by
a variant of his motive, sounding energetially and with an incisive rhythm on woodwinds
and trumpet, immediately after having uttered these words (ex. 4.10).
206
Ex. 4.10, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 4, Recitativ, mm. 90-95
207
As the soldiers are about to depart for war in Act I, No. 5, the chorus presents
Siegfried as a hero and a leader.18 The walking bass present throughout this number
mirrors the soldiers marching steadfastly towards their goal (ex. 4.11).
Ex. 4.11, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 5, Chor, mm. 1-7
The text of this rousing chorus is pervaded with masculine imagery. 19 Witnessing
Siegfried’s embrace with Genoveva, the chorus mocks the feminine displays of
tenderness between husband and wife: “Fein’s Liebchen, ein Kuss!/Geschieden sein
muss!” (“Sweetheart, a kiss!/Now we must part!”). Genoveva is again under both
Siegfried and Golo’s domination: she appears to play an insignificant role within this
masculine context. However, she also expresses her willingness to follow Siegfried to
war, briefly showing a more active nature: “O könnt’ ich mit dir!” (“Oh if only I might
18
Chorus: “Graf Siegfried der Held,/Er führet das Heer,/Er führt es zur Ehr!” (“Count Siegfried, the
brave,/He commands the army./And will lead us to glory.”) Act I, No. 5.
19
Chorus: “Karl Martell, tapfrer Hammer,/Allem Heidenwolk zum Jammer!” (“Charles Martel, valiant
hammer,/Of all heathen, and their despair!), “Der Feind der soll der Ambos sein,/Da schlagen wir wacker
drauf und drein!” (“The enemy shall be your anvil,/And we shall be the stalwart smiths!), or “Wie klinget
der Hammer so stark und hell!” (“How brightly and loudly the hammer blows ring!”), sung on the Siegfried
motive. Act I, No. 5.
208
come with you!”), at bars 35-37, her feminine high voice soaring above the male soloists,
basses chorus, and descending strings in their low register. In so doing, Genoveva recalls
strong literary heroines such as Joan of Arc, Leonore and Clärchen. 20 Siegfried
emphasizes her moral strength, reminding her of her promise to be strong: “Getrost und
fasse dich!” (“Take heart and recollect yourself!”)
The finale of Act I shows Margaretha’s power and Genoveva’s helplessness. The
climax of Act I, No. 7, occurs as Golo and Margaretha make a pact: Schumann
emphasizes their association by having them share pitches, rising chromatically from Asharp to F-sharp. Margaretha has the last word as she cadences on the pitch B (ex. 4.12).
Ex. 4.12, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 217-226
20
The three female heroines are all found in either operas (Beethoven) or literary works (Schiller and
Goethe) which Schumann read and knew well. Liszt’s words may be recalled: “Genoveva is musically the
sister of Fidelio, only Leonore’s pistol is wanting.” Quoted in Siegel, “A Second Look at Schumann’s
Genoveva,” 33. Tieck’s and Hebbel’s Genoveva too wishes to follow Siegfried to war: however, she
wishes to do so to fulfill a typically womanly role, that of his nurse, healing his wounds: such a healing role
is not mentioned by Schumnan’s Genoveva and thus, she arguably displays a greater amount of selfassertiveness, eschewing traditional feminine roles.
209
Moments later, both characters affirm that Golo will possess Genoveva, reiterating the
typical nineteenth-century view of women as objects to be possessed and mastered by
male figures. 21 The Siegfried motive occurs as Margaretha affirms her triumph and
control of Golo: “Mir ist’s geglückt! Ich halt’ ihn umgarnt, ich halt’ ihn umstrickt!”
(“I’ve succeeded! I hold him tight, I hold him ensnared!”), at bars 242-244, and repeated
at bars 246-47 and 258-259 (ex. 4.13).
Ex. 4.13, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 242-244
I believe the Siegfried motive not only shows Margaretha’s masculine mindset
throughout the opera, but also hints at her power over Siegfried in Act III, No. 15 as she
manipulates him with her magic mirror, a point I discuss in the next section below. Both
the Genoveva and Margaretha motives make one last appearance before the curtain falls,
perhaps symbolizing the conflict and antagonism between both women throughout the
opera (ex. 4.14). The Genoveva motive appears at the beginning of the example (bars
284-285) while the Margaretha motive appears next (bars 289-292 in the oboes, bassoons
and celli parts).22 The motives also reiterate a dualistic conception of women within
nineteenth-century society, entailing positive and negative overtones: submissive or
threatening, angels or witches, Virgins or whores, embodiments of Mary or Eve. The
21
Golo: “Mein muss sie werden” (“She shall be mine”) and Margaretha: “Dein muss sie werden” (“She
shall be yours”). Act I, No. 7.
22
The top line is the piccolo part.
210
link between both women in the finale for Act I is instrumental in depicting Genoveva
with strength and assertiveness in Act IV when, by her influence over Siegfried,
Genoveva fails to entirely conform to nineteenth-century norms of femininity.
Ex. 4.14, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 284-292
211
At the beginning of Act II, Genoveva is again presented with stereotypical
attributes of femininity. In Act II, No. 8, Schumann portrays her seated at the spinning
wheel, a strong nineteenth-century emblem of femininity and domesticity. His
212
indications read: “Genoveva am Spinnrad spinnend” (Genoveva at the spinning wheel,
spinning). She is trapped within the narrow sphere of the castle, performing a typically
feminine task, lost without her husband’s masculine presence. Her words express her
helplessness and need for masculine protection: “Herrn’loses Haus, Haus ohne Rath! O
käm’ er bald zurück!” (“House without lord, house without counsel! Oh, that he would
soon come back!)” She pursues: “Wo er nicht ist, da wankt es, doch wo er herrscht, da
steht es gut.” (“Where he is not, it falters… but where he rules, everything stands in
order.”) Overcome by grief and sadness, her promise to be morally strong appears
difficult to keep. Her opening words, “O Weh des Scheidens, das er that” (“O the pain of
separation which he caused”), emphasize her separation from Siegfried instead of the
allegedly indestructible bond of love she mentioned in Act I, No. 3 (ex. 4.15).
Ex. 4.15, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 8, Scene, Chor und Recitativ, mm. 5-6
Genoveva repeats those words later in the number, on the same music, a minor third
higher, perhaps signifying a desire to break away from the castle’s oppressive atmosphere
(ex. 4.16). This cyclical return at strategic moments of previously-heard melodic material
is common in lieder (a genre largely considered domestic), particularly in those of
Schumann with their preludes and postludes, but is somewhat less common in opera.
213
Ex. 4.16, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 8, Scene, Chor und Recitativ, mm. 23-24
This return may be a musical manifestation of what Julia Kristeva has called “women’s
time” linked to reminiscences, repetition and eternity and which, as discussed in Chapter
One, she defines as the endless repeatability of women’s existence, disallowing them
from envisioning their lives in different, novel ways.23 Such views of women’s
existence, which Kristeva deems unchanging and everywhere the same, traps Genoveva
within the domestic realm of the castle. As in Act I, Genoveva does not seem at ease in
masculine company: she is overcome by fear as she hears male servants, accompanied by
Margaretha, singing a coarse drinking song. The servants, who appear to be under the
witch’s influence, parody the Margaretha motive on the words “Stosst an, und trinket
aus!” (“Clink your glasses and drain them all!”) Each instance of this motive is preceded
by a parody of the Genoveva motive on the flute and two piccolos (ex. 4.17).
23
Both Julia Kristeva (“Women’s Time,” reprinted in Critical Theory Since 1965, ed. Hazard Adams and
Leroy Searle [Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1986]: 471-484) and Ruth A. Solie (“Whose Life?
The Gendered Self in Schumann’s Frauenliebe songs,” in Music and text: Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven
Paul Scher [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992]: 219-240) have discussed the female
associations of this sort of circularity. This point has already been mentioned in Chapter One, and is again
discussed below.
214
Ex. 4.17, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 8, Scene, Chor und Recitativ, mm. 45-53
The presence of the piccolo, Margaretha’s instrument, reaffirms the link, but also the
asymetrical power relation at this point in the opera, between both women. Genoveva
appears powerless: she fears the rowdy servants and asks Siegfried to come back, even if
215
the latter, convalescing in Strasburg, cannot hear her.24 Later, the servants again parody
the Margaretha motive, repeating her words of Act I, No. 7 about Genoveva: “Fürwahr,
ein schönes Weib, des Küssens werth!” (“A handsome woman, worthy to be kissed!” at
ex. 4.18).
Ex. 4.18, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 8, Scene, Chor und Recitativ, mm. 161-163
The servants see Genoveva as an object, focusing on her beauty and seductiveness with
their mention of the kiss: the Margaretha motive shows her influence over them and
Genoveva.
While Act I began with the masculine, public events of Siegfried’s departure for
the Crusades, in the course of Act II a crucial shift inward takes place. Genoveva
gradually evolves from a passive object to an active subject, a shift which occurs almost
immediately after the listener learns of Siegfried’s victory (Act II, No. 8). The public
events of the war now over, the private ones concerning Genoveva’s accusations take
center stage. The war has been won: the action becomes increasingly concerned with
Genoveva’s private ordeal, shifting from masculine surroundings and masculine values of
violence, courage and war towards feminine ones such as love, sufferings and devotion.
Her increasing agency and self-awareness are mirrored by Siegfried’s waning power once
24
Genoveva: “Wie wild sie lärmen!/Siegfried, kehr’ bald zurück” (“How wild their shouting!/Siegfried,
speed your return”). Act II, No. 8.
216
the war is over. Wounded in battle, he is passively nursed by Margaretha (whom he has
met in the past, but does not recognize) in Strasburg. He cannot immediately come back
to the castle and resume his masculine role as protector of Genoveva, causing a delay
which allows the turn of events to unfold: in the next number (Act II, No. 9) Golo
declares his love to Genoveva. Outraged, she rejects and finally curses him. Shaken,
Golo curses her as well and vows to seek revenge.
Genoveva’s path towards the acquisition of a sense of selfhood is not linear but
consists of progresses and setbacks. The finale of Act II brings Genoveva under triple
domination: Margaretha, Golo and Siegfried. Golo, irked at having been rejected by
Genoveva, has falsely accused her of adultery. Drago reluctantly agrees to hide in her
bedroom to verify the charges: the servants, having heard the rumours, are soon storming
in. Despite her fears, Genoveva seeks actively to resist her intruders, defending her
honour: she stands up to them, asking who comes, what (or whom) they are looking for,
finally commanding them to stand back: “Wer kommt?/Wer es auch sei,
zurück!/(…)/Was sucht ihr hier?/(…)/Wen?” (“Who’s there? Stand back, whoever you
are!/(…)/What are you looking for?/(…)/Whom?”) A stern Genoveva responds to her
accusers’ demand to search her room with the question: “In meinem Schlafgemach?” (“In
my bedroom?”), on a diminished fifth supported by the orchestra (ex. 4.19). By using
this interval, perhaps Schumann wished to emphasize that Genoveva’s guilt stems
primarily from her seductive powers.
217
Ex. 4.19, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 12, Finale, mm. 53-54
Margaretha, who is also present, appears to lead the chorus: it obsessively sings “wir
müssen ihn finden” (“we must find him”) on her motive (bars ex. 4.20).
218
Ex. 4.20, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 12, Finale, mm. 75-85
As the chorus sings “Dringet ein” (“Force your way”), Golo’s revenge motive is heard on
the piccolo, second violins and low strings, signifying both his will to avenge his honour,
and his power over Genoveva at this point in the drama (bars 88-89). Genoveva actively
219
but vainly attempts to resist the chorus’ attacks. Her repeated pleas, “Geht, geht!” and
“Weicht zurück!” (“Be gone!” and “Stand back!”), remain without effect. Genoveva’s
powerful words, “Weicht zurück!” (“Stand back!”), sung on an A-flat5 (bar 88), recalls
the much more powerful “Zurück” (“Stand back”) she uttered to Golo in Act II, No. 9:
however, they prove ineffective here. Golo appears immediately afterwards: his
appearance is greeted by the heroic motive associated with Siegfried, heard on the
trumpet (ex. 4.21).
Ex. 4.21, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 12, Finale, mm. 92-96
This is the only time in the opera where Golo is placed in a heroic position, the only time
he appears as Siegfried’s equal. Golo’s words however, are misleading: he only pretends
220
to protect Genoveva against the rioting servants as he repels them with “Zurück ihr
Schurke” (“Stand back, you villains”). He is playing a game: Genoveva is left alone to
protect herself since the one appointed in this role is unwilling to do so. Once Drago is
found, Golo mocks her with the words “Frau Gräfin, mit Erlaubniss, das ist schlecht!”
(“Lady Countess, with your permission, that’s wicked!”), on a diminished fifth supported
by the full orchestra (ex. 4.22).
Ex. 4.22, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 12, Finale, mm. 137-140
Genoveva, manipulated by Margaretha’s gaze, is absent from Act III. In the first
number of Act IV (No. 16), however, Genoveva, gazing at an image of the Virgin Mary,
gains strength. The workings of the gaze are discussed more fully in the next sections
below: the following paragraphs investigate to what extent Genoveva’s strength allows
her to overcome stereotypical gender attributes, albeit to a certain degree only. In Act IV,
221
No. 17, Golo sees Genoveva as a seductive woman, akin to the figure of Eve: putting the
blame on her, he accuses her of wearing too much jewellery, which renders her too
provocative.25 Genoveva’s psychological outlook, however, due to her link with the
Virgin Mary in the previous number, has significantly altered. Outraged, assertive and
unafraid, she defies Golo: “Hier bin ich, tödtet mich!/Ihr tut ein gutes Werk!” (“Here I
am, kill me!/You’ll do a good deed!”) Golo, for his part, is weak and unable to carry out
Siegfried’s orders: “Wenn Ihr so muthig seid,/Dass Ihr den Tod erwählt,/Ich bin zu
feig,/Dies schöne Haupt,/Das mir wie Sonn’ und Mond und Sterne war,/An’s Schwert zu
liefern.” (“While you are bold enough/To choose death,/I’m too much of a coward/To
raise the sword/Against this lovely head, which has been like sun/And moon and stars to
me.”) With his words, Golo links Genoveva’s body with images connected with the
evanescent and elusive quality of light. As discussed in Chapter One, such images are
variously gendered: the sun, bringing forth the bright daylight, is typically gendered
masculine. The moon and stars, connected with night and a dark, mysterious realm, are
gendered feminine. These set of images perhaps hint at an otherworldly realm lying
outside boundaries of time and space due to the Virgin Mary’s intercession in which
semiotic processes occur: this realm, as I have argued in Chapter One, blurs fixed
boundaries of gender. Genoveva is acknowledged as being above gender, thwarting male
attempts to control her. She rejects Golo with two insults recalling that which had such a
powerful effect on him in Act II, No. 9: “Zurück, Ehrloser!” (“Stand back, honour-less
man!”) and “Hinweg, du fluchbelad’ner Mann!” (“Go away, you accursed man!”) Golo
25
Golo: “Mit immer höh’ren Reizen Euch zu schmücken…” (Adorned yourself with ever greater
charms…) Act IV, No. 17.
222
attempts again to seduce her, using Margaretha’s motive: “Nur einmal gönn’ mir dies
Himmelsglück!” (“Just once, grant me such joy from Heaven!”; ex. 4.23).
Ex. 4.23, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 17, Scene, mm. 55-57
Golo remains unable to control her. His use of the Margaretha motive, as he utters these
words, appears as a last desperate attempt to possess Genoveva’s body: in Act IV,
however, Genoveva is beyond mortal reach. Margaretha has vanished and her power,
despite its effectiveness in Act III, remains without effect in this new realm in which
Genoveva evolves. Golo again attempts to control Genoveva: “Bedenk,’ du bist in
meiner Macht!” (“Consider that you are in my power”; ex. 4.24).
Ex. 4.24, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 17, Scene, mm. 63-65
No earthly instance can save her: she is a higher, heavenly being and with her powerful
voice she forcefully affirms “Ich bin in Gottes Hand!” (“I am in God’s hands”) on an A5
(ex. 4.25).
Ex. 4.25, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 17, Scene: mm. 68-69
223
Immediately afterwards, Golo makes one last attempt to control Genoveva: she does not
respond to his demand to flee with him. For Siegel: “There is no more effective weapon
than silence and Genoveva uses it in this scene to full advantage.”26
In Act IV, No. 18, Genoveva appropriates Golo’s vocal utterances of the previous
number: addressing God, she is ready to die: “Schickst du kein Zeichen diner Huld,/So
sterb’ ich jetzt!” (“If you do not send any signs of your grace,/My death is near!”), on the
same melody which Golo used in the previous number, when he vainly warned her that
she stood in his power (exx. 4.26 and 4.27).
Ex. 4.26, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 18, Recitativ, Terzett und Scene mit Chor, mm. 28-30
Ex. 4.27, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 18, Recitativ, Terzett und Scene mit Chor, mm. 35-39
26
Siegel, “A Second Look at Schumann’s Genoveva,” 22.
224
Perhaps by appropriating his musical language for herself, the Countess suggests that
Golo has been unsuccessful in defeating her. The last example is heard over the Golo
motive, a reminder that her curse has been successful in defeating him.
Genoveva turns to God for protection: since Golo has been ineffectual in that role,
she takes matters into her own hands. The religious symbol of the cross returns in Act
IV, No. 18 at precisely this moment. In Act I, No. 1, the cross stood for Christianity,
which the Crusaders had to protect. Associated with masculine war in Act I, in Act IV it
now protects Genoveva. Caspar does not want to commit murder in front of it: the
argument between him and Balthasar, who wishes to go ahead with Siegfried’s orders to
execute Genoveva, allows just enough time for Siegfried, who has finally learned the
truth, to arrive. 27 Both men see the cross, the Golo motive of the curse is heard as
Genoveva affirms she will not leave the protecting cross.28 Perhaps the presence of the
curse motive in Act IV is evidence of the struggle between religious and evil forces, with
the latter’s ultimate defeat. In Act II, No. 9, Golo and Genoveva had cursed each other:
however, only Genoveva’s utterances have proven effective. Genoveva’s powerful voice
erupts on a B-flat5 on “Heiland” (“saviour”) at bar 50, while the Siegfried motive on the
horns (bars 50-51, and again at bars 58, 62-63 and 66-67), combined with the Golo
motive, announce the Count’s imminent arrival and Genoveva’s salvation (ex. 4.28). Her
powerful voice easily drowns out the motives associated with the two male characters,
Siegfried and Golo.
27
Caspar affirms to Balthasar: “Führ’ sie vom Kreuze fort;/Am Kreuz mag ich nicht morden!” (“Remove
her from the cross;/For there I cannot kill her.”) Balthasar for his part mocks Genoveva: “Glaubt Ihr, das
Kreuz schütz’ auch ein buhlend Weib?” (“Do you think the cross also protects a sinful woman?”) Act IV,
No. 18.
28
Genoveva: “Vom Kreuze lass’ ich nicht.” (“I won’t forsake the cross.”) Act IV, No. 18.
225
Ex. 4.28, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 18, Recitativ, Terzett und Scene mit Chor, mm. 50-51
In Act IV, No. 19, Genoveva’s power is further evinced by her influence on
Siegfried. Siegfried in Act I is a rather unidimensional character whose chief qualities
lay in matters of war. By Act IV, he appears significantly changed due to Genoveva’s
love, depicted in a less stereotypical manner. He appears psychologically destabilized as
Genoveva leads him into a private world of domesticity. The psychological
transformation he undergoes is not unlike that of male heroes in nineteenth-century
Bildungsromane, such as for instance Julius (from Friedrich Schlegel’s novel Lucinde),
Heinrich (from Novalis’ novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen), or Faust and Werther (from
Goethe’s novels of the same names), who while displaying outwardly heroic features also
depend on female figures for inner growth.29 Siegfried has been initiated by his wife’s
example in feminine matters of love. Roles are reversed, Siegfried, instead of Genoveva,
now being in the position of the guilty one.30 He expresses deep regrets and affirms that
29
As discussed in Chapter One. See Todd Kontje, Women, the Novel, and the German Nation, 17711871: Domestic Fiction in the Fatherland (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
9.
30
Siegfried pursues: “Ich bin die Schuld an deinem Elend.” (“I am the cause of your bitter anguish.”) Act
IV, No. 19
226
no consolation will come, while Genoveva is more hopeful and believes joy will return to
their household: she affirms that her feminine values of love and faithfulness will
succeed. 31 The protagonists sing one after the other: first Siegfried, then Genoveva, after
which they sing together (ex. 4.29). At first, love appears to be a quality which, for
Siegfried, Genoveva alone possesses: she speaks of “our love,” and in addressing his wife
he mentions “your love.” A few bars later however, Siegfried, under Genoveva’s
influence, appears to possess love’s feminine values as well. Both spouses sing together
“Gelingen wird es unser Lieb’ und Treu!” (“Our love and truthfulness will succeed!”), a
unifying gesture which seems to symbolize their higher union in love.
Ex. 4.29, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 19, Duett, mm. 17-31
31
Genoveva: “Glaub’ mir, auf’s Neu’ kehrt Ruh’ und Glück zurück,/Gelingen wird es meiner Lieb’ und
Treu!” (“Believe me, soon will peace and joy return,/My love and faithfulness will succeed.”) Act IV, No.
19.
227
The reunion brings both partners into a higher realm, which throughout the opera was
associated with Genoveva’s love. The Countess, in a manner typical of female figures in
literary works, has cultivated Siegfried with her love. 32 Siegfried nonetheless remains the
dominating figure, ruling over his wife. Genoveva, despite her moral strength, remains
an object which Siegfried used for the development of his subjectivity: she is put back in
a submissive, non-threatening position. She has been allowed to display strength and
assertiveness, but this must not pose any threat to the dominant, masculine order and
prevailing division of gender roles. Siegfried’s reappearance signifies a return to
domesticity and the resumption of traditional gender roles for Genoveva, despite the
strength she has previously displayed. Siegfried himself implies as much when,
addressing the cheering crowd, he affirms: “Kommt Alle mit in’s Schloss” (“Come you
all with me in the castle”). 33
In Act IV, No. 20, joy, love and religion mingle. The first chorus expresses a
sense of homecoming: speaking of Genoveva, it sings “O hohes Glück,/Sie kehrt
zurück!” (“O highest joy,/She returns!”) The return of the chorale with which the opera
opened, sung by a second chorus, on the Genoveva motive and with the same words as in
Act I, No. 1, seemingly leads us back to bourgeois ideals of domesticity (ex. 4.30).
32
In Act I, No. 6, Golo had described Siegfried as “der rauhe Kriegsmann” (“the uncouth soldier”), wellversed with the handling of weapons but failing to understand love.
33
The castle, in the context of Schumann’s Genoveva, certainly does connote a certain aura of domesticity.
One should bear in mind, however, that the medieval castle is a space that may be considered part private,
part public, due to the presence not only of the couple (here Siegfried and Genoveva), and perhaps also
children, but of various other individuals (servants, soldiers, etc). In contradistinction, nineteenth-century
Biedermeier interiors were relatively closed, intimate and private spaces.
228
Ex. 4.30, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 20, Doppelchor, mm. 32-39
Schumann emphasized this moment of circularity, by indicating that, shortly after the
beginning of the chorale, the stage is to be transformed to that in the first act.34 The
chorale, first interspersed with the first chorus, gradually takes up more and more space:
finally, the first chorus also sings it with full orchestra (ex. 4.31).
34
Schumann indicates in the score: “Die Bühne verwandelt sich in die erste Scene des ersten Aktes, welche
sich während des fortsingenden zweiten Chores und des fortsingenden Glockengeläutes mehr und mehr mit
Rittern, Landvolk etc. anfüllt.” (“The stage transforms itself in that of the first scene of the first act, filled
as the singing proceeds with more and more knights and peasants, etc.”) Act IV, No. 20.
229
Ex. 4.31, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 20, Doppelchor, mm. 53-57
The chorale mirrors Genoveva’s position as a religious figure, who with the help of the
Virgin Mary leads her husband to a higher feminine sphere. Despite all her moral
strength and the psychological evolution she underwent throughout the opera, however,
Genoveva remains an earthly woman subjected to her husband’s domination. The return
of the chorale appears to mirror the endless repeatability of women’s existence, as
230
theorized by Kristeva. 35 It symbolizes Genoveva’s confinement to the private sphere,
already apparent in Act II, No. 8, as discussed above. The chorale, however, perhaps also
reflects the feminine agent of change which Genoveva has become: it thus assumes in
Act IV a very different role than in Act I. While the chorale in Act I, No. 1 focused on
God’s power in time of war, it is now linked with Genoveva. It perhaps not only
symbolizes, but actively participates in, the shift from masculine to feminine values, from
war to religiosity, brought about by her love.
The finale of Act IV brings together the motives associated with Siegfried and
Genoveva. Act IV, No. 21 opens with the heroic Siegfried motive on the trumpets, with a
rising arpeggio and its sharp, incisive rhythm (ex. 4.32).
Ex. 4.32, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 21, Finale, mm. 1-2
The motive’s heroism sets the tone for the following exuberant display of sheer joy,
culminating in both spouses expressing together their “namenloses Glück” (“ineffable
joy”). Each of the two motives is heard in conjunction with each spouse’s name, perhaps
evincing a more egalitarian relationship between both characters. The Genoveva motive
shows the Countess’ influence on her husband: the first mention in this number of his
name uses her motive, linked with his heroism (ex. 4.33; the English text reads: “Hail to
Siegfried, the bravest of heroes”).
35
See Kristeva, “Women’s Time,” 471-484. It is also discussed by Solie in relation to the song cycle
Frauenliebe und Leben in “Whose Life,” 219-240.
231
Ex. 4.33, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 21, Finale, mm. 45-48
The Genoveva motive is again heard twice as the chorus sings “Heil Genoveva” (“Hail
Genoveva”) at bars 49-50 and 56-58: its heroism connotes Genoveva’s new subjectivity
and assertiveness at the end of the work (ex. 4.34).
Ex. 4.34, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 21, Finale, mm. 56-60
Genoveva again appears on the same footing as her husband: the words “Heil Genoveva”
are sung by the chorus on the Siegfried motive, supported by the full orchestra (ex. 4.35).
232
Ex. 4.35, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 21, Finale, mm. 85-88
233
Genoveva’s triumph was foreshadowed at the end of the Overture: the bright C major
tonality, with her motive on the fourth degree (outlining an F major triad), contrasts with
the C minor at the beginning of the Overture mirroring the passage from darkness to
light, from submissiveness to the acquisition of a sense of self (ex. 4. 36).
234
Ex. 4.36, Schumann, Genoveva, Overture, mm. 328-333
Despite such joy and triumph, despite such seemingly musical equality between
husband and wife, what sort of life awaits Genoveva after being reunited with her
husband? Billington raises the question: for him, the return to the atmosphere of the
235
beginning is far from positive for the heroine since conflicts between Genoveva and
Siegfried were already apparent.36 Evidence of the conflicted situation which Genoveva
faces at the end of the work is shown by her words in Act IV, No. 21: “Ich kann’s nicht
fassen, nicht glauben,/Mein Siegfried!” (“I cannot grasp it, I cannot believe it,/My
Siegfried!”; ex. 4.37).37
Ex. 4.37, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 21, Finale, mm. 108-112
These words are troubling: they recall those uttered by the much more stereotypical
female protagonist of Schumann’s song cycle Frauenliebe und Leben op. 42, No. 3
(1840), whose life, as Ruth Solie has argued in an influential article, was primarily
envisioned from a male perspective. In the song cycle, the protagonist, when uttering
these words, puts herself into the lowly position expected of nineteenth-century women:
lacking self-confidence, she expresses her disbelief at having been chosen by her male
lover. Previously heard in the intimate context of Schumann’s lied, the presence of these
words in opera, a public genre, places Genoveva back within the confines of the feminine
and domestic private sphere. After the strength she previously evinced, to encounter her
in this submissive position seems unexpected. These words also serve as a reminder that,
in early nineteenth-century novels and theoretical writings, love, while seemingly
envisioned as positive, participated in the oppression of women by its capacity to portray
36
Billington, “Robert Schumann’s Genoveva: A Source Study” (Ph.D. diss.: New York University, 1987),
83.
37
The words in Frauenliebe und Leben op. 42, No. 3, are: “Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicth glauben, es hat
ein Traum mich berückt.” (“I cannot grasp it, I cannot believe it, a dream has touched me.”)
236
them as objects whose value was determined by their usefulness to the male hero. Love
allowed female figures seemingly to act as leaders and thus, in artistic works, to overstep
traditional gender boundaries: however, artists often devised strategies to insure that
proper womanly behaviour prevailed. Ultimately, Genoveva’s story remains one which
is told from a male perspective, for the latter’s benefit.
The Gaze: Genoveva’s Assumption of Margaretha’s Power
In Schumann’s textual adaptation and musical fashioning, the gaze, typically
under the control of male characters, plays a significant role. In the first three acts, two
dimensions of the male gaze appear crucial: both are connected with evil forces, and with
the two main female protagonists. The gaze: 1) seems linked to Genoveva’s
seductiveness in her embodiment as an earthly Eve figure; and 2) enables the witch
Margaretha to manipulate various characters, male or female. In Act IV, however, I
claim that Genoveva’s positive re-appropriation of the gaze as she sees the Virgin Mary
is an important facet of her gender transitivity: she displays gender attributes uncommon
for nineteenth-century women, real or idealized.
In Act I, No. 2, when Golo looks at Genoveva, she appears to him as an object
dangerous to look at due to her eroticism and seductiveness. By her strong influence on
him, Genoveva displays analogies with the character of Margaretha, who easily
manipulates Golo in the finale of Act I. The closeness between both women is
underlined by an inverted version of the Margaretha motive as Golo sees Genoveva
approaching (ex. 4.38).
237
Ex. 4.38, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 2, Recitativ und Arie, mm. 130-137
Golo, overcome by fear, affirms: “Ich seh’ sie nah’n,/Könnt’ ich flüchten,/Verbergen
mich,/Wohin kein Strahl der Sonne dringt!” (“I see her approaching,/f I could flee,/Hide
away,/Where no rays of the sun penetrate!”) This perhaps reveals his desire to escape the
sun, a masculine signifier, to return to a pre-Oedipal, semiotic realm discussed in
previous chapters, an atemporal, nocturnal realm with powerful motherly figures playing
important roles.
In Act I, No. 3, the Genoveva and Margaretha motives depict both Genoveva’s
love and moral strength. On the motive associated with her, Genoveva mentions a
connection between her feminine love (“Liebe”) and the masculine gaze (“Blick”), which
Margaretha manipulates: “Ob auch getrennt, uns eint ein heilig Band,/In fernste Ferne
reicht der Liebe Blick” (“Though we’re apart, a sacred bond unites us,/In the farthest
distance reaches the look of love”; see ex. 4.6 above). Later in that same number,
Genoveva uses a shortened version of Margaretha’s motive, now much more lyrical: “Der
238
dich mir gab, er sehe mich bereit,/Auf sein Gebot mein Liebstes hinzugeben.” (“The one
who gave you to me sees me ready/To sacrifice what I find most dear”; ex. 4.39)38
Ex. 4.39, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 3, Duett, mm. 49-54
Both motives establish a link between Genoveva and Margaretha. The Genoveva motive
portrays her devotion and the strong bond of her love for Siegfried, linked with the act of
gazing: the Margaretha motive foreshadows her upcoming suffering at the hands of the
witch’s manipulations with her gaze. I explore how the link between both women allows
Genoveva, like Margaretha in the first three acts, to take control of the gaze in Act IV.
Throughout Act I, Genoveva is put on display, appearing as an archetypal
submissive, angelic figure. She is the object not only of Golo’s gaze, but that of other
male characters as well. In Act I, No. 6, Genoveva’s “sacred eyes” are shut: she is
unconscious and passive, unable to return Golo’s gaze.39 The piccolo is heard outlining a
descending diminished seventh chord as Golo kisses Genoveva (ex. 4.40).
38
Meanwhile, Siegfried sings: “O herrlich Streiten, für die Christenheit/Des Krieges Banner glorreich zu
erheben.” (“What greater glory than to raise the flag/Of Christendom and fight a holy war!”). Act I, No. 3.
Billington bases his interpretation of this motive, which he calls “Genoveva’s devotion motive,” on this
moment. See his “Robert Schumann’s Genoveva: A Source Study,” 126.
39
Golo: “Die heil’gen Augen steh’n noch nicht/Wie Cherubim abwehrend vor dem Paradies.” (“Her sacred
eyes are not yet open/Like Cherubim who guard Paradise.”) Act I, No. 6.
239
Ex. 4.40, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 6, Recitativ und Scene, mm. 60-61
The piccolo is Margaretha’s instrument, not only due to its presence here, as the hidden
Margaretha sees Golo kissing Genoveva, but also due to the role it plays in the next
number, the finale of Act I. The presence of the piccolo here, when the focus is on
Genoveva, denotes the opposition between two dialectical figures: the religious
Genoveva and the evil Margaretha. Margaretha saw Golo kiss Genoveva, without herself
being seen: this crucial moment allows her to influence the following course of events,
and she resolves to manipulate Golo for her own benefit in the next number (Act I, No.
7).
Mentions of seeing pervade the finale of Act I: most are linked to Genoveva in
some way. They are underlined by the Genoveva and Margaretha motives, both of which
link the gaze with Genoveva and Margaretha. In my view, the Margaretha motive sets
the tone of the witch’s character and the power of her gaze, while her use of the
Genoveva motive shows her ability to manipulate not only Golo, but Genoveva as well.
Margaretha’s first word in the opera as she sees Golo, “Sieh’” (“Look”), on the Genoveva
motive, emphasizes her gaze (ex. 4.41).
240
Ex. 4.41, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 1-6
She immediately pursues: “Man sieht ihn nur mit Freuden an!” (“One always looks at
him with joy”), again on the Genoveva motive (ex. 4.42). At this point, Margaretha sees
Golo: he is not yet aware of the witch’s presence.
Ex. 4.42, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 7-11
The Genoveva motive, as used by the witch, grotesquely parodies the heroine’s character,
manipulating her. The Margaretha motive is heard after each utterance of the Genoveva
motive: it is then repeated on the piccolo. Golo approaches but still does not yet see
241
Margaretha, who observes him before revealing herself: the Margaretha motive is heard
obsessively, perhaps signifying the enormous influence she holds over his psyche (ex.
4.43).
Ex. 4.43, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 45-50
Golo, a male character, is the object of Margaretha’s gaze, a female character: traditional
gender positions as regard gazer and object of the gaze are overturned. When Margaretha
finally speaks to Golo, a diminished seventh is heard on the piccolo (ex. 4.44).
Ex. 4.44, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 82-83
242
These are exactly the same notes, with only a slight change in instrumentation (flute and
piccolo, with the addition of the oboe in the latter example), heard in Act I, No. 6, as
Golo kissed Genoveva (see ex. 4.40 above). The musical similarity of both moments
links Genoveva’s sensuality (in No. 6) with Margaretha’s power of gazing (in No. 7):
both women are perceived as threatening. Margaretha controls the conversation by
revealing to Golo that she has seen him kiss the Countess: “Doch was ich erblickt’, in
diesem Haus der Tugend…” (“But what have I seen, in this house of virtue…”) The
Genoveva motive is heard on the woodwinds, including the piccolo: the presence of the
latter instrument perhaps signifies that the witch controls not only Golo, who is present,
but also Genoveva, who is not (ex. 4.45).
Ex. 4.45, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 110-114
243
Margaretha mocks Golo on her own motive by referring to Genoveva as “a handsome
woman, worthy of a kiss.” Golo is infuriated: caught off guard, he reacts by wishing
Margaretha’s death. Margaretha is little impressed by his anger: she replies that while he
may wound the wet nurse (she was Golo’s former wet nurse), he cannot kill or hurt the
mother in her, the latter whom seems untouchable. 40 Margaretha’s words are significant:
motherly figures appear powerful, hinting at the Virgin Mary’s agency in Act IV. This
religious figure provides Genoveva with moral strength, as I discuss in the next section of
this chapter. I argue that in the finale of Act I, not only is the link between Margaretha
and Genoveva, already uncovered by examining the gaze and Schumann’s use of
motives, strengthened, but Genoveva’s victory over evil is foreshadowed by the mention
of the power of motherhood, evinced by the Virgin Mary in Act IV.
Margaretha’s power over Golo is apparent later in Act I, No. 7: again it appears
linked with the power which others hold over him with their look. Golo sings: “Ich will
dahin geh’n,/Wo kein Aug’ mich wiederfinden soll!” (“I wish to go/Where no eye shall
find me again!”), on the Margaretha motive (ex. 4.46).
Ex. 4.46, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 141-145
This is the second time in the opera that Golo attempts to escape the gaze of a female
figure (in Act I, No. 2 he wished to hide to escape Genoveva and the seductiveness she
40
Margaretha: “Stoss’ zu! s’ ist ja die Amme nur,/Die Mutter nicht, die du durchbohrst.” (“Hit me then!
Since it’s but your nurse/And not your mother, whom you would wound.” Act I, No. 7.
244
embodied). Ensnared by Margaretha’s evil scheming, his weakness is once again
apparent. Margaretha’s correct assessment of Golo’s moral weakness allows her to
deceive him: she misleads him by claiming that Genoveva is attracted to him. 41 She
easily succeeds despite Golo’s conviction that Genoveva harbours no amorous feelings
towards him: Golo asks Margaretha to remain in the castle and see once more with her
own eyes whether or not Genoveva is attracted to him. Margaretha, however, has seen
enough: “Mehr braucht’s nicht, als bereits geseh’n!” (“I’ve seen enough, I’ve seen what I
need to see.”) She affirms that her words pierce Golo’s heart, on a rising arpeggio
recalling the Siegfried motive (ex. 4.47, and also at bars 198-199).42
Ex. 4.47, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 188-189
I have linked above the Siegfried motive with masculine values: its appropriation by
Margaretha hints at her control of the masculine gaze, and her more masculine
undertakings generally. The motive links two male figures, Siegfried and Golo, both of
whom Margaretha manipulates with her gaze: Golo in the finale of Act I, Siegfried in the
finale of Act III (discussed below).
Genoveva, by her seductiveness and her body, displayed power over Golo in Act
II, No. 9. However, in Act II, No. 10, she is again in a passive and helpless situation,
subjected to masculine domination. The gaze appears as the means by which male
41
Margaretha: “Wär’ ein junger Herr ich mit Augen wie Ihr,/Ich hielt’ an meiner Hoffnung fest.” (“If I
were a young man with eyes like yours,/I’d cleave to all my hopes.”) Act I, No. 7.
42
Margaretha: “Es dringt ihm in’s Herz…” (“I’ve touched his heart.”) Act I, No. 7.
245
characters control her, even while she herself is absent from this scene. Golo affirms that
Genoveva has been unfaithful: he convinces Drago to hide in her bedroom to see for
himself his accusation. A variant of the Genoveva motive, beginning with a perfect
fourth, is repeatedly heard in the first half of the number, as a dialogue between Golo and
Drago unfolds (ex. 4.48). The slight alteration in the motive perhaps signals the threat to
Genoveva.
Ex. 4.48, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 10, Duett, mm. 1-5
The motive is under male control as Golo plots his revenge after Genoveva has resisted
him in Act II, No. 9. References to gazing are pervasive. Golo asks Drago: “Hast Augen
du?” (“You have eyes, don’t you?”) And later: “Hier in der Nische kann ungeseh’n dem
Liebespaar man lauschen.” (“Here in the alcove one can observe the pair of lovers
without being seen.”) Drago, convinced of Genoveva’s faithfulness, does not believe the
shameful rumours and refuses to take advantage of the gaze: “Ich riss’ mein Aug’ aus,
müsst’ es die Schandthat seh’n.” (“I would pluck my eyes out were I to witness such a
disgrace.”; ex. 4.49)
246
Ex. 4.49, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 10, Duett, mm. 53-54
His words are uttered on the Genoveva motive, heard for the first time in the number,
beginning on a perfect fifth, its original configuration and also that of the chorale, a
symbol of Genoveva’s purity and religiosity. Golo mocks him: “So glaub,’ wenn du
nicht seh’n willst!” (“Believe it, if you don’t want to see it!”), also on the Genoveva
motive which this time begins on a perfect fourth, a symbol of the impending threat to
Genoveva (ex. 4.50).
Ex. 4.50, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 10, Duett, mm. 66-67
247
Drago finally agrees to Golo’s suggestion that he hide in Genoveva’s bedroom to see for
himself his allegations: both male characters control the gaze and plot to incriminate her.
Later in Act II, No. 10, Margaretha tells Golo, on a variant of her motive with the
characteristic rising minor second, that she has witnessed his encounter with Genoveva,
in Act II, No. 9: “Ich lauscht’ an der Thür’… weiss alles…” (“I observed at the door… I
know everything…”; ex. 4.51).
Ex. 4.51, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 10, Duett, mm. 90-101
This is the third time in the opera that she sees Golo without herself being seen (the first
two were in Act I, Nos. 6 and 7, as discussed above): each time, what she sees is linked to
Golo’s irrational behaviour after losing control of his emotions, leading to his kissing
248
Genoveva (Act I, No. 6), his regrets at having done so (Act I, No. 7), and his brusque
declaration of love (Act II, No. 9). In each occasion, her gaze either involves Genoveva,
or has a direct impact on her. Commenting on his anger at having been rebuked by the
Countess, Margaretha pursues: “Mit Genoveva war’t zu heftig Ihr! (“You were too wild
with Genoveva!”), on the Genoveva motive. The gaze appears to be controlled by
Margaretha: as Genoveva approaches shortly before the dialogue between Golo and
Margaretha is over, she is seen only by Margaretha, not Golo. Schumann’s instructions
in the score are: “Genoveva sieht zur Thüre herein: sich schnell zurückziehend, wird sie
von Margaretha bemerkt, die Golo mit sich fortzieth.” (“Genoveva looks through the
open door: she quickly steps back and in so doing is seen by Margaretha, the latter who
drags Golo with her.”) The Genoveva motive seems under Margaretha’s control: it is
sung three more times, by both Golo and Margaretha, as Golo asks her to help him
avenge himself. Genoveva then appears, alone on stage, displayed as a vulnerable,
helpless figure, an object to be gazed at.
In Act II, No. 11, a prayer to God sung by Genoveva, the heroine utters both the
Genoveva and the Margaretha motives. The presence of both motives portrays Genoveva
from a dual perspective: her own motive musically shows her increasing awareness of her
identity, due to, in this number, her ties to God and her religiosity. She sings it while
standing on her own, without the tie to her husband she mentioned in Act I, No. 3. The
Margaretha motive foreshadows her active assumption of the witch’s masculine power of
gazing. God and the gaze appear linked and constitute for Genoveva a strong source of
power. Addressing God on a lyrical version of the Margaretha motive, Genoveva’s first
249
words refer to the act of looking: “O du, der über Alles wacht” (“O you, who watch over
all things”; ex. 4.52).
Ex. 4.52, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 11, Arie, mm. 1-6
Moments later, her womanly devotion and submission are reflected as she sings, on her
motive: “In deinen Willen leg’ ich nun/So Seel’ wie Leib!” (“I submit to your will,/Body
and soul”; ex. 4.53). Her words are immediately followed by the Margaretha motive.
Ex. 4.53, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 11, Arie, mm. 8-10
Finally, Genoveva again asks God for forgiveness (first utterance) and protection (second
utterance) twice on the Margaretha motive (ex. 4.54).43 In so doing, she puts herself in a
feminine, subordinate position, while the Margaretha motive hints at her power of gazing
from which Genoveva’s moral strength, displayed in Act IV, derives.
43
Genoveva sings: “Vergieb, da mir zu meiner Wehr/Kein’ and’re Waffe blieb./O Herr, der gern
verzeiht,/Beschirme mich.” (“Pardon me, since I had no other weapons to save myself./O Lord who grants
sweet forgiveness, protect me in my bitter grief.”) Act II, No. 11.
250
Ex. 4.54, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 11, Arie, mm. 17-24
The motive’s lyricism throughout this number perhaps shows an important progression
occurring within Genoveva’s personality: it transforms the meaning of the Margaretha
motive from evil to sacred (a shift not unlike that found in Part III of Schumann’s Szenen
aus Goethes Faust, discussed in the previous chapter), mirroring the shift from the
manipulation of Genoveva by Golo and Margaretha, to her transcendence. This shift, as
discussed in the next section below, appears more fully in Act IV, as Genoveva gazes at
the image of the Virgin Mary. Another reference to the act of gazing appears later in Act
II, No. 11: Genoveva asks God to bring to her Siegfried’s image in dreams, so she may
gaze at it to gain peace of mind. 44 She puts herself in the traditionally masculine position
of beholder, one which also recalls Schumann’s frequent mentions of Clara’s idealized
image, which brings him comfort and solace.
Genoveva, however, still has significant hurdles to overcome. In Act II, No. 12,
the servants’ gaze incriminates Genoveva, who responds: “Glaubt, was ihr seht! Nur bitt’
ich,/Glaubt nicht mehr!” (“Believe what you see! But I beg you,/Believe nothing
more.”) Margaretha also claims to have seen both Drago and Genoveva together. 45
44
Genoveva: “Komm, süsser Schlaf,/Bring’ Siegfried’s Bild im Traume mir.” (“Come, sweet sleep,/Show
me Siegfried’s image in my dreams.”) Act II, No. 11.
45
Margaretha: “Ich lauscht’ am Fenster dort,/Wie Drago sie umfing!” (“I looked from the window
there,/How Drago held her!”). Act II, No. 12.
251
Genoveva again turns towards God, whom she implores for help and moral strength.46
Subjected to the gaze of others, the power of her voice, however, seems considerable.
She calls for God’s help three times, each time on an A-flat5. First she sings: “Gott steh’
mir bei” (“May God stand by my side”; ex. 4.55).
Ex. 4.55, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 12, Finale, mm. 142-143
Then: “O Herr im Himmel” (“O Lord in Heaven”; ex. 4.56).
Ex. 4.56, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 12, Finale, mm. 203-204
And finally, on “allmächt’ger Gott” (“almighty God”; ex. 4.57).
Ex. 4.57, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 12, Finale, mm. 233-236
Genoveva’s powerful vocal utterances, while demonstrating her assertiveness and desire
to resist her fate, do not immediately shield her against accusations. However, as I
discuss in the last section below, in Act IV her voice will succeed in bringing forth God’s
help, with the Virgin Mary’s intercession.
46
Genoveva sings four times: “Herr, schütz’ vor Frechheit mich!” (“Lord, protect me from this
impudence!”) And later in that number she repeats another four times: “Gott steh’ mir bei!” (“May God
protect me!”) Act II, No. 12.
252
Genoveva does not appear at all in Act III, except as an image controlled by male
and female characters alike. In Act III, No. 14, the Siegfried motive heroically appears
on the trumpet as the Count prepares to return home, supported by the strings (ex. 4.58).
Ex. 4.58, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 14, Recitativ, Lied, Duett, mm. 34-36
A few bars later, he imagines his castle by emphasizing his ability to see, again on his
motive: “Bald blick’ ich dich wieder, mein Heimathschloss” (“Soon I will see you again,
the castle where I was born”; ex. 4.59).
253
Ex. 4.59, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 14, Recitativ, Lied, Duett, mm. 38-42
When thinking of Genoveva, however, his musical utterances take a lyrical turn (ex.
4.60).
254
Ex. 4.60, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 14, Recitativ, Lied, Duett, mm. 54-62
Perhaps triggered by his memory of Genoveva and her love, the gaze establishes a bond
between both spouses: Genoveva remains powerful: even while absent, her idealized
image endures in his mind. Siegfried emphasizes the reciprocity of their gaze: “Sie hat
mich erblickt, sie fliegt mir entgegen,/Und Aug’ an Aug’ und Brust and Brust!” (“She
has seen me, she rushes towards me,/Then eyes meet eyes and we embrace!”) Siegfried’s
mention of the reciprocal act of gazing recalls the powerful bond of love between
Genoveva and Siegfried, mentioned by Genoveva in Act I, No. 3. Moments later,
feminine faithfulness and love again unite with the masculine gaze as Siegfried sings: “O
Liebestreu,’ wie reich an Segen!/O Wiederseh’n, so reich an Lust!” (“O faithful love, so
richly blest!/To meet again, what joy and bliss!”) The word “liebestreu” is lyrical, while
the blissful moment of “Wiedersehen” (which literally translates in German as “to see
again” thus emphasizing the gaze) is sung on the Siegfried motive (ex. 4.61).
255
Ex. 4.61, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 14, Recitativ, Lied, Duett, mm. 63-73
A second lyrical interlude again focuses on Genoveva and her gaze: “Voll Bangen
blicktest du aus nach mir,/Mein Weib, aus deinen stillen Mauern.” (“Full of anguish you
looked at me,/My wife, from your silent walls.”) With these words, Siegfried emphasizes
feminine suffering, entrapment and domesticity: the gaze appears less positive, less
empowering for Genoveva. Moments later, addressing his absent wife, Siegfried again
reinforces the bond between them, telling her that “Nun trennt keine Macht mich mehr
von dir!” (“No power on earth will separate me from you!”) on his motive (ex. 4.62).
His motive, however, hints that this reunion will occur under his, masculine, terms, as
indeed I have already discussed above.
256
Ex. 4.62, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 14, Recitativ, Lied, Duett, mm. 104-114
Tellingly, once Siegfried learns of the accusations placed on Genoveva, his immediate
reaction is emotional: he makes no attempts at verifying, in a rational manner, the charges
against his wife. Like Golo in Act I, No. 7, Siegfried wishes to subtract himself from the
gaze: “Niemand auf der Welt soll mehr mich seh’n.” (“No one in the world shall see me
again.”) Fearing the laughter of his servants and knights, he cannot bear to be a passive
object of contempt, subjected to the look of others: he attempts to escape this feminine
position.
The references to the gaze in Act III, discussed above, culminate in the finale (Act
III, No. 15). Margaretha appears at the height of her powers: she dominates both Golo
and Siegfried. All three characters control Genoveva. Siegfried agrees to look at
Margaretha’s magic mirror to find out the truth concerning the accusations placed upon
his wife. The mirror, controlled by Margaretha, shows him three deceptive images of
Genoveva. Golo also “mag Alles schau’n” (“may see everything”). Margaretha’s
motive, symbolizing her powers to control what others see, appears immediately before
257
the first image (bars 116-118). She sings the same words as in Act I, No. 7 and Act II, 8:
“Ein schönes Weib,/Fürwahr des Küssens werth!” (“A beautiful woman,/Worthy of a
kiss indeed!”), reiterated by the flute, clarinets and first violins (bars 120-123).
Genoveva is put on display: her beauty is emphasized but already in the first image, this
beauty appears dangerous because, as Margaretha implies, it may lead to a kiss. In the
first image, she walks innocently with Drago while the chorus mentions love and song:
“Liebe singt in Wald und Feld” (“Love sings in the forest and fields”). Siegfried sings a
variant of the Genoveva motive, while proclaiming her innocence: “Da find’ ich nichts zu
schelten” (“I do not find anything to chastise”; ex. 4.63).
Ex. 4.63, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 15, Finale, mm. 169-175
Margaretha undercuts Siegfried’s words: quickly taking control of the Genoveva motive,
she succeeds in having Siegfried look at a more compromising image of his wife: “Sechs
Monden wies ich ihn zurück,/Wie Ihr gewünscht./Wollt Ihr ein Bild vielleicht aus neu’rer
Zeit?” (“I went back six moons,/As you wished./Would you perhaps have a look at a
more recent image?”) The Siegfried motive is heard three times on the horn during the
second image (ex. 4.64-4.66).
Ex. 4.64, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 15, Finale, mm. 188-191
258
Ex. 4.65, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 15, Finale, mm. 199-200
Ex. 4.66, Schumann, Genoveva, Act III, No. 15, Finale, mm. 213-219
I would like to suggest that the Siegfried motive, in this context, does not denote
Siegfried’s masculinity and heroism but instead symbolizes Margaretha’s increasing
control over him. Siegfried remains unconvinced by this second image.47 But doubts
creep in: this time he himself asks to see the last image, Genoveva and Drago alone in her
bedroom, late at night. Siegfried averts his gaze and violently smashes the magic mirror.
Drago’s ghost steps out of the shards. Margaretha screams “O Gott” (“Oh God”): having
implored God’s intervention, she is now powerless, and loses her control over the magic
mirror. She sings: “Wo flieh’ ich hin, wo berg’ ich mich!” (“Where may I fly, where can
I hide!”) Margaretha, like Golo in Act I, No. 2 and Act I, No. 7, as well as Siegfried at
the beginning of Act III, wishes to hide, and in so doing subtracts herself from the gaze of
47
Siegfried: “Das Schlimme seh’ ich noch nicht!/So sittsam, wie sie blickt,/So scheint sie nur als Herrin
sich zu fühlen,/Er als Diener.” (“I see no wrong in that./She looked so very chaste,/As though she knew
she is the mistress/And he her humble servant.”) Act III, No. 15.
259
others. It thus seems that Siegfried, Golo, and Margaretha have lost the masculine power
of gazing. What about Genoveva? She who was the object of the male gaze, an idealized
female figure and a real woman at once seductive and threatening, now becomes an
active, masculine gazing subject.
Genoveva’s Evolution: From Eve to the Virgin Mary
The motherly figure of the Virgin Mary, by her suffering, offers an archetype of
female authority who grants Genoveva the necessary moral strength to forgive Siegfried,
and also to affect his psyche in significant ways. Genoveva’s seductiveness, subjectivity,
interiority, moral strength and sufferings transform her into a complex, gender transitive
character. Gazing at a luminous image of the Virgin Mary, Genoveva becomes a heroic
figure appearing on an equal footing with her husband, on both literary and musical
levels. Genoveva is constructed as an idealized religious icon: her religiosity, source of
her strength, is already apparent in Act I and emerges more clearly in Act IV. While
Genoveva outwardly appears as the image of religiosity, her body is powerful and her
threatening sensuality must be held in check. She conforms to the traditional dichotomy
of women as Virgins and whores, and appears as an embodiment of both the earthly Eve
and the heavenly Virgin Mary: the following section discusses the transition from one
conception of women (earthly) to another (heavenly), both of which remain idealizations
issuing from male romantic artists’ dual conception of femininity.
Both innocent and seductive, Genoveva’s psychological impact on Golo in Act I
is considerable. He becomes obsessed with possessing her, and, in a reversal of gender
roles, it is he who must be protected against her dangerous seductiveness. In Act I, No. 5,
260
Golo cannot resist Genoveva’s threatening and excessive sensuality. Witnessing
Genoveva’s kiss to Siegfried, he exclaims: “O wie sie küsst!” (“Oh how she kisses!”) In
Act I, No. 6, Golo again appears strongly affected by Genoveva’s seductiveness, focusing
on her lips which promise eternal happiness: “O Lippen, süsse Lippen!/Wer euch
küsst,/Der stiehlt sich hier/Die ew’ge Seligkeit (...).” (“O lips, sweet lips./He who kisses
them/May experience/Eternal bliss.”) In the finale of Act I, Golo is again enthralled by
Genoveva’s body. Regretting having kissed Genoveva he affirms: “Du hielt’st
umschlungen den edlen Leib…” (“You’ve broken your word of honour, you’ve embraced
the noble body…).” Her body is beyond his control: he asks angels to protect her,
perhaps unconsciously aware that he is unable to do so himself. 48 Margaretha is aware
that Genoveva’s charms are irresistible to Golo, and perceives his inability to protect her.
Uttering her motive, she predicts that Golo will easily seduce Genoveva: “Die Frau allein,
der Graf beim Heer!/Da fällt’s dem hübschen Burschen ja nicht schwer!” (“The wife
alone, the Count at war/It won’t be difficult for this cute young man.”) A parody of the
Genoveva motive before each of Margaretha’s two utterances, perhaps signifying her
helplessness, resounds twice on pizzicato strings, the second time juxtaposed with the
Margaretha motive on the flute and piccolo (ex. 4.67).
48
Golo: “Und stiegen Engel nieder zur Erden und schützten sie.” (“And may angels come down from
above and protect her.”) Act I, No. 7.
261
Ex. 4.67, Schumann, Genoveva, Act I, No. 7, Finale, mm. 24-33
262
In Act II, No. 8, Genoveva warmly welcomes Golo to her room because he
alleviates her fears. While Genoveva’s words to Golo are naïvely uttered, the situation is
tinged with eroticism due to two elements: Golo appears in her bedroom, and their
conversation occurs late at night. After Genoveva’s outburst of joy upon learning from
Golo that the war has been won, a diminished fifth is heard sung by Golo, accompanied
by the first violins (ex. 4.68). This interval, as I show below by looking at four instances
in which it occurs with particular prominence, defines Genoveva’s seductive nature.
263
Ex. 4.68, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 8, Scene, Chor und Recitativ, mm. 151-154
Golo is seduced: he links Genoveva with supernatural powers by establishing a
connection between her and Margaretha’s powers of witchcraft: “O anmuthvollste
Zauberin!” (“O charming sorceress”). The Genoveva motive begins on a perfect fourth,
followed by a diminished fifth, in the flutes and first violins (ex. 4.69).
Ex. 4.69, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 8, Scene, Chor und Recitativ, mm. 195-197
264
Golo is aware of the seductive powers that Genoveva holds over him but cannot counter
them, just as he proved unable to resist Margaretha in Act I. In both Tieck and Hebbel,
Golo frequently sings, however his songs, embedded within Tieck’s and Hebbel’s literary
narrative, do not carry the same erotic connotations they do in Schumann’s opera. In Act
II, No. 9, Golo and Genoveva sing together: at the climax of their duet, I claim that the
diminished fifth portrays Genoveva’s seductive powers over Golo: it is first sung by
Genoveva, and repeated by Golo (ex. 4.70).
Ex. 4.70, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 9, Duett, mm. 23-27
The same interval reappears precisely when Golo cannot contain himself and declares his
love to Genoveva (ex. 4.71).49
49
Genoveva: “Wenn ich erwachen thu,’/Bin ich allein” (“When I awake once more,/I am alone”) and Golo:
“Nicht länger halt’ ich mich…” (“No more can I contain myself!”) Act II, No. 9.
265
Ex. 4.71, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 9, Duett, mm. 50-53
The interval increasingly appears as an emblem of Genoveva’s power over Golo, with a
heightened musical intensity in the orchestra. It also shows Genoveva’s active
involvement in her fate: more than either Tieck or Hebbel, Schumann’s Genoveva carries
some of the blame for singing this suggestive love song with Golo (the song does not
appear in Tieck or Hebbel). She asks him to stay: he wants to leave, attempting to escape
266
the powerful feelings overcoming him. The Genoveva motive is heard as Genoveva
sings: “Golo, ich sah Euch niemals so” (“Golo, I’ve never seen you act this way”; ex.
4.72).
Ex. 4.72, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 9, Duett, mm. 71-73
The motive begins on a perfect fifth instead of a diminished fifth: it regains its original
configuration as the stoic Genoveva attempts to regain control of the situation which
threatens to spin out of control, while the weak Golo appears unable to master himself.
He is an ineffective protector: the Countess must assume this masculine role herself, both
against Golo’s assault on her and later, Siegfried’s unjust accusations. Matters come to a
head later in Act II, No. 9: Golo once more calls Genoveva a sorceress. This time, he
explicitly mentions the impact she has on his life: Golo: “O Zauberin, du hast das Leben
mir/Durch Kunst entführt!” (“O sorceress, who with magic art/My life has stolen!”) on a
variant of his motive, expressing the threat she poses to him (ex. 4.73).
Ex. 4.73, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 9, Duett, mm. 81-84
267
She takes matters in her own hands, resisting him: her utterances lead to her forceful
assertion of identity, and emphasize her higher position, as Siegfried’s wife, than Golo:
“Ich bin es, Genoveva” (“It is me, Genoveva”), accented and fortissimo, outlining a C
major triad revolving around the pitch E (ex. 4.74).50
Ex. 4.74, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 9, Duett, mm. 85-89
Golo acknowledges her identity, which however he subordinates to that of Siegfried. He
replies: “Hör’ den, du, meines Herrn Gemahlin” (“Hear me, you, my lord’s wife”).
Intimidated by the Countess, language fails him: he sings two times on the Genoveva
motive “O dass ich’s reden, aussagen könnte” (“O if only I could find the words to say
it,” bars 99-102). Genoveva is trapped within the castle’s sphere: she sings “Wo flieh’
ich hin?” (“Where do I flee?”), but finds no escape. She calls two servants for help:
neither can hear her. She turns to her absent husband for help, also in vain: “O mein
Gemahl,/Wann kehrst du wieder!” (“Oh my husband,/When will you return!”), twice on
a diminished fifth juxtaposed with the Margaretha motive, exemplifying both the threat
which her sensuality, as well as Margaretha’s and Golo’s scheming, pose to her (ex.
4.75).
50
Siegel affirms: “Genoveva’s highly charged encounter with Siegfried’s Steward well portrays her new
individuality.” See her “A Second Look at Schumann’s Genoveva,” 22.
268
Ex. 4.75, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 9, Duett, mm. 127-132
Genoveva is alone to save herself against Golo’s attempts at seduction: she does so with
the power of her voice. Golo once again attempts to possess her: “Mein bist du!” (“You
are mine!”; see ex. 4.81 above). Genoveva’s voice bursts immediately afterwards on an
A5 on “Allmächt’ger Gott” (“Almighty God”): her words reveal the source of her
strength, based on religion, and, for the time being, God. They also foreshadow similar
vocal utterances in Act IV. Golo again tries to possess Genoveva: “In meine arme,
Weib!/An meine Brust!” (“In my arms, woman!/At my bosom!”), on her motive (ex.
4.76). Interrupting him, the unimpressed Genoveva replies: “Zurück, ehrloser Bastard!”
(“Stand back, bastard without honour!”).
269
Ex. 4.76, Schumann, Genoveva, Act II, No. 9, Duett: mm. 139-146
This is a powerful musical moment: musical time is halted due to a slow-moving
harmony while the motive of the curse in the low strings, repeated numerous times,
freezes the dramatic action (bars 142-154). Genoveva escapes Golo’s grasp, who did not
expect such assertiveness from her. According to Schumann’s stage directions, Golo
“winces at these words and lets Genoveva go unhampered.”51
Siegel notes Genoveva’s masculine qualities as she stands up to Golo:
“Genoveva’s courageous, defiant behaviour differs markedly from the way she is
portrayed in the medieval legend: Schumann has transformed her into another
Leonore.”52 Schumann’s stage directions in the score, describing her as “standing before
him [Golo] in menacing gesture,” emphasize her strength.53 Golo’s curse on Genoveva,
which quickly follows, involves the two body parts discussed in his depiction of
Genoveva, in Act I, No. 6, and which I associate with her seductiveness: the eyes and the
51
Schumann wrote in the score: “Auf dies Wort fährt Golo zusammen und lässt Genoveva ungehindert
gehen.”
52
Siegel, “A Second Look at Schumann’s Genoveva,” 22.
53
Schumann wrote in the score: “In drohender Geberde vor ihm stehend.”
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lips. 54 Golo mentions: “Kein Schlaf soll über diese Augen kommen,/Kein Speis’ und
Trank über diese Lippen,/Bevor du vernichtet.” (“No sleep shall come upon those
eyes,/No food or drink upon those lips,/Before you are annihilated.”) The eyes are linked
with the masculine gaze while the lips, particularly in the theorizing of Hélène Cixous,
are associated with eroticism and femininity. Genoveva’s lips are the means through
which her words are uttered, and they are also the medium for her powerful high voice:
her female body appears to provide a source of strength. Golo uses a strong language: he
calls for the annihilation of her seductive body, which he cannot behold. His curse
remains without effect: while she seems able to affect him, he cannot do so in return.
The last act of Schumann’s opera brings lasting changes to Genoveva’s character:
due to her link with the Virgin Mary in the first number of Act IV, she appears to have
transcended the seductive components of her portrayal. Her psychological outlook has
significantly altered: I wish to argue that her new individuality and subjectivity are due to
a specifically feminine quality, her love, which permanently affects Siegfried. Genoveva
returns with heightened power, but retains stereotypical nineteenth-century attributes of
femininity such as love, patience, devotion and religiosity. Genoveva never completely
escapes the archetypes discussed in Chapter One. Her sufferings throughout the opera
provide her with a further source of moral strength. The motherly and suffering image of
the Virgin Mary gains new currency in Act IV. As feminist scholars such as Margareth
Bruzelius and Kristeva (notably in her article “Stabat Mater”) have pointed out, suffering
is typical of women’s experiences in general, and motherhood in particular. These
sufferings, however, can be transcended. In Act IV, No. 16, addressing God, during her
54
In Act I, No. 6, Golo affirmed: “O Lippen, süsse Lippen!” (“O lips, sweet lips!”), and “Die heil’gen
Augen steh’n noch nicht” (“Her sacred eyes are not yet open”).
271
long monologue after being enthralled by the image of the Virgin Mary, Genoveva
affirms: “Durch Trübsal führst du ein zur Seligkeit.” (“Through pain you lead to bliss.”)
In Act III, Siegfried, overcome by disbelief, grief and sadness, asked Golo to kill him
when faced with rather slight evidence of his wife’s unfaithfulness. Genoveva, by
contrast, possesses enough moral strength to cope with the accusations: for her husband’s
sake she has already forgotten all her pain.55 While she appears morally strong, her
attitude, forgiving and comforting, nonetheless remains typical of nineteenth-century
views of proper feminine behaviour which, focused on benefitting men, obliterated the
desires of women and deprived them of their own identities.
Two symbols play an important role in Genoveva’s new, stronger psychological
outlook. Present in Act I, No. 1, the cross assumes a new dimension in Act IV, No. 16.
The image of the Virgin Mary, which Genoveva alone can see, appears here for the first
time: in Tieck and Hebbel’s plays, it figures prominently. 56 In Schumann’s work, the
Virgin Mary is more closely related to Genoveva than in Tieck’s and Hebbel’s plays: it is
the first positive female figure encountered in the work, to which she turns for strength.57
The Virgin appears to Genoveva in a vision: by the Virgin’s atemporal aspect, she
appears to collapse boundaries of time and space. Warner points out the atemporal aspect
which often defines a certain brand of religiosity, especially during visions: “In a vision
55
Genoveva: “Vergessen alles Weh um deinetwillen!” (“All sufferings are forgotten, for your sake!”). Act
IV, No. 16.
56
In Tieck’s play, Karl Martell prays to her, affirming that she leads them to victory: “O heilge Mutter
Gottes, deiner Fahnen/Erbarme dich und lenk du uns zum Ziel.” Tieck, “Leben und Tod der Heiligen
Genoveva: Ein Trauerspiel,” in Die Märchen aus dem Phantasus: Dramen, Vol. 2, (Munich: Winkler
Verlag, 1978), 397.
57
In Tieck’s play Genoveva is explicitly compared with the Virgin Mary. Golo affirms to the imprisoned
Genoveva: “Ich hätte mich geirrt, wenn ich dich für das Bild meiner Maria hielt, für die Trösterin in meine
Leiden?” Ibid., 466. Wendelin, a minor character, describes thus her inner vision of Genoveva, imprisoned
in the castle: “Mir war es so, als wenn die Jungfrau selbst/Erschiene mit dem Knaben au fem Arm,/So
heilig, so unschuldig ging sie hin.” Ibid., 491.
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heaven and earth collided in a piece of time and space and suspended both of them.”58
This atemporal, semiotic sphere is one in which the Virgin Mary moves with ease: this
may be due in part to her religious role as intercessor between Heaven and earth. A
powerful bond is established between the Virgin Mary and Genoveva, reinforced by the
latter’s high social status as a noblewoman: this seems particularly fitting since medieval
times, in which the story unfolds, stressed the Virgin Mary’s queenship.59 Genoveva may
be seen as a queen on earth: she appears to have assumed some of the powers of
mediation, of intercession, possessed by the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary’s sufferings
at the feet of the cross, mirroring Genoveva’s own, appear as an important component of
this bond.
At precisely this moment, the gaze plays an important role: it appears that
Genoveva, by gazing at the Virgin Mary, gains some of her attributes. The religious
image grants her moral strength: in turn, due to this strength and her readiness to
sacrifice, Genoveva appears immune to male attempts at controlling her. In Act IV, No.
16, she is initially trapped in a hopeless situation: no one comes to her rescue and
Siegfried, still far away, cannot hear her pleas. She twice sings: “Zeigt kein Ausweg
sich?/Erschein kein Retter?/Siegfried, Siegfried, horst du die Stimme nicht/Deines
Weibes, das dich treu geliebt?” (“Are there no issues at hand?/No saviour in
sight?/Siegfried, Siegfried, do you not hear the voice/Of your wife who always loved you
truthfully?”) Soon after having uttered those words, Genoveva greets the cross and the
image of the Virgin Mary, which she alone sees. Her words emphasize the luminous
58
Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1976), 300.
59
See Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, xxiii. She also affirms: “The queenship of Mary expresses her signal
triumph, through her virginity and her Assumption, over human weakness and evil (…).” Ibid., 116.
273
aspect of both religious images: “Was leuchtet hier aus dunklem Versteck?/Ein Kreuz,
ein Muttergottesbild!/Dies sah’n sie nicht,/Sie hätten den letzten Trost mir geraubt!/O
heil’ge Jungfrau, blick’ auf mich,/Gieb Kraft, das Bitterste zu tragen!” (“What is it that
glows amidst its dark hiding place?/A cross, an image of the Virgin Mary!/They didn’t
see that,/Or they would have robbed me of this last consolation!/O holy Virgin, look at
me,/Give me strength to bear what is most bitter!”) Genoveva’s act of gazing gives her
strength, allowing her to gain some control over her fate and resist Golo in the next
number (Act IV, No. 17), conditioning the unfolding of the following events. Only she
can see the two images: this fact perhaps signals her newly-found status as a higher,
otherworldly being. I view this moment as the turning point of the opera, showing
Genoveva’s absolute confidence in this motherly image, which plays such an important
role in shaping her sense of self.
The reciprocal return of the gaze between Genoveva and the Virgin Mary in Act
IV, No. 16, exemplifies Rosolowski’s concept of specular reciprocity. Rosolowski
explains how, by fostering a link between the gazer and the object of the gaze, the
reciprocity of the act of gazing may be empowering, a key factor in the formation of
subjectivity. She argues that the most powerful form of the gaze is “an ocular mode in
which a subject appropriates other subjects and converts them into material for its selfconstitution.”60 I argue that Genoveva, then, appropriates some of the Virgin Mary’s
attributes in order to build her sense of self. The act of gazing between Genoveva and the
Virgin Mary creates a strong homosocial bond, allowing the latter to alleviate
Genoveva’s fears and lead her to bliss. Genoveva sings twice: “Mich geb’ ich hier in
60
Rosolowki, “Specular Reciprocity and the Construction of the Feminine in Friedrich Hölderlin’s
‘Hyperion’,” 44.
274
deine Hand,/Die du zum Heil mir ausgesteckt,/O zieh’ sie nicht zurück,/Du leitest mich
zu meinem Glücke!” (“I leave myself in your hands,/Outstretched for my salvation,/Oh
do not take it away,/You lead me to my joy.”) This moment of bliss overcomes spatial
and temporal boundaries, perhaps triggered by the powerful emotions which Genoveva
experiences as she sees the cross and the image of the Virgin Mary. Musically, the
moment is singled out for special treatment (ex. 4.77).
Ex. 4.77, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 16, Scene, Lied und Arie, mm. 122-133
The music associated with the Virgin Mary appears linked with semiotic processes:
musical time comes to a halt as the sweeping lyrical melody and shimmering harmony,
275
with long-held notes on the woodwinds, becomes ethereal and luminous. Genoveva,
upon beholding the religious image reaching up to an A5 and B-flat5, sings high in her
vocal range in the course of this number: her voice appears powerful, exemplifying
Poizat’s concept of the musical cry. Genoveva affirms three times “du leitest mich zu
meinem Glücke!” (“you lead me to my joy!”): the third time, she reaches an A5 on the
word “leitest” (“lead”) (ex. 4.78).
Ex. 4.78, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 16, Scene, Lied und Arie, mm. 163-165
Genoveva anticipates a higher realm as Heaven opens up for her due to the Virgin Mary’s
intercession, which appears as the image of love itself, glowing and bright: “Was schau’
ich?/Öffnet sich der Höhle Dach?/Der Himmel über mir von Glanz erfüllt/Und in dem
Glanz der Liebe Bild!” (“What do I see?/Does Heaven’s ceiling open up?/Heaven above
me is filled with brightness/And in that brightness there is love’s image!”) Light, with its
evanescent, ephemeral quality, is linked both to the Virgin Mary and the higher realm she
represents. Genoveva then addresses the male figure of God, which in this context seems
linked to the female figure of the Virgin Mary: both appear on an equal footing, in a
higher sphere beyond gender. Genoveva utters “allgütiger” on a B-flat5, her highest note
in the opera (ex. 4.79).
Ex. 4.79, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 16, Scene, Lied und Arie, mm. 183-184
276
Another instance of the cry occurs when, again referring to God, Genoveva sings: “Du
Liebesquell, mein Hort” (“You source of love, my refuge”) again on a B-flat5 (ex. 4.80).
Ex. 4.80, Schumann, Genoveva, Act IV, No. 16, Scene, Lied und Arie, mm. 197-200
This time, there appears to be a connection with love: Genoveva’s moral strength, due to
her own love for Siegfried, but also that provided by the Virgin Mary (here one is
reminded of Gretchen) and God, seems to be at its height. Hearing Golo’s steps, she then
proclaims: “Was kommen mag, ich bin gefasst” (“I am ready for whatever may come”).
Just prior to Siegfried’s arrival, however, in Act IV, No. 18, a strange shift of
emphasis in Genoveva’s portrayal occurs. Contrasting images of femininity are
uncannily juxtaposed. Balthasar, one of the executioners, compares Genoveva to an evil
snake: “Ihr macht es wie die Schlange,/Wenn man sie zertritt,/So stich sie noch!” (“You
are like a snake,/When one steps on it,/It still bites.”) This is surprising, given the
previous events: however, it reinforces one important point. Despite sharing attributes
with the Virgin Mary, Genoveva cannot escape her link with the sinful Eve. Genoveva’s
portrayal in that number recalls a similar biblical image earlier in the opera, at the end of
Act III. In the third image of Genoveva produced by Margaretha’s magic mirror, the one
in which her guilt is ascertained for Siegfried, the chorus describes her to her husband
with references to Paradise, its “verbot’ne Frucht” (“forbidden fruit”), “list’ge Schlange”
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(“astute snake”) and “gold’ne Frucht” (“golden fruit”).61 The language, in both passages,
recalls the sinful and lust-driven Eve, which Genoveva appears to embody, due to both
her sensuality and the sexual, bodily nature of her alleged guilt.
As in Act III, the beginning of Act IV, No. 19 presents a reciprocal act of gazing
between both spouses, finally reunited. Genoveva, however, is physically present instead
of an idealized image produced by his mind: she assumes greater weight. Siegfried says:
“O lass’ es ruh’n, dein Aug’ auf mir!” (“O look upon me with your eyes!”) Genoveva
adds: “Ich mische meine Thränen mit den deinen!” (“I mingle my tears with yours!”)
Her masculine act of gazing is juxtaposed with their feminine tears, blurring fixed
categories of gender.
Genoveva is an idealized, religious image: she also suggests an up to date, reallife character. Both a passive and active figure, she resembles real-life German women
such as Clara Schumann who, by her struggle against, and compliance with, traditional
notions of domesticity and masculine authority, was for the composer an important
model. Clara, while differing from Genoveva in important ways, shares a number of her
attributes: certain submissiveness to her husband’s decisions, her portrayal as a saint and
an angel, and her similarities in Schumann’s writings to the Virgin Mary. Both women
could also display assertiveness, strength and agency. Textually and musically,
Genoveva exemplifies the complexities and fluidity of early nineteenth-century gender
stereotypes. My analysis also hopes to have shed light on the role played by the powerful
motherly figure of the Virgin Mary, and its importance for the psychological
development of Genoveva’s feminine subjectivity. The bond between both women
61
In Act III, No. 15, the chorus sang: “Von dem Baum im Paradies,/Dess’ verbot’ne Frucht so suss,/List’ge
Schlange, brich auf’s Neu’/Gold’ne Frucht und kriech herbei!” (“From the tree of Paradise with its sweet,
forbidden fruit shall the cunning serpent pluck anew the golden fruit!”)
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recalls that between the beloved and the Virgin Mary, common in nineteenth-century
literary works (see Chapter One). This bond, however, remains a male fabrication, a
fantasy and a strategy to distance women, to keep them out of male affairs. While
granted considerable influence on the psyche of male characters (whether that of
Schumann or Siegfried), ultimately female figures are returned to more conventional
gender norms and stereotypes when such influence becomes threatening. Their influence
may be at times considerable, presenting them as gender transitive, and at times above, or
beyond, fixed categories of gender: however, whatever subversive power they may
possess, female characters are not allowed to overstep fixed norms of femininity in ways
that would undermine patriarchal structures of power.
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CHAPTER FIVE
THE PERI, THE CRY, AND HER CONTROL OF THE QUEST
In Schumann’s German-language text, the character of the Peri is referred to as a
feminine character by the use of feminine pronouns: despite her female sex however, she
appears to elude stereotypical notions of gender, blending attributes of both. She
embodies the archetype of the angelic woman, described in Chapters One and Two, in
which female figures appear as distant, idealized images, displaying feminine attributes:
nonetheless, the Peri challenges theses views in significant ways. By her assertiveness
and her control of the gaze during the portions of the work devoted to her quest, the Peri
assumes the position of the hero in conventional Bildungsromane, one considered
typically masculine. She outgrows her stereotypical role as resistance and obstacle for
the (typically male) hero, a function which to some extent Genoveva and Gretchen
fulfilled. 1 The literary imagery used throughout Das Paradies und die Peri (the most
important for my analysis are light and tears), as well as the values of care and devotion
she displays, exemplify what Hélène Cixous in “The Laugh of the Medusa” considers a
feminine, pre-Oedipal realm permeated by psychoanalytical drives such as love, life and
death, in which male norms, constraining feminine subjectivity, appear temporarily
suspended. The influence of the masculine sphere is however never completely absent:
one observes at various moments in the drama a struggle between masculine and
feminine realms. In order to show this struggle at work, I will use Michel Poizat’s
1
Todd Kontje points out that “women in the classical Bildungsromane tend to function either as loving
mothers or as erotic adventures for the hero on his journey to self-discovery.” See his Women, the Novel,
and the German Nation, 1771-1871: Domestic Fiction in the Fatherland (Cambridge, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 9.
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psychoanalytical concept of the cry. Musically, I show how the Peri’s powerful high
voice enables her to control the musical discourse at strategic moments. I intend to
demonstrate in what ways, during the process of questing, she uses both her masculine
capacity to gaze and her feminine voice to her advantage: she controls her surroundings
and other characters with powerful lyrical utterances, which, I argue, allow her to occupy
both a masculine and feminine subject position.
As discussed in Chapter Two, Clara Schumann displayed feminine qualities of
devotion and care, but also moral strength, assertiveness, independence and striving,
values which were considered masculine by nineteenth-century society: she thus provided
Schumann with a fitting model for the fashioning of the complex, gender transitive figure
of the Peri. An idealized feminine figure issuing from her husband’s psyche but also a
strong, independent woman, Clara appears to share a certain number of traits with the
Peri. Both negotiate their flexible subject position along a gendered continuum of
stereotypical masculine and feminine values. Throughout this chapter, my textual
analysis, which seeks to uncover links between Clara Schumann and the Peri, will inform
my hearing of the music. In the first section of this chapter, I examine in what ways the
Peri, a female character, takes control of the masculine scheme of the quest. I then argue
in the next section that as the plot unfolds, the masculine quest becomes imbued with
female attributes and values such as tears and light, developing what I consider a
feminine ethic of care. These feminine values appear textually and musically mirrored by
a non- teleological conception of time. Finally, I examine in the last section how the
music, particularly the Peri’s powerful voice in its high range, strengthens and
defamiliarizes her literary portrayal, contributing further to her gender transitive nature.
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I begin by providing a brief summary of the plot of the libretto, which Schumann
devised himself (in consultation with his boyhood friend Emil Flechsig, who provided a
German translation, and the poet Adolf Böttger). Thomas Moore’s oriental tale is a short
story embedded in his larger epic poem entitled “Lalla Rookh” (1817). As structured by
Schumann, the tale of the Peri consists of three tableaux, each of which ends with the
redemption of its respective protagonist. As the child of a union between a fallen angel
and a mortal man, the Peri is excluded from Paradise, into which she seeks admittance.
Intent on impressing the angel guarding Heaven’s gates, she brings gifts, each of which
sheds a different light on the interpretation of her nature and, as I show, her gender as
well. In the first tableau she brings the last drop of blood from the heart of a young war
hero fallen for freedom. In the second tableau, she brings the last breath of a maiden who
willingly sacrificed herself to be reunited in death with her plague-stricken lover. One
finds that the first gift is associated with masculine values (courage, war, heroism and
freedom) and the second, with feminine ones (love, faithfulness, suffering and devotion).
Despite the positive values attached to each, however, both offerings are found wanting
and the Peri must continue with her quest. Finally, with her third gift in the last tableau,
the tears of a repentant sinner kneeling in prayer next to an innocent child, she
successfully gains entry to Paradise. A double redemption occurs at this point: that of the
male sinner as well as that of the Peri. These redemptions, which conclude the Peri’s
quest, occur in the penultimate number via values traditionally considered feminine (care,
empathy, compassion, devotion). These values are symbolized by tears which, as I show
below, are considered feminine, and light, which carries ambiguously-gendered
connotations. I examine how the water imagery which those tears contain bears
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important psychoanalytical ramifications. The power of those feminine tears, shed by a
male sinner, seems most apparent at the precise moment when the male sinner sheds
them: they trigger a ray of light falling from Heaven, bringing forth redemption and the
most powerful instances of the Peri’s cry.
John Daverio notes that each of the three tableaux in Das Paradies und die Peri
Op. 50 may be subdivided in two parts.2 In my analysis, each subdivision presents the
Peri from a different gendered perspective: in the first, she appears with stereotypical
feminine attributes and behaviour, presented as a passive figure awaiting Heaven’s
verdict while in the second, it is her position as an active quester and her ability to gaze
that are emphasized. The first subdivision in each tableau, as the Peri appears before
Heaven’s eternal gates of light (alone in the first tableau, with her gifts at the beginning
of the second and third), takes place in a higher realm, which in my analysis appears
ambiguously gendered, being at once feminine and beyond gender. Feminine or gender
ambiguous figures (angels, choruses of otherworldly figures such as Peris and Houris, a
child) pervade these sections of Schumann’s work. The second subdivisions involve the
masculine quest: the Peri, hovering above, controls her surroundings with her gaze. In
such moments, she appears both distant and powerful: in each episode of her quest, her
confidence in a realm mostly populated by male characters (the chorus of warriors, the
young soldier, Gazna, the plague-stricken youth, the male sinner) is striking. Feminine
episodes thus alternate with masculine ones, in both of which the Peri assumes flexible
subject positions.
2
John Daverio affirms: “Schumann divided his Peri into three parts or tableaux. Each of these in turn
divides neatly into two large scene-complexes: the first centered on the Peri’s various exchanges at the
heavenly gates, and the second on her search for an acceptable gift.” See his Robert Schumann: Herald of
a “New Poetic Age” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 278.
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Such a symmetrical plan, neatly divided along gendered lines, appears to fit the
first tableau well. As the oratorio progresses however, the masculine quest becomes
increasingly inflected with values which in the nineteenth century were strongly
associated with femininity: there appears to be a struggle between masculine and
feminine spheres. The utmost consequences of this process are found at the end of the
third tableau, as feminine tears irrupt into the masculine quest. These moments will be
given a closer look: in such instances, the feminine breaks into the masculine portions of
the work, a process which I argue occurs at the site of gender transitivity. The process is
particularly apparent in Part III: such feminine incursions may be evinced by the Peri’s
powerful utterances in her high range. Blurring attributes of gender at the end of the
oratorio, she appears under a different light than at the beginning. I investigate if perhaps
this play with gender could be examined using Poizat’s psychoanalytical concept of the
cry as evinced by the Peri’s powerful voice, which I claim also affects the listener by
affording him or her entry into a realm of bliss, or jouissance. Ultimately, the Peri’s
high, powerful voice, in conjunction with the literary imagery present in the text, appears
to lead both listeners and literary characters into a realm where, akin to Julia Kristeva’s
conception of the semiotic chora, boundaries of space and time blur.
The Bildungsroman and the Scheme of the Quest
As I seek to demonstrate, the narrative scheme of Das Paradies und die Peri
shares strong analogies with the Bildungsromane. This literary scheme, which constitutes
the backbone of many romantic novels, is discussed in numerous fragments and
theoretical writings of the early Romantics. It appears to be deeply implicated in the
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construction of gender: in such novels, the hero, almost invariably male, reaches
psychological maturity via feminine intercession after much struggling and a lengthy
inward philosophical journey. Female characters, as Sanna Pederson explains, were
excluded from this scheme: she contends that “for the nineteenth century, the corollary of
the philosophical construction of the process of becoming a man declares that woman
does not become; she is. A woman’s life does not involve becoming, does not have a
narrative, because she does not grow intellectually or spiritually.” 3 While the quest
proceeds teleologically towards the fulfillment of a goal in masculine fashion, Todd
Kontje has drawn attention to its more feminine elements, such as the inwardness and
spirituality of the hero: “The questers of the Bildungsroman exemplified allegedly
national characteristics of inwardness and spirituality, and their journey to personal
maturation prefigured Germany’s movement toward political unification.”4 Imbued with
values such as inwardness, redemption and passivity, considered feminine by both early
nineteenth-century critics as well as Schumann, the male hero perhaps does not show an
unquestioningly masculine mindset: upon close examination, the display of gender
transitivity by both male and female characters may emerge with greater clarity. Using
this standard plot archetype for a female character, Das Paradies und die Peri confronts
the listener with gender constructions and female behaviour on the part of the Peri that
not only differ from most female characters of Bildungsromane (such as the Beautiful
Soul, Philina, Theresa and Natalia in Wilhelm Meister, Gretchen in Faust, Mathilde in
Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Lucinde in Lucinde), but also from the idealized female
figures encountered in the Szenen aus Goethes Faust and Genoveva.
3
Sanna Pederson, “Beethoven and Masculinity,” in Beethoven and His World, ed. Scott Burnham and
Michael P. Steinberg (Princeton, N.J. and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000), 325.
4
Kontje, Women, the Novel, and the German Nation, 1771-1871, 9.
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In Schumann’s oratorio, the literary plot archetype serving as the backbone of the
work appears at once sacred and profane. 5 In three parts, the work progresses
teleologically towards the Peri’s goal: to gain access to Paradise. I hope to show how the
Peri confounds the expectations of her fellow females, and perhaps ours as well, by
appearing both as a passive object and an active subject, unwilling to conform to strict
gender norms. Assuming both positions of redeemer and redeemed, the Peri is an active
figure whose constant strivings lead to a musical and literary triumph unquestionably her
own. While displaying stereotypical attributes of femininity, her character appears more
complex than that of most female figures with her desire to redeem herself by assuming
male values throughout her quest. The Peri’s strivings recall those of Faust, while other
traits, such as her emphasis on song as well as a certain passivity, shyness,
submissiveness and naïveté, are associated with femininity. Furthermore, while the work
remains rooted in Western and Christian traditions, the Oriental nature of the tale
afforded Schumann the possibility to indulge in what Daverio has termed “a fantastic
play with distance” which I argue occurs both on temporal and spatial levels. 6 By
distancing the double threat which the Peri represents due to her status as Other (female
and Oriental), such a strategy perhaps allowed the composer to present her as strong,
precisely because she was also a de-familiarized and thus less threatening angelic figure.
Along with the masculine plot archetype, this process of distancing by envisioning the
Peri as an objectified “Other” may paradoxically enable her to gain independence and
5
Daverio affirms: “The tale offered a mediation of sacred and profane realms in the figure of the Peri
herself.” See his Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 276.
6
Daverio affirms: “Through its passion for the Orient, helped along by Napoleon’s campaigns in Egypt and
Britain’s incursions into India, the early nineteenth century indulged in a fantastic play with distance, the
poetic and philosophical fruits of which blossomed in Goethe’s West-Östlicher Divan (1819) and Friedrich
Schlegel’s Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Inder (1819). In Moore’s verses, distance in space becomes
metaphor for distance in time.” See his Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 277.
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subvert gender boundaries. One must remember, however, that despite the Peri’s
independence and strength, this strategy of distancing usually benefits male characters: its
emancipatory potential for female characters, within the context of the literary work,
appears limited. Alice Kuzniar reminds us: “The Romantic idealization of woman
entrenches the male order of dominance by distancing the threat she represents. The
women characters, moreover, are not allowed themselves to question their typified
roles.”7 A gender-ambiguous figure with a female sex, the Peri remains an object issuing
from Schumann’s masculine imagination and control.
The remainder of this section aims to shed light on the literary portrayal of the
Peri, investigating how by her use of the quest she conforms to or eludes gender norms.
Masculine episodes of questing alternate with others in which values traditionally
considered feminine are emphasized, such as self-effacement, self-doubts, religiosity,
interiority, passivity and submission. The Peri initially appears in a position stereotypical
of female characters in many nineteenth-century artistic works. Her sufferings are made
clear: in a feminine, childlike, vulnerable and passive state, she is suffering, described in
Part I, No. 1 as “eine Peri schmerzbefangen” (“a Peri […] disconsolate”) by the narrator.
In Part I, No. 2, the Peri is again deeply unhappy, crying and longing to experience but
one hour in Heaven. Burdened by guilt, mentioned at various moments in Part I, she
recalls the female biblical figure of Eve: both have sinned, and both are denied access to
paradise as a result. This banishment carries clear biblical overtones, intensifying the link
between both female figures. The text makes clear that the Peri is an impure, fallen
character carrying alone the weight of “ihr sündiges Geschlecht” (“her recreant race”). In
7
Alice Kuzniar, “Hearing Woman’s Voices in Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” Publications of the Modern
Language Association of America 107 (1992), 1205.
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Part I, No. 3, she is referred to as a “Kind des Stamms, schön, doch voll Sünden” (“Child
of a fair but erring line!”) by the angel guarding Heaven’s gates.
The Peri’s quest for a suitable gift is not only motivated by her desire to enter
Heaven, it is also a purification ritual, as the angel at Heaven’s gate reveals: “Geh, suche
sie und werde rein” (“Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin”) in Part I, No. 3. While the angel
incites the Peri to assume a masculine behaviour by exhorting her to leave on a quest, she
appears in a different light than male characters which typically do so. Male protagonists
of Bildungsromane rarely need the sort of purification which the Peri requires. They may
need to be enlightened, psychologically grow, or redeemed, typically through a female
agent (for instance, Wilhelm Meister, Faust, Julius, Heinrich and Hyperion), but rarely
purified from sin. Purification appears as a reminder that women are presented as sinful
figures recalling the fallen Eve, analogous to the religious figure of the Virgin Mary, who
is an ideal they are told they must strive to replicate but which lies forever beyond
imitation since women can never be at once virgins and mothers. However
stereotypically feminine though the Peri is at the beginning of the work, I suggest that her
act of looking for a suitable gift, combined with the action of questing, both constitute
masculine gestures. Such gestures may perhaps explain her different attributes of gender
at various moments during the questing portions of the plot.8
8
The Peri’s act of looking also mirror a similar act in Part I, No. 1, as the Peri glanced at Heaven’s source
of life through its half-opened doors. Narrator: “Und wie sie lauscht dem Lebensquelle, dess’ Flut
harmonisch drinnen hallte, und wie vom Licht ihr Fittig helle, das durch halboffene Pforten wallte: weint
sie verbannt aus diesen Au’n ihr sündiges Geschlecht zu schau’n.” (“And as she listened to the Spring/Of
Life within,/Like music flowing,/And caught the light upon her wings/Through the half-open doors
glowing,/She wept to think of her recreant race/Should e’er have lost that glorious place!”) Part I, No. 1.
Throughout this chapter, all English translations are my own. Where available however, the English
wording found in Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance, 13th ed. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and
Green, 1826) is given.
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Wishing to re-enter Heaven, the Peri is placed in an unconventional position: she
is presented from the very beginning of the plot as a masculine subject capable of
expressing desires, instead of the more typical one, a passive feminine object of
masculine desires. Female figures, such as Friedrich Schiller’s Joan of Arc, Goethe’s
Eugenie (Die natürliche Tochter), Hölderlin’s Diotima (Hyperion) or Novalis’ Zulima
(Heinrich von Ofterdingen), who express desires of their own, are uncommon in artistic
works of the early nineteenth-century: their presence goes against what Martha B. Helfer
has termed “traditional philosophy’s inscription of the male as the desiring subject and
the female as the object of desire.”9 The Peri’s desires, her longing for Eden, connect her
with the figure of Eve at several points in the plot: like Eve, the Peri is a generic figure,
representing a whole sexual category whose guilt she alone must bear. Unlike Eve,
however, the Peri is given the opportunity to redeem herself: as such she is afforded
greater agency, greater involvement in her fate. The Peri’s quest is also, to some extent, a
public matter. The mention of “her recreant race” (Part I, No. 1) makes clear that it is not
only the Peri herself who has committed sin, but a whole race of half-angels which, due
to its angelic nature, appears ambiguously gendered. The Peri’s redemption thus entails
both a public (to save her fellow female figures) and private component (to be granted
access to Heaven, primarily for herself). This public-private dichotomy reflects the
double nature, secular-masculine and religious-feminine, of her quest. Like many male
protagonists of Bildungsromane such as Faust, she seeks secular (male) self-knowledge
9
Martha B. Helfer, “Gender Studies and Romanticism,” in The Literature of German Romanticism, ed
Dennis F. Mahoney (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004), 236.
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and fulfillment: however, she also strives towards a (feminine) heavenly religious realm
where, as the narrator affirms, eternal light prevails.10
After this first feminine episode before Heaven’s gates, the Peri leaves and begins
her quest. Unbound by any particular location, she is active outside the confines of the
domestic sphere, appearing in a masculine position. Soaring “über Indiens Blumenhügel”
(“above India’s flowery hills”) in Part I, No. 5, the text makes clear that she has travelled
extensively in the past, able to provide Heaven with plenty of material riches. While the
Peri is silent during the quest as the events of the drama are narrated, she does not remain
passive: hovering above, she actively beholds her surroundings from on high, gazing at
the male characters. Looking at the young soldier’s mortal wound, she brings to Heaven
the last drop of blood from his heart as her gift (Part I, No. 9). In this context, blood is
associated with masculine values such as war, courage and strength (Part I, Nos. 6-8).11
The Peri’s gift appears to represent this set of masculine signifiers. Those signifiers,
however, are cast in a feminine, religious frame by being presented as holy when brought
to Heaven’s higher sphere: in Part I, No. 9, she affirms “heilig ist das Blut” (“holy is
blood like this”). A shift towards religious values occurs which, by looking at this
moment from the perspective of Poizat’s psychoanalytical concept of the cry in the last
section of this chapter, appears to be musically enacted by the Peri. Her rebuff at
Heaven’s gates, at the beginning of Part II, reveals an important fact which I believe
conditions the unfolding of the story: masculine values alone (freedom and heroism), as
they appear here connected with her gift, are not sufficient to please Heaven. The Peri
10
In Part I, No. 3, for instance, the narrator speaks of the angel guarding the “Gates of Light.”
In Part I, No. 6 the streams are “jetzt rot von Menschenblut” (“But crimson now her river ran/With
human blood”). In Part I, No. 7, the blood flows from the young soldier’s wounds and there are references
to “blut’gen Lettern” (“bloody letters”). In Part I, No. 8, Gazna asks the young soldier this question:
“Willst du umsonst dein Blut verspritzen?” (“Do you wish to shed your blood in vain?”)
11
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must continue her quest and find a holier, more suitable gift which, as the angel mentions
in Part II, No. 10, “dich zum Tor des Lichts läβt ein” (“will let you enter through the
Gates of Light”).
When the Peri reappears before Heaven’s gates in Part II, No. 10, during the
feminine first half of this second tableau, she appears in a very different light: her
passivity clashes with the active, self-confident personality she displayed at the end of
Part I. Such a description of the Peri’s shyness and submissiveness as she presents her
first gift to the angel guarding the Gate of Light is absent from Moore’s original text:
Schumann has chosen to emphasize those feminine qualities. In Schumann’s oratorio,
the narrator affirms: “Die Peri tritt mit schücherner Gebärde” (“The Peri approaches with
a shy demeanour”). Her former confidence is shaken, replaced by doubts concerning the
validity of her gift while she hopefully but passively awaits “mit stummen Liebesblick”
(“with mute glances of love”) whether Heaven’s gates will open. The narrator’s words
are telling: the Peri’s glances of love (love being, as I have argued in previous chapters, a
feminine value) allow the Peri to gaze (a masculine gesture), but her voice is silent. After
her first defeat, the Peri is referred to in feminine terms by the chorus of the Houris,
recalling words used to describe her at the beginning of the work, such as “child” and
“lovely,” a circular gesture which, I would argue, tones down somewhat her previous
achievements. The Peri is a “holde, liebliche Kind” (“lovely, gracious child”), and the
chorus of the Houris marvels at her “hold’ Gesicht” (“lovely face”) in Part II, No. 11:
those words, not found in Moore’s text and added by Schumann, are akin to Goethe’s
depiction of Gretchen. The Peri is an object to be gazed at: in the next number she is
again described as a “Kind der Lüfte” (“child of the air”), hovering above Egypt (Part II,
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No. 12). The Peri’s portrayal recalls Schumann’s idealization of his wife Clara: in many
letters, he used the term “child” to describe her. Muteness, grace, and childlike behaviour
are three attributes associated with a stereotypical perception of femininity: they also
reflect the Peri’s troubled psychological state and her subordinate position.
Disempowered, passive and depressed, she is unable to raise herself towards Heaven.
After her first quest, the Peri is brought back to her initial feminine position, one in which
she seems insecure, dependent on others.
The Peri, however, eventually regains control over herself as a new episode of
questing begins, recounted in the second half of Part II. She appears in a masculine
subject position, in control of the narrative due to her rekindled determination to find the
right gift. The Peri’s ability to see things which others cannot hints at her otherworldly
viewing powers which appear to be the source of her strength. From above, she controls
her surroundings with her gaze (Part II, No. 12). This gaze marks her as an exceptional,
otherworldly being: she looks at the beauties of the Orient, which as the narrator makes
clear, no mortal eyes have seen.12 In the masculine position of viewer, she gazes at the
Orient, feminized due to its references to flowers, jewels, treasures and sweet scents,
which in nineteenth-century literature bore feminine connotations. 13
In Part II, No. 16, the second portion of the Peri’s quest, one encounters a female
figure: the beloved of the plague-stricken youth. She provides an example of a character
which has thoroughly assimilated nineteenth-century views of women as passive,
suffering, and dependent on male figures: female figures who typically cannot act outside
12
In Part II, No. 12, after describing the beauties of Egypt that the Peri sees, the narrator affirms: “Welch
Bild! Kein sterblich Aug’ hat je ein Land gesehn voll höh’rer Pracht!” (“’Twas a faire scene – a Land
more bright/Never did mortal eyes behold!”).
13
I examine this point more fully in the next section below, when I discuss the struggle between the
feminine and masculine spheres.
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the narrow limits within which a large number of Bildungsromane confine them. She is
an archetypal figure, fitting closely representations of female characters in traditional
Bildungsromane: she shares some psychological traits with the Peri, but examining the
ways in which the figures are dissimilar proves instructive. Simply referred to as a
“Jungfrau” (“virgin”), she has no name (neither in Moore’s text nor Schumann’s
oratorio), appears to have no identity of her own or rather, her identity is relational,
dependent upon that of a male character: her lover. She stands comparison with the
Virgin Mary due to the latter’s representation as an idealized, generic figure imbued with
an aura of saintliness, sacrifice and sufferings. The Peri, when appearing before
Heaven’s gates, also reiterates conventional norms of feminine behaviour and in these
moments seems to display some of the Jungfrau’s psychological features. However, due
to her total submissiveness and absolute devotion to her lover, the Jungfrau appears much
more stereotypical, strongly contrasting with the title character, even in the moments
when the Peri appears to reiterate norms of feminine behaviour most closely. The
Jungfrau infuses the masculine scheme of the quest with feminine values, clashing with
the Peri’s assertiveness and determination as she strives to find a suitable gift. The text
stresses the Jungfrau’s feminine faithfulness to her male lover: she appears to exert little
power over her own life. Whether she lives or dies is of disturbingly little concern to her:
“Tod und Leben, süβ ist’s mir!” (“Healing or death, ’tis sweet to me!”). These are her
last words, which she utters immediately before she dies. Furthermore, she is willing to
sacrifice herself by giving her own blood if that could ease her lover’s fever, even
briefly. 14 The Jungfrau displays the same ethic of care and devotion as the Peri does at
14
Jungfrau: “Trink’ meine Tränen, auch mein Blut, mein Herzblut, selbst empfingest du, wär’s Balsam nur
für deine Glut, gäb’s dir nur auf Minuten Ruh!” (“There, – drink my tears, while yet they fall, – /Would
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the beginning of her second quest (with her tears, as discussed below): however, the
Jungfrau sphere of action and influence appears more restrained, more closely bound to
domesticity than that of the Peri. Her sole utterance in the work is a strophic two-part
lied, which perhaps symbolizes her domestic and psychological confinement: the second
part is repeated to the music of the first, seemingly offering few opportunities to step
outside its musical boundaries. This circular gesture recalls Kristeva’s concept of
“woman’s time” discussed in previous chapters: for instance Genoveva’s song in Act II,
No. 8 when, confined within the castle’s walls, she lamented her husband’s absence.
Both women depend in these moments on another, male, figure.
The Jungfrau’s lover is comforted by the thought that she safely lies in her
father’s castle, where “rein ist dorten noch die Luft” (“the air is there still pure”), as he
mentioned in the previous number (Part II, No. 15). She is expected to conform to norms
of feminine behaviour and remain within the castle’s walls, where she is sheltered,
protected not only from the immediate danger of the plague, but from the outside world.
The Jungfrau, however, cannot live without her beloved. Fearing the long, cheerless and
dark nights, she emphasizes the interconnectedness of their lives: “Du meines Lebens
Leben” (“You are my life itself”) in Part II, No. 16. Her identity is defined by her
relationship to a masculine figure, a pattern not only typical of female literary characters,
but whose influence was so powerfully felt that it is also operative in strong, real women
such as Clara Schumann, as discussed in Chapter Two. Unlike the Peri, who does not
appear tied to any male figure in the work, the Jungfrau needs a male figure by her side:
what I see as a deeply-felt need for reunification in a higher sphere after death appears as
that my bosom’s blood were balm,/And, well thou know’st, I’d shed it all,/To give thy brow one minute’s
calm.”) Part II, No. 16.
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the main reason for her sacrifice. 15 In a manner typical of idealized female figures, she is
entirely defined by her love: this is emblematized by the manner in which she dies,
kissing one last time her already dead lover. The Jungfrau, like the character of
Genoveva, appears to possess enough moral strength, which stems from her love, to
sacrifice herself and bear her suffering. Surprisingly, she does not see this strength as
sufficient to allow her to carry on with her life after her lover’s death. Furthermore, the
Jungfrau does not hold the same power as the Peri over the masculine gaze. Unlike all
three female figures discussed in this dissertation, in Part II, No. 16, she cannot return the
gaze in an empowering moment, a gesture Tacey Rosolowski has termed “specular
reciprocity.”16 She looks at her lover, but her gaze remains powerless to challenge
male/female hierarchies. Although she twice begs her lover with the words “Wend’ o
dein hold Gesicht nicht ab, bin ich nicht deine Braut, bin dein?” (“Nay, turn not from me
that dear face – /Am I not thine – thy own lov’d bride”), he looks away from her: the
connection between lovers is severed due to his refusal to gaze at her.
The Jungfrau thus reasserts common stereotypes of idealized women gaining their
existence from the fantasy of a male imagination, which sees them as subordinated to
their husband’s lives. The Jungfrau’s stereotypical features are not mitigated by other,
more empowering attributes, as in the case of the three female characters discussed in this
dissertation. Perhaps more disturbingly, her death, which occurs after she has left the
private sphere and the protection offered by the narrow confines of her father’s castle,
sends a negative message to women. It perhaps serves as a warning to women wishing to
15
The next number (Part II, No. 17), a beautiful prayer for the two lovers, describes them as “wie ein
Heil’genpaar sie lagen” (“like two lovely saints they seem’d”).
16
Tacey A. Rosolowski explains the concept of “specular reciprocity,” discussed in Chapter One, in her
“Specular Reciprocity and the Construction of the Feminine in Friedrich Hölderlin’s ‘Hyperion’,” Modern
Language Studies 25 (1995).
295
enter the public sphere, who, in so doing display agency and resolve. She freed herself
from her father’s castle and his authority, a gesture which perhaps signifies a desire to
break boundaries, but to what end? She appears to have escaped the private sphere only
to encounter death and the willing sacrifice of her life for her beloved: it is difficult to
avoid the feeling that, as his bride, she is one of his possessions, an object passed from
father to husband.
After this second episode of questing, a third feminine episode occurs at the
beginning of Part III, as the Peri brings her second gift, the beloved’s last sigh of pure
love, before Heaven’s gates. Once again, however, her gift is found wanting: she is
denied access through its gates of light. After this second rebuke, the Peri experiences a
period of distress and self-doubts: “Verstoβen! Verschlossen auf’s neu’ das Goldportal!
Gerichtet! Vernichtet der Hoffnung letzter Strahl!” (“An outcast! Once more closed, the
golden entrance! Judged! Annihilated is the last ray of hope!”), underscored by the
music’s slow tempo. Like the female figures of Eve, Genoveva and Gretchen, she feels
judged: her despair, but also her guilt, seem emphasized by the interval of a tritone,
which ends her utterances as she mentions her sinking courage (bars 20-21). As
discussed in Chapter Four, I showed how Schumann used this interval in Genoveva to
connote similar traits typically associated with femininity, such as the heroine’s guilt and
seductiveness. However, this time the Peri’s discouragement is brief: she soon resumes
her quest with even greater involvement than previously, driven by what I perceive as
frustration, she does not allow herself to be crushed by despair. This frustration echoes
that of many nineteenth-century women, such as Clara Schumann, who likewise have
tried despite hurdles and stumbling blocks, with various degree of success, to gain an
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identity of their own and become subjects possessing individuality and agency, either by
following a masculine course of action or by not conforming to gender norms dictated by
the patriarchal society in which they lived. The Peri’s resolve holds fast despite the
incomprehension of her fellow Peris, who cannot grasp her desire to re-enter Heaven.
This chorus of Peris, absent from Moore’s tale and added by Schumann, asks in Part III,
No. 22: “Genügt dir nicht das Sonnenlicht und Sterne, Mond und Erde?” (“Are sunlight
and stars, moon and earth, not sufficient?”). Baffled by her masculine striving and
determination, they wonder why sunlight, stars, moon and earth do not satisfy her.
In a gesture typical of male characters, but less so of female ones, who do not tend
to travel outside a limited sphere, the Peri severs her ties with this female community of
the Houris and leaves, alone, for the third part of her quest. She establishes no strong
bond between herself and other powerful female figures, as Gretchen and Genoveva do
with the Virgin Mary. This is rather unusual for a female character since the latter do not
tend to stand alone, in such an independent manner: I argue that it is perhaps a further
display of a more masculine behaviour. As she did during the first two parts of her quest,
the Peri again soars above her surroundings as she proceeds to find a suitable gift: she
controls the gaze and beholds two figures, both of which appear to display ambiguous
attributes of gender and thus, resemble the Peri in some ways. Instead of evidencing
clear attributes and roles of masculinity or femininity, as the young masculine war hero or
the stereotypical female beloved did, the characters encountered in Part III appear not to
conform to traditional gender expectations. The first figure is a child, singing among
roses: upon hearing church bells it kneels down in a submissive, religious gesture. The
child, whose sex is never actually mentioned, possesses angelic and childlike features,
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like the Peri who has previously been called both child and angel: this child, described as
an “Engelskind” (“angelic child”), prays to God with a “reinem Engelsmund” (“pure
angelic mouth”). In his study, Poizat views the image of the child as both asexual and
angelic, two aspects which also appear to fit the Peri well: Poizat also links childhood to
innocence, which the Peri has lost but which her quest aims to regain by seeking
admittance to Heaven.17 The conjunction of roses, religiosity and a devotional attitude
present in the text contributes further to placing the child in a religious position typical of
female idealized, distant characters. As I’ve discussed in previous chapters, the
juxtaposed images of the child and the angel are two attributes which Schumann closely
linked with a certain idealization and romantic, stereotypical views of women. They also
featured prominently in his view of Clara, expressed in his writings, as an idealized,
redemptive figure. The Peri then sees a sinful man appearing next to the child.
Witnessing such innocence, the man is deeply moved: he cries and sheds tears of
repentance. Tears not only break gender barriers and an important social taboo against
men crying, thus feminizing this male sinner: they are associated with the Peri’s own
tears and with water, a fluid element which, as I discuss in the next section below, has the
potential to blend gender attributes.
The last scene (Part III, No. 26) is a triumphant close affirming the Peri’s victory
over her fate. She cries out: “Freud,’ ew’ge Freude, mein Werk ist getan, die Pforte
geöffnet zum Himmel hinan, wie selig, o Wonne, wie selig bin ich,” (“Joy, joy for ever!
17
Michel Poizat mentions: “L’innocence – supposée – de l’enfant, sa non-inscription – supposée – dans le
registre du sexe en fait une incarnation idéale de la représentation angélique – jusqu’à Freud tout au moins.
Et, plus l’enfant est jeune, moins il est corrompu et plus il est proche de l’ange.ˮ See his L'Opéra, ou, Le
cri de l'ange: Essai sur la jouissance de l'amateur d'opéra (Paris: A.M. Métailié, 1986), 182. (“The
supposed innocence of children, their supposed asexuality, makes them ideal incarnations of the angelic –
at least before Freud. And the younger the child, the less corrupt and more like an angel. ˮ English
translation in The Angel’s Cry: Beyond the Pleasure Principle in Opera, transl. Arthur Denner [Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1992], 129)
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my task is done/ – The Gates are pass’d, and Heaven is won!/Oh! am I not happy? I am,
I am.”) She repeats those words obsessively throughout this last number. Overwhelmed
by the blissful moment, her subject position mirrors that of Faust in Goethe’s drama:
unlike Faust however, who loses his wager with Mephisto and dies, the Peri’s joy signals
her attainment of Heaven’s higher realm after much striving. I argue that this realm is
akin to the pre-Oedipal, semiotic chora, which is at once feminine and maternal but also
beyond gender, a realm before the full formation of subjectivity occurs. I examine in the
two sections below the literary and musical semiotic processes that are involved in the
Peri’s attainment of this realm. Those semiotic processes are evinced by the multiple and
conflicting gender attributes of Part III, blending in a higher sphere in which sheer
feelings of jouissance burst forth. This is not unlike the semiotic processes that take
place at the end of Goethe’s Faust. However, contrary to Faust, who is unconsciously led
by Gretchen and her love to a higher realm at the end of the drama, the Peri is granted
admittance by her own strength and determination, not through a higher instance or any
other intercessor.
The Peri’s masculine striving and willingness to find the right gift appear as the
source of her redemption, not the intervention of any feminine love or grace given from
above. Displaying a significant amount of agency, she actively participates in her
redemption: her actions appear instrumental in shaping her destiny throughout the work,
leading to her ultimate victory. The focus is on her as an independent being, an active
subject displaying a masculine, independent mindset: she (herself) is happy and her (own)
task is done. In Part I, the angel guarding Heaven’s gates had mentioned that her quest
entailed a communal component: to redeem the race of her fellow females from sin. This
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aspect, one which I consider feminine due to the strong ties which female figures often
forge between each other, does not reappear at all in Part III, focusing as it does almost
exclusively on the Peri’s individuality and personal triumph. Furthermore, unlike
countless female characters before and after her, the Peri is not, to use Catherine
Clément’s wording in her well-known study of female operatic characters, “undone” by
the masculine process of questing.18 Contrary to Gretchen, who dies before being able to
lead Faust to salvation, or Genoveva, who in Tieck’s and Hebbel’s plays dies soon after
being reunited with Siegfried (but not in Schumann’s opera, in which the heroine’s fate
after her reunification with her husband is left ambiguous), one is led to assume that the
Peri lives on after the attainment of her goal. She does not appear to be submitted to male
authority either, nor brought back to a domestic sphere, as in the case of Genoveva: of all
three female characters considered in this dissertation, I believe the Peri appears with the
most authority and power. Exactly how such power plays itself out textually and
musically will be the concern of the following two sections.
Struggle between the Feminine and Masculine Spheres: Light and Water Imagery
This section examines in what ways the imagery used by Schumann in Das
Paradies und die Peri appears to blend gender attributes. Water and light are two
important symbols recurring throughout the work: both appear to bear important
associations with femininity (water) or the blurring of gender boundaries (light). I
examine how their interaction with masculine elements during the Peri’s process of
questing, discussed above, denotes a struggle between the feminine and masculine
18
Catherine Clément, Opera, or, The Undoing of Women, transl. Betsy Wing, foreword by Susan McClary
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988).
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spheres. I argue that the Peri’s strivings and gender transitive identity lead her into a
higher, eternal and ambiguously gendered realm of light. More importantly, the values of
eternal light, faith, fidelity, and love present at various moments throughout the text,
which as I argued in previous chapters were considered feminine by nineteenth-century
society, hint at the later events: I wish to explore how, using the masculine scheme of the
quest, the Peri triumphs on feminine terms, with feminine values.
Light for the early romantics bore important connotations, bringing the hero into a
higher, otherworldly realm. As Mary R. Strand points out: “By delving into otherworldly
realms, such as the dark recesses of prehistory, [Novalis] suggests, one can move toward
a new, higher ‘ewges Licht,’ an ideal state of continual spiritual and cultural renewal (1:
247).”19 In the course of the work, I argue that light is brought under the control of
gender transitive characters such as the Peri and angels: masculine characters (the young
war hero, the tyrant Gazna, the plague-stricken youth) appear to have little power over it.
Due to light’s changing, immaterial, eternal and evanescent qualities, masculine
characters affected by it are brought into a higher sphere outside time and space, which I
consider akin to the maternal and rejuvenating Kristevan semiotic chora.
Constantly present throughout the work as a kind of leitmotiv, light acquires a
special significance due to its multiple gendered attributes: on the one hand, it appears
masculine due to its connection with sun and day. 20 On the other, by its association with
moon and stars, two elements favoured by romantic writers which also emit light, it
19
Mary R. Strand, I/You: Paradoxical Constructions of Self and Other in Early German Romanticism (New
York: Peter Lang, 1998), 52.
20
In Friedrich Schlegel’s novel Lucinde, sun is linked with masculinity: “Since he was the first one who
had ever attracted [Lucinde] by his interest in her, the sweet child turned her soul toward him like a flower
inclining itself toward the sun.” One should note the paternalistic tone of this sentence here: a product of
male fantasies, women are presented as children, in need of the sun’s masculine guidance. Quoted in
Rosolowski, “Specular Reciprocity and the Construction of the Feminine in Friedrich Hölderlin’s
‘Hyperion’,” 43.
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ambiguously appears to be linked with night and darkness, both of which in the early
nineteenth century bore feminine connotations. Katherine Mary Padilla describes the
opposition between night and day, and night’s connection with the feminine as eternal,
outside spatial and temporal boundaries: “Unlike the night, which is termed ‘zeitlos und
raumlos’ like the feminine, the boundaries of day/masculine are zugemessen. The night is
infinite, its freedom from the bounds of time and space allow it to open the secrets of the
past and the future.”21 Like the Peri, male heroes must strive to attain this higher light:
for J. W. Ritter, who with Schlegel and Novalis was a member of the early romantics in
Jena, light is the goal of men’s strivings which they attain through love, leading them to a
higher realm of bliss. Ritter affirms: “The sun shines forth; man also strives forward like
the light. (…) In love he arrives at the light of the world, and delights in his existence
for the first time. (…) Sun and man rule the day; at night earth and woman win a
splendid victory over the day.”22 In Part III, No. 26, the higher realm which is the Peri’s
goal, is also directly linked with light and bliss. This realm, to Ritter, is achieved with
love, which in literary and theoretical early romantic works is typically a feminine
prerogative.
Taking my cue from scholars of early nineteenth-century literature, I would like to
suggest that this “eternal light” is maternal due to its rejuvenating qualities, triggering a
constantly renewed life-giving process. Its opposites, darkness, death and night,
particularly in Novalis’ writings, were also linked with timelessness and the feminine
21
Katherine Mary Padilla, “The embodiment of the absolute: Theories of the feminine in the works of
Schleiermacher, Schlegel, and Novalis” (Ph.D. diss.: Princeton University, 1988), 207.
22
Ritter: “Die Sonne leuchtet, auch der Mann strebt vorwärts, wie das Licht. (…) In der Liebe kommt er
an das Licht der Welt, und freut zum erstenmal sich seines Daseyns. (…) Die Sonne und der Mann
beherrschen den Tag, in der Nacht trägt die Erde und das Weib den schönen Sieg davon.” Emphasis in
original. German original in Theorie der Weiblichkeit, 182. English translation in Theory as Practice, 396.
This has also been discussed above in Chapter One.
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beloved. 23 Like Padilla, Linda and Michael Hutcheon, discussing Novalis’ Hymnen an
die Nacht, view night as lying outside conventional notions of time and space. Their
analysis entails a decidedly psychoanalytical slant: “Night was directly linked to the
primary and permanent reality of the noumenal world, the timeless, undifferentiated
oneness from which individuals were expelled at birth and to which they longed to
return.”24 Sara Friedrichsmeyer, in her study on androgyny in early romantic writings,
explores further the connection between night and a feminine realm linked to an idealized
“Mother” or Virgin Mary, a redeemer offering a new life after death: “By the fifth hymn,
the ‘beloved’ has become a part of an idealized ‘feminine’ principle; as was the case with
the feminine redeemers in the novels, she is linked with the ‘Mother,’ with ‘the Heavenly
Virgin,’ and with Maria. All are included in the realm of the Universal Queen, the world
of Night and, according to Novalis, are a part of a historical Christianity. Reunion with
the feminine will offer the experience of death necessary as the prelude to a new life.”25
Water imagery is present throughout Das Paradies und die Peri: it symbolizes
Heaven, beauty, song, tears, suffering, compassion, life-giving, healing and repentance.
These are elements typically associated with female characters in nineteenth-century
literary works, reinforcing the link between femininity and water imagery. Perhaps they
also reflect, with their fluidity, the blending of gendered values and attributes within what
I view as a semiotic higher sphere evinced by the plot. It is those semiotic processes,
textually and musically enacted, which find their conclusion in Part III. As I show, a
23
This is found for instance in Novalis’ Hymnen an die Nacht (1799-1800), an act of homage to his dead
beloved, Sophie von Kühn.
24
Linda and Michael Hutcheon, “Death Drive: Eros and Thanatos in Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde’,”
Cambridge Opera Journal 11 (1999), 277.
25
Sara Friedrichsmeyer, The Androgyne in Early German Romanticism: Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis and
the Metaphysics of Love (New York: P. Lang, 1983), 101
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number of references to water and tears appear connected to Heaven’s higher sphere:
perhaps these fluid elements are the means by which the Peri cleanses herself from sin
and, having done so, enters Heaven. Water imagery is found at several key moments in
Part I, before the Peri leaves on her quest. In Part I, No. 2, she longs to access this higher
sphere, and affirms that a drop from Heaven is more beautiful than all the Orient’s riches:
“Ein Tropfen des Himmels ist schöner denn alle!” (“A drop of Heaven outshines them
all!”) The drop foreshadows the angel’s tears at Heaven’s gate witnessing the Peri’s grief
as she sings her lied in Part I, No. 3, as the narrator affirms: “Und wie er lauscht und
näher schleicht dem sanften Lied, entsinkt ihm eine Träne” (“And as he nearer drew and
listen’d/To her sad song, a tear-drop glisten’d/Within his eyelid […]”). In Part I, No. 4,
the text emphasizes water’s life-giving qualities, referring to it as King Jamshid’s
“Lebenstropfen” (“drop of life”).26 Not only is water imagery linked to life-giving
qualities, but also with the power of song, which I discuss more fully below. Later in the
work, water imagery occurs during the portion of the plot devoted to the Peri’s quest: it
symbolizes the healing, redeeming elements of the plot. The drop from the sea cooling
the fever’s pains of the plague-stricken youth (Part II) and the sinner’s tears (Part III) are
important instances of the power of water imagery. Those last two images are connected
with the suffering of male characters (the youth and the sinner), mirroring those which
the Peri experiences at various moments in Schumann’s work. The remainder of this
section below examines in greater depth the gendered implications of light and water
imagery on the Peri’s quest, and her ultimate redemption, culminating with her
attainment of Heaven’s higher sphere.
26
The Peri affirms: “Ich weiβ auch wo die Genien König Jamschid’s Pokal verhehlen, er ist von Gold und
Juwelen und Lebenstropfen sind sein Getränk.” (“I know too where the Genii hid/The jewell’d cup of their
King Jamshid,/With Life’s elixir sparkling high.”) Part I, No. 4.
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In addition to the symbols of water and light, the imagery used to describe the
surroundings in which the Peri evolves also appears to destabilize conventional gender
attributes. It will be briefly discussed here, as a way of setting the stage for the later
course of events. In Part I, during the portion of the Peri’s quest, her masculine
subjectivity contrasts with the feminine vocabulary with which her surroundings are
depicted. Soaring above Kashmir, India, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, she travels through a
feminized “Orient” viewed as an undefined, mysterious geographical space. These
oriental locations are described in the first tableau in terms which carry feminine
associations: beautiful gardens, flowery meadows, gold, diamonds, treasures, glistening
jewels and the eternal sweet scent of flowers. In Part I, No. 2 and No. 4, the Peri had
described the “Orient” as an attractive and erotic, but also superficial and earthly,
feminine sphere.27 Within these feminine depictions of the Orient, the first tableau
juxtaposes ambiguously gendered images, connected with water (the sea) and light (stars,
connoting the feminine night, and sun, associated with the masculine day). In Part I, No.
2 the Peri affirms: “Und pflück’ich selbst Blumen auf Sternen umher” (“And the stars
themselves have flowers for me”) and “Glänzt Kaschemir’s See auch sonnig und rein”
(“The Lake of cool Kashmir glistens, sunny and pure”). The opposition between night
and day, stars and sun is reiterated at the beginning of Part I, No. 5: “Es flimmert die
Sternennacht” (“The starry night shimmers”) and “Dort brütet heiβ die Sonne” (“There
shines the bright sun”). The opposition between various gendered conceptions of light
27
Peri: “Wie glücklich sie wandeln sie sel’gen Geister, im Dufte von Blumen, die nimmer verblühn!”
(“‘How happy,’ exclaim’d this child of air,/Are the holy Spirits who wander there,/Mid flowers that never
shall fade or fall.”) Also: “Ein Blümlein des Himmels ist schöner denn alle.” (“One blossom of Heaven
out-blooms them all!”) Part 1, No. 2. In Part I, No. 4 the Peri speaks of “Urnen, mit Schätzen gefüllt”
(“The wealth (…) of every urn”) and the already cited “ich weiβ auch wo die Genien König Jamschid’s
Pokal verhehlen,/Er ist von Gold und voll Juwelen.” And in Part I, No. 5 the four soloists speak of “im
Schoβ der Berge Diamant” (“Whose mountains (…)/with diamonds teem”).
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gains its significance in the last part of the oratorio, with an added spatial component, as
the chorus beginning Part III, No. 18 affirms: “Unten ist’s dunkel, oben das Licht”
(“Below is darkness, above is light”).
In Part I, No. 6, the Peri arrives at a battlefield, which conflates conflicting
attributes of gender. Previously described as a feminine oriental Paradise, the
surroundings are now once more described with solar qualifiers, as a masculine “Land of
the Sun” (Part I, No. 6). The vocabulary chosen to describe the characters evolving
within the context of this first quest is fraught with masculine imagery: it marks a
reappraisal of masculine values of power, heroism, mightiness, conquest and war, which
threaten to annihilate the fragile beauties of the feminine Orient.28 The text mentions:
“Es wütet fürchterlich der Tod” (“death raged terribly”), “verheerend mit ehernen
Füssen” (“devastatingly with iron feet”), “zertreten” (“crush”), Gazna’s “grimmen Zorn”
(“fierce anger”), “es sterbe der Tyrann” (“death to the tyrant”), and “der mächtige Fürst”
(“the powerful prince”) in Part I, No. 6, “Es flieβt sein Blut aus manchen Wunden”
(“blood flowed from many wounds”), “schon hat sein Schwert im Feindesschwarm” (“his
sword is already in the enemy’s crowd”), “Gazna lebe der mächtige Fürst” (“Hail Gazna,
the powerful prince”), “Komm kühner Held” (“Come courageous hero”) and “Du
schlugst des Landes Bürger, du meiner Brüder Würger” (“You struck the citizens of this
land, you are my brother’s slayer”) in Part I, No. 7, and “Es lebt der Tyrann” (“Heil to the
tyrant”) in Part I, No. 8. The values of heroic courage and determination to fight for
freedom, even in the face of death, were considered masculine by nineteenth-century
society. They are personified by a young male soldier standing alone before the powerful
28
“O Land der Sonne, wessen Schritt geht über deinen Boden.” (“Land of the Sun! what foot invades your
land.”) Part I, No. 6.
306
tyrant Gazna. These values are not, however, only present in male characters, even if
typically linked with the latter: I have discussed in Chapter One how some female
heroines in early romantic literary works display similar attributes. Furthermore, Clara
Schumann also appeared independent and assertive (if not overtly militant), both to her
husband and to the society in which she lived.
When the Peri reappears in Part I, No. 9, at the end of this masculine episode of
war, she fits well into this masculine context. She displays some of the same
psychological attributes as the male characters previously encountered: her strong, active
personality, her assertiveness, as well as her determination to find a suitable gift match
the masculine surroundings. Light and water imagery play an important role: witnessing
the demise of the young soldier fallen for freedom, the Peri’s radiant arrival in Part I, No.
9 is singled out for special attention. The narrator affirms: “Kam sie im Strahl des
Morgenrots” (“Swiftly descending on a ray/Of morning light”), at the precise moment
when night (feminine) ends and the day (masculine) begins. I consider the drop of blood
from the young male hero’s heart as a masculine signifier due to the values of courage
and heroism, typically considered masculine, attached to the Peri’s gift. In Part I, No. 9,
this first gift may be associated with gender transitive water imagery due to the fluidity of
the symbol of the drop: I show below how later in Part III, variously gendered
associations blend, as masculine blood is linked with, but also overpowered by, feminine
tears. Semiotic processes, triggered by this drop of blood, are further evinced by the
halting of narrative time: the chorus, obsessively repeating “heilig ist das Blut,” reaffirms
the holiness of the gift and stresses the positive value of freedom.
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In Part II, No. 11, before leaving on her second quest, the Peri becomes entangled
in a web of stereotypical feminine characteristics and metaphors, with references to the
Niles genies quickly rising from the water (“Hervor aus den Wässern geschwind”
[“swiftly forth from the waters”]), the Peri’s song (“hört wie sie singt” [“hear how she
sings”]), and her suffering (“hört, wie sie klagt” [“hear how she laments”]). Linked with
previous water metaphors, this water imagery also recalls the characterization of the Peri
as a “Kind der Lüfte” (“child of air”) earlier in that same number: I believe air and water
are equally ethereal, evanescent and ungraspable elements. Once she leaves for her
second quest, contrary to Part I, the literary text becomes pervaded by feminine elements,
to a much greater extent than the first quest: the first are her tears, linked with purity,
brought about by compassion after she witnesses the desolation caused by the plague, in
Part II, No. 12. At the beginning of Part II, No. 13, the narrator affirms that the Peri’s
feminine tears are imbued with magical healing powers: “Die Peri weint, von ihrer Träne
scheint rings klar die Luft, der Himmel lacht” (“The Peri wept, from her tears the air
grew clear and pure, Heaven laughs”). The conjunction of tears and laughers shows the
proximity of suffering and bliss, which as I show below, encapsulates the Peri’s
fulfillment of her quest, and her attainment of Heaven’s higher sphere in Part III. This
sphere musically evinces semiotic processes, which I examine under Poizat’s concept of
the cry, and his notion of jouissance, in the last section below. The purity of those tears
is explicitly expressed by the chorus: the air clears up, “Denn in der Thrän’ ist
Zaubermacht, die solch ein Geist für Menschen weint” (“For there’s a magic in each
tear,/Such kindly Spirits weeps for man!”) The Peri doesn’t weep for herself and her
sorrows, but for mankind. This appears to evince a feminine ethic of care, discussed by
308
many French feminists such as Cixous and Luce Irigaray, which explains the tears’
healing and magical powers.
Connected with those tears is an inversion of the “evil” motive in Part II, No. 13,
prominent at various moments in both Genoveva and the Szenen aus Goethes Faust (ex.
5.1; see ex. 4.3 in the previous chapter for the motive in its original configuration). The
motive hints at the Peri’s supernatural powers due to her tears, powers which are here
combined with water imagery.
Ex. 5.1, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part II, No. 13, mm. 1-9
The soprano solo also sings the motive, also inverted, a few bars later (ex. 5.2).
Ex. 5.2, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part II, No. 13, mm. 29-31
309
The logical progression of the plot is halted as the chorus repeats these words until
the end of Part II, No. 13. In the works discussed in the two previous chapters, the
motive carries two overlapping significations, evil and love: looking at the motive’s
transformations in Genoveva and the Szenen aus Goethes Faust, I have argued that evil is
overcome by means of devotion and love. Negative values (evil, symbolized by
Margaretha and Mephisto) are overcome by positive ones (redemption, love and healing,
embodied by Gretchen and Dr. Marianus). While the motive occurs far less prominently
in Das Paradies und die Peri, its meaning appears similar: victory, for male and female
characters, is achieved via the feminine value of the Peri’s tears.
The Jungfrau, the female beloved of the plague-stricken youth at the heart of the
second quest during Part II, No. 16 (already discussed above) is put on a higher, religious
plane, seemingly on a par with the Virgin Mary. She shares certain features with the Peri,
such as light and healing powers. Both appear in a ray of moonlight, and the Jungfrau is
the equal of the “goddess of Health”: the Jungfrau, however, unlike the Peri, does not
transcend her earthly dimension, being presented as a secular lover and truthful bride
(Part II, No. 15).29 While this is not explicitly mentioned in either Moore’s or
Schumann’s text, I would argue that the beloved assumes the role of motherly figure: in
an act of selfless devotion, she strives to provide comfort to her sick lover by soaking her
hair in water, an element whose fluidity has been associated by psychoanalytical theorists
with femininity and maternal metaphors, but also with dissolution and death. Linda and
Michael Hutcheon have linked water with motherhood, in both its life-giving and deadly
29
The tenor solo describes her thus: “Doch sieh, wer nacht dort leise schleichend im melancholischen
Gebüsch, der Göttin der Gesundheit gleichend, mit Rosenwangen frühlingsfrisch! Sie ist’s vom Strahl des
Mondes schaut er still verklärt sich nahn die treue Braut.” (“But look, who comes quietly here by night,/In
a melancholy bush,/Like the goddess of Health,/With rosy cheeks fresh as Spring!/It is she bathed in
moonlight/He looks at his transfigured bride approaching.ˮ) Part II, No. 15.
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dimensions: they point out the “cultural associations of water with both life-giving and
death-dealing, that is, with both Eros and Thanatos: to die is to come closer to the
mother.” Water thus seems to participate in bringing the subject closer to the prelinguistic, maternal realm drives (life and death) which make up the Kristevan semiotic
chora.
In Part II, No. 17, the Peri brings into a higher religious sphere the essentially
secular love story of the plague-stricken youth and his beloved. The metaphor of light
plays a large role in this process: it is linked with the Peri’s religiosity. Blessing the
lovers, she puts on their heads a glistening crown and sings a lullaby for them: the
language used blends light, night and death. The Peri conveys such brightness upon their
faces that they appear as “two lovely saints” and sheds light “in their night of death.”30
Elevated to a higher sphere, both lovers appear on an equal plane: light is shed on both of
them, instead of the Jungfrau being dependent on the light which her lover provided her,
as she affirms in the previous number.31 However, given the gender imbalance
mentioned above due to her dependence on her lover, the true emancipatory potential, for
the Jungfrau, of this seemingly egalitarian transcendent gesture may be questioned.
In the third tableau, the culmination of the Peri’s quest, the various feminine
literary motives scattered throughout the work, such as light, redemption, love,
faithfulness, water and tears are brought to their conclusions. They mirror the portrayal
30
“Sie schwingt den Strahlenkranz und gieβt auf beider Antlitz solche Helle, daβ wie ein Heiligpaar sie
lagen.” (“And shook her sparkling wreath, and shed/Such lustre o’er each paly face,/That like two lovely
saints they seem’d.”) Part II, No. 17. And: “Indes die Peri wacht und Licht mild strahlt in ihre Todesnacht
bis ihre Seele auferwacht.” (“While that benevolent Peri calmly kept watch o’er them, and shed light in
their night of death till their souls would waken!”) Part II, No. 17.
31
Jungfrau: “Denkst du, daβ sie, die nur von dir in dunkler Welt empfängt ihr Licht, die trübe Nacht erträgt,
die ihr hereinsinkt, wenn dein Auge bricht!” (“Think’st thou that she, whose only light,/In this dim world,
from thee hath shone,/Could bear the long, the cheerless night,/That must be hers, when thou art gone?”)
Part II, No. 16.
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of the Peri, entangled in a similar combination of feminine stereotypical characteristics
and metaphors. References to water and light, linked with the feminine elements of the
plot, are more pervasive in Part III than in Parts I and II: more importantly for my
argument, they appear to remap traditional configurations of gender in significant ways.
Pervaded by feminine values, Part III restates dichotomies previously encountered, but
reframes them so that they gain their full meaning at the end of the work. In Part III, No.
18, the chorus of Houris sings: “Unten ist’s dunkel, oben das Licht, haβ ist dort, hier
ewiges Lieben!” (“Below it is dark, above there is light, hate is there, here eternal love!”)
As I have argued above, love and light are both associated with a higher realm
unbounded by time due to, as the text mentions, the eternal nature of love: in a gesture
typical of romantic novels, this realm appears to expand spatial boundaries in an upwards
movement. Love and light also bear feminine connotations due to their association with
the Peri’s religiosity and redemption, clearly expressed in Part III. The restatement of
these powerful signifiers reminds the listener of their presence earlier in the work, now
reappearing from a fresh perspective: they also foreshadow its glorious close, when a ray
of light signals the Peri’s final victory and triggers her expression of sheer joy. Light, in
a manner akin to the kind of feminine love examined in previous chapters, performs a
mediating role. In Part III, No. 18, the Peri is shown “die Bahn zum ew’gen Licht” (“the
path towards eternal light”) leading upward: the chorus tells her not to worry since “Treu’
und Glaub’ hat noch nie betrogen” (“fidelity and faith have not yet deceived”). Light and
the feminine elements of fidelity and faith (associated in Part II with the Jungfrau) lead
the Peri on her way to victory.
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Part III, No. 19 also presents various imagery linked with water and light as the
Peri presents her second gift, once more appearing before Heaven’s gates. The “Geist
des Lichts” (“spirit of light”) takes the Peri’s offering: the latter sees “die Sternenschalen
blinken” (“the starry bowls twinkling”) around “den See des Lichts” (“the sea of light”).
Light is connected with two important elements: the feminine night (stars) and the gender
transitive water imagery (sea). Light is again linked to Heaven, the goal of the Peri’s
quest: rejected for the second time, the angel informs her that a “viel heil’ger” (“much
holier”) gift is needed to be granted access to the “Tor des Lichts” (“Gates of Light”).
These references to light are linked with two feminine attributes: the female beloved’s
love and the aerial element of her sigh, both of which are in the Peri’s hands as she brings
them to Heaven. As the Peri raises herself up to Heaven, the narrator mentions the nature
of her second gift: “Der reinsten Liebe Seufzer” (“the pure sigh of love”) of the
Jungfrau.32 This feminine pure love symbolized by the sigh contrasts with the masculine
heroism of the first gift. Furthermore, the connection with air (the sigh) links the
Jungfrau with the Peri’s childlike features (she was previously called a “child of the air”),
which she outgrows in Part III. Perhaps, too, this second gift appears as the next, higher
step in the Peri’s Bildung, as she progresses from a masculine realm (Part I) to one in
which feminine values occur with greater prominence (Part III).
The end of Part III offers further examples of the struggle between feminine and
masculine spheres: tears, and its water imagery, appear at crucial moments in the literary
text. Despite its unassuming appearance and passivity, the angelic child which the Peri
beholds (Part III, No. 23) succeeds in transfiguring the sinful man. It appears in a way
32
In Moore’s text, this love is also self-sacrificial: “Again the Peri soars above,/Bearing to Heav’n that
precious sigh/Of pure, self-sacrificing love.” See Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance, 13th ed.
(London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1826), 149.
313
similar to countless women mentioned in Schumann’s writings: childlike, angelic and
thus seemingly unassuming and passive, these idealized female figures nonetheless had
an enormous impact on his psyche. The man beholding the child, in turn, appears in a
feminine position, sinful, shedding “blest tears of soul-felt penitence”: the precise
moment of his spiritual conversion is singled out for special musical treatment, reflecting
the transcendent nature of the text. The music at this point almost comes to a halt and
suddenly loses some of its energetic drive, becoming more soothing (ex. 5.3).
Ex. 5.3, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 23, mm. 291-299
314
Its emotional impact on the listener is reinforced by the slow-moving chorale texture at
the beginning of the next number (ex. 5.4), connoting an aura of religiosity, as the chorus
reiterates countless times: “blest tears of soul-felt penitence” in Part III, No. 24).
Ex. 5.4, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 24, mm. 1-16
These holy tears appear as the culmination of the preceding events in Part III. Perhaps
because of the feminine connotations of religiosity, suffering and femininity, the tears
feminize the typically masculine scheme of Bildung, and in so doing defamiliarize it.
They contribute to “make strange” the teleological plot, reversing the traditional male
subject-female object dichotomy: the male sinner appears for the Peri as the feminine
element which many male heroes of nineteenth-century German Bildungsromane need
before they can complete their quest. In a circular gesture, one is reminded of the
beginning of the oratorio, as the Peri wept before Heaven’s gates. This is a striking
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moment of gender disruption and blending provoked by those tears, which
psychologically links both the sinful Peri and the sinful man.
The feminine connotations of water and tears acquire in this context a special
meaning. It is unusual that these feminine attributes should be allowed to take up such
power during the masculine process of questing. Schumann’s transgression of the taboo
of men crying at the conclusion of the quest sheds a different light on both the feminized
male sinner and the female Peri, bringing both protagonists to a gender transitive higher
sphere.33 Tears previously possessed feminine healing powers: in addition, they now
carry religious connotations. This is expressed in Part III, No. 24 by the soprano solo’s
voice standing out high above that of the other soloists on an A5 on the word “blest” of
“blest tears of soul-felt penitence” (ex. 5.5).34
Ex. 5.5, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 24, mm. 74-81
33
This recalls Anastasius Grün’s poem “Mannesthräne” (“Men’s Tears”), which Schumann read. He
writes in the Mottosammlung: “Die Mannesthräne, ein sehr schönes Gedicht.” (“The Mannesthräne, a very
fine poem.”) See Robert Schumanns Mottosammlung: Übertragung, Kommentar, Einführung, ed. Leander
Hotaki (Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach, 1998), 593. In this poem, tears are the attribute of both men and
women, but with men, deeply buried in their inner self, they occur much more rarely. For instance: “Doch
es gleicht des Mannes Thräne/Edlem Harz aus Ostens Flur,/Tief ins Herz des Baums verschlossen/Quillt's
freiwillig selten nur.” (“But men’s tears are akin/To the noble resin of Eastern meadows,/Buried deep in
the heart of trees/It flows but only rarely.”) German original in Anastasius Grüns Werke in sechs Teilen,
ed. Eduard Castle, Part 2: lyrical poetry, (Berlin: Bong, [1909]), 41.
34
Sung on the words “O heil’ge Tränen” ([O] Blest tears”) in Part III, No. 24. In Part III, No. 25 the Peri
speaks of the “so heilender Kraft” (“so healing a power”) of those tears.
316
Tears bring the listener within a feminine, religious higher realm, reinforced by the
ethereal, soaring stratospheric soprano voice: her words emphasize the religiosity, and
interiority of the scene, while her voice and the slow tempo reinforce its timelessness.
In Part III, No. 25 the Peri expands light and water imagery discussed earlier. She
affirms that a drop from the (feminine) moon fell on Egypt, possessing such healing
powers that it has the capacity to avert plague. She sings: “Es fällt ein Tropfen aufs Land
Ägypten von Juniushitze verbrannt, vom Mond herab von so heilender Kraft daβ zur
Stunde der Dämon der Pest entschwebt, und Gesundheit Himmel und Erde belebt.”
(“There’s a drop (…) that down from the moon/Falls through the withering airs of
June/Upon Egypt’s land, of so healing a power,/So balmy a virtue, that ev’n in the
hour/That drop descends the demon of the pest flees,/And health re-animates earth and
skies!”) Moments later, light becomes linked with this water imagery symbolized by the
drop: both appear similarly powerful, bridging both real and ideal worlds, and both are
presented as coming from above. When the smiling angel at Heaven’s gates greets the
sinner’s tears (the Peri’s third and final gift) at the end of that number, a ray of light from
Heaven falls on earth. In keeping with my analysis of the plot above, I suggest this light
can be viewed as gender ambiguous, stemming from both masculine sun and feminine
moonlight.
The ray reinforces the holy nature of the tears but also triggers the bliss that
quickly follows in the last number. I argue that this bliss is linked to psychoanalytical
jouissance, using Poizat’s concept of the cry. The ray of light seems more powerful than
the masculine sun: it also provides an example of specular reciprocity. The feminine
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object, by reflecting back light on the masculine subject, as Judith Butler has argued,
unmasks its independence as illusory, its seemingly fixed identity as unstable: in so
doing, the object constitutes itself as subject. In a similar process, I believe that the Peri
assumes a gender transitive identity of her own, symbolized by the ray of light, traveling
between both earthly and heavenly realms. The Peri is at once object and subject: she
takes on a feminine, objectified position during the instances of the cry, in which her
powerful voice is put on display, and she also assumes the traditional masculine role of
quester. At the conclusion of Schumann’s oratorio, the novelty is that this specular
reciprocity, this act of gazing, appears to take place between the Peri and the angel
guarding Heaven’s gates, two gender transitive, angelic figures, as if any single gender, at
the moment of acceding to a higher, semiotic sphere, ceased to play a role.
What is even more telling, perhaps, is that the Peri’s victory, to a large extent, is
achieved via feminine means: while displaying masculine characteristics, she does not
repudiate important elements of her femininity such as love, care, devotion and healing.
On the contrary: she embraces them fully. The Peri is a heroic figure: this heroism,
however, is based on terms lying outside what feminist theorists such as Cixous have
termed a masculine libidinal economy, the latter being a cultural concept which entails,
among other elements, the unity of the subject, possession and power.35 The Peri’s bliss
occurs with her third gift, feminine tears, metaphor for water and fluidity which as I have
35
For Cixous, as Ricarda Schmidt contends, the masculine libidinal economy is “not a biological but a
cultural concept, comprising notions of logocentrism, the unity of the subject, and phallogocentrism; it
designates a kind of desire that is characterized by castration, death, calculation, conservation, property,
and power.” By contrast, a feminine libidinal economy is “based on the knowledge of the multiplicity of
the subject, aiming for intensity of experience rather than the conservation of energies, for endless
seduction rather than possession, for ecstasy rather than continuity.” See Schmidt’s article “Male Foibles,
Female Critique and Narrative Capriciousness: On the Function of Gender in Conceptions of Art and
Subjectivity in E.T.A. Hoffmann,” in From Goethe to Gide: Feminism, Aesthetics and the French and
German Literary Canon 1770-1936, ed. Mary Orr and Lesley Sharpe (Exeter: University of Exeter Press),
2005, 51-52.
318
argued dissolves temporal and spatial boundaries when she accedes to higher spheres.
Her redemption does not depend on the salvation of, or reunion with, a male figure (as
with Gretchen or Genoveva). I investigate in the last section how the expression of sheer
joy in Part III, No. 26, expressed by her words “Freud’, ew’ge Freude” (“Joy, joy for
ever!”), musically may be said to reflect her overcoming of gender boundaries in what I
see as an act of psychoanalytical jouissance in which the listener is invited to partake.
The Peri, blurring attributes of gender and assuming various gender roles, seems to
occupy uncannily both a feminine and masculine subject position: she thus exemplifies
Lawrence Kramer’s concept of gender synergy, which he views as implicated in the
process of jouissance (see Chapter One).
Michel Poizat’s Psychoanalytical Concept of the “Cry”
Schumann’s use of songlike elements in his oratorio reinforces the feminine
libidinal economy (an instance of what Cixous and Irigaray have termed écriture
féminine) which as I have shown above, is intertwined with the masculine literary scheme
of the quest, as well as the gender transitive nature of the Peri. This is in line with
Cixous’ theorizing in “The Laugh of the Medusa”: in this article, she links woman’s
voice with song, finding a strong resonance in her inner being. 36 I would like to suggest
that the focus on song throughout the work, which I argue seems linked to a special brand
of lyricism, operates in conjunction with the feminine imagery discussed above and
Poizat’s cry: it contributes to establish the Peri’s feminine sphere of action.
36
For Cixous, song was the first voice of love, alive in every woman. In Cixous, “The Laugh of the
Medusa,” transl. Keith and Paula Cohen, Signs 1 (1976), 881, as discussed in Chapter One.
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Kuzniar emphasizes the empowering aspect of song and the female voice: “Pure
voice, although a sign of woman’s sensuous physical presence, is thus a vehicle for
transcendence. Here the woman is less a reiterated image of divinity than a being outside
the male norm. Her voice heralds a nonvisual, hence a dephallicized, order.”37 Lyricism,
linked with song and memory, is associated with a non-teleological conception of time: I
examine how in Das Paradies und die Peri, a different play with musical time prevails at
certain moments of the plot, blending both past and present, memory and anticipation of
victory, moving both forward and backward in time. It contrasts, but also blends, with
the dramatic principle, progressing forward in time, evident during the episodes of the
quest. Daverio has noted that the lyric, epic and dramatic principles are all at work in the
oratorio, and are given different weight at various points: “And while the epic and lyric
modes prevail throughout, it is eminently sensible that the dramatic principle, in the form
of brief dialogues for the Indians and Conquerors (No. 6), Gazna and the young warrior
(No. 7), and the maiden and her beloved (Nos. 15-16), should emerge in those portions of
the work given over to the Peri’s quest.”38 Furthermore, Daverio and Howard E.
Smithers have noted how song and lyricism are involved in the characterization of the
Peri’s angelic nature. Daverio affirms that “even those portions of the score that do not
involve the Peri herself are pervaded by the angelic essence that, as Schumann learned
from Flechsig, is required for the ‘complete concept of a Peri’.”39 For Smithers, “the
work might convey the impression of a long song cycle, but for the presence of
37
Alice Kuzniar, “Hearing Woman’s Voices in Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” 1200.
Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 278.
39
Ibid., 283. This is apparent in Part III, No. 22 for instance (the chorus of the Peris), perhaps one of the
most aerial numbers in the whole oratorio.
38
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ensembles and choruses” and affirms that the orchestral accompaniments seem closer to
piano accompaniments in lieder.40
The Peri’s high voice, her lyrical vocal utterances and her use of song reflect, but
also gradually impinge on, the pursuit of her teleologically-oriented quest. Daverio
points out that “the gradual progression from lied forms to quasi-operatic arias (…)
mirrors the Peri’s path from unreflecting innocence to redemption through grace.”41 It
signals her transition from a private and domestic nature (the lied) to one which appears
more public (opera). Instead of being undone and submitted to male power, like
countless operatic heroines, the Peri takes control of, and also subverts, both the musical
discourse and the masculine literary archetype by inflecting it towards her own goals
using feminine values. The Feminine repeatedly breaks into the masculine sphere of the
quest, halting musical time. Such intrusions exemplify what Kramer terms “the sudden
eruptions of subjectivity that manifest themselves as impediments to narrative, signs of an
inability to proceed meaningfully in time.”42 Such eruptions could be fruitfully analyzed
using what Poizat has termed the musical cry. The Peri, as a female character, appears to
embody the figure of the angel which, to Poizat, was the privileged site of the listener’s
quest for the voice-object.43 The Peri, however, fails to conform entirely to Poizat’s (and
40
Howard E. Smithers, A History of the Oratorio, vol. 4, The Oratorio in the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 192.
41
Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” 281-282.
42
Lawrence Kramer, “‘As If A Voice Were In Them’: Music, Narrative, and Deconstruction,” in Music as
Cultural Practice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 203.
43
“Le romantisme institue en effet la Femme comme dernier avatar de la figure de l’Ange et l’établit
comme le terrain privilégié de la quête de l’objet-voix.” Poizat, L'Opéra, ou, Le cri de l'ange, 187.
(“Operatic romanticism establishes Woman as the last avatar of the Angel, makes her the privileged ground
of the quest for the vocal object.” English in The Angel’s Cry, 132.)
321
Clément’s) views of the fate of most operatic women: while suffering, she is not in this
case destined for death and sacrifice. 44
The Peri’s voice musically reflects her control of the gaze in the literary text.
Responding to Clément’s study of operatic heroines in her Opera, or, the Undoing of
Women, Paul Robinson and Carolyn Abbate have argued that her neglect of women’s
musical voices obscures important elements of female agency. 45 In their view, women’s
musical voices empower these seemingly helpless idealized female figures: similarly, the
Peri’s powerful vocal utterances provide her with strength and allow her to travel
between both masculine and feminine subject positions. These often occur at the climax
of her melodic line and, in light of my above discussion, emphasize important words in
the text: they involve high notes, often on long note values, reached after an intervallic
leap which makes them stand out. Breaking with the symbolic order of language, the cry
dissolves linguistic meaning: occurring high in the singer’s vocal range, it renders
language unintelligible. I argue that such instances enable the Peri to take control of both
language and musical discourse, opening up a space where dissenting, feminine or
ambiguously gendered voices can be heard. These occurrences, particularly the
jouissance which the Peri experiences at the end of the oratorio, will be examined as
instances of Poizat’s concept of the cry. These are highly charged, excessive and
powerful moments eliciting a strong response from the listener who may experience the
Peri’s voice as a lack within him- or herself, which he or she seeks to fill. The Peri, who
44
Poizat pursues: “Car lorsque la voix de l’ange investit la Femme, sur la scène de l’Opéra, ce n’est pas
seulement la Femme comme telle qui advient, mais La Femme vouée à la mort et au sacrifice.” Ibid., 188.
(“For when the angel’s voice inhabits Woman, the result is not merely woman as such, but Woman driven
to death and sacrifice.” English in The Angel’s Cry, 133.)
45
As discussed in Chapter One. Paul Robinson, Review of Clément, Opera or the Undoing of Women:
“It’s Not Over Until The Soprano Dies,” New York Times Book Review (1 Jan. 1989), 3. Carolyn Abbate
discusses this point in her Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), ix.
322
as Poizat contends, is herself marked by lack due to male fantasies which have
constructed her, may seem a fitting incarnation of this lacking voice, always sought but
forever beyond the listener’s reach. 46
The examples below provide evidence of the semiotic sphere, containing some of
the most impressive moments in the score. The Peri’s sustained high pitches transform
her character into what Abbate has called a subversive “musical voice object.”47 Abbate
well captures the double nature of this female voice, at once in the control of female
characters and yet objectifying them: “The sound of the singing voice becomes, as it
were, a ‘voice-object’ and the sole center for the listener’s attention. That attention is
thus drawn away from words, plot, character, and even from music as it resides in the
orchestra, or music as formal gestures, as abstract shape (…).”48 Such objectification
occurs due to what she terms the “fetishization of the voice as pure sound.”49 No other
character in the work possesses such vocal power as the Peri, who is able to control and
channel the listener’s musical experience. Most importantly, I claim that her voice allow
her to actively take active control of her destiny.
The first instance of the cry occurs in Part I, No. 4, as the Peri muses on the sort of
gift that could please Heaven. She thinks of gold and jewels as potential items, but
recognizes the shortcomings of material things: what ultimately catches her attention
possesses a very different nature. The cry occurs on the word “Lebenstropfen” (“Drops
of Life”) on a B-flat5 (ex. 5.6).
46
Poizat affirms: “La filiation entre la figure de l’Ange et celle de la Femme vouée à la mort et à la
souffrance trouve ici sa logique: le fantasme masculin pose ainsi La Femme comme lieu du manque et de la
souffrance.” Poizat, L'Opéra, ou, Le cri de l'ange, 205. (“The filiation between the figure of the angel and
that of the doomed woman has its logic in the male fantasy that posits The Woman as a site of lack and
suffering.” English in The Angel’s Cry, 147.)
47
Abbate, Unsung Voices, 10.
48
Ibid., 10.
49
Ibid., 5.
323
Ex. 5.6, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part I, No. 4, mm. 33-34
The water imagery of the drop joins with the life-giving qualities of the gift, both of
which appear to trigger this semiotic moment. While the Peri decides against this gift,
which she perhaps considers too earthly still and no match for the “Tiefen der Ewigkeit”
(“boundless Deep of Eternity”), the imagery of the drops is significant in its
foreshadowing of the Peri’s tears of compassion (Part II) and the redeeming, life-giving
tears of the male sinner (Part III), both of which also evince semiotic processes.
In Part I, No. 9, two moments stand out from the surrounding heroic and
masculine music, as the Peri prepares to return to Heaven’s gates upon completion of the
first part of the quest. The cry first breaks in as the Peri sings “Sei dies, mein Geschenk”
(“Be this (…)/My welcome gift.”), on an A5 after an octave leap (ex. 5.7).
Ex. 5.7, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part I, No. 9, mm. 21-24
This moment is preceded by two utterances of those words, each of these two instances
sung each time higher, with a wider leap on “dies” (a fifth, then a sixth, reaching an E5
and an F-sharp5 respectively), before the octave leap mentioned above (bars 22-23).
While their range in these two instances isn’t particularly high, not only are these words
sung each time with a heightened intensity which increases the tension, both also appear
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to expand the spatial boundaries of sound, pushing towards higher regions with the Peri’s
high voice (ex. 5.8).
Ex. 5.8, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part I, No. 9, mm. 16-20
The Peri’s lyrical utterances as she sings these words contrast strongly with the heroic
music of the previous numbers depicting the battle. Those high notes, especially the last
A5, focus on her gift, the heart’s blood of a male war soldier: by their intensity and
lyricism, they also allow her to channel the listener’s musical experience.
Another instance of the cry occurs later in that same number, as the Peri
powerfully and heroically interjects “Freiheit” (masculine “Liberty”), sung sforzando on
an A5, after a wide leap of a minor seventh (ex. 5.9).50
Ex. 5.9, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part I, No. 9, mm. 30-33
The chorus appears to also be under the Peri’s spell in this number: the sopranos sing,
fortissimo, an A5, after an octave leap. This also occurs on the word “Freiheit,” the
50
Peri: “Für die Freiheit verspritzt vom Heldenmuth.” (“Shed for liberty with heroic courage.”) Part I, No.
9. Moore’s original is slightly different: “On the field of warfare, blood like this,/For Liberty shed, so holy
is,/It would not stain the purest rill,/That sparkles among the Bowers of Bliss!”
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chorus repeating the Peri’s previous music. These examples show the strength and power
of the Peri’s voice. These words are repeated numerous times throughout the number,
halting, in combination with those high notes, the musical narrative.
Another A5 is sung by the sopranos on “Heilig” (“holy”), which connotes an aura
of feminine religiosity, at bar 239 and repeated at bar 265 (ex. 5.10). Those words are
frequently repeated by the chorus, both before and after this powerful highpoint, once
again halting narrative time.
Ex. 5.10, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part I, No. 9, mm. 236-243
I argue that the triumphant tone of the moments just discussed foreshadows powerful
musical instances of jouissance later in Part I, No. 9, and evinced even more strongly in
Part III, No. 26: they underscore the gift’s masculine values of freedom and heroism, as
well as feminine holiness, present in the text.
Two powerful occurrences of the Peri’s cry are heard in Part I, No. 9 as she sings
“Wilkommen dorten an Edens Pforten” (“Welcome there to Gates of Heaven”). Soaring
high above chorus and orchestra, she becomes what Abbate has termed a musical voiceobject. She is put on display: the listener focuses not on what she says but on the sheer
power of her vocal utterances. The Peri’s voice breaks through the musical fabric when,
after an octave leap, she lands on an A5, held for six bars. There follows a long descent
from A to D (ex. 5.11).
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Ex. 5.11, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part I, No. 9, mm. 382-397
This is impressive: however, it is only prelude to a similar, but even longer, vocal
utterance (ex. 5.12).
Ex. 5.12, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part I, No. 9, mm. 399-433
Again, the Peri reaches an A5 after an octave leap, held for four bars, after which she
slowly descends to D. While the previous instances of the cry in this number, discussed
above, focused on her gift, those two utterances at the end of this number hint at her goal
and her ultimate triumph: the opening of Heaven’s gates and her welcoming into
Paradise. Both A5 are sung on crucial words: “Edens Pforten” (“Gates of Heaven”) and
“Wilkommen” (“welcome”). I argue that her powerful vocal utterances, soaring high
above chorus and orchestra that play mostly a supportive role, mirror her control not only
of the musical discourse during these powerful moments but more generally, of her own
destiny as well, convinced as she is to have found a suitable gift. The power of her voice
reflects her confidence and assertiveness.
Associated with the lied and the feminine private sphere, I argue that lyricism
(contrary to clearer, perhaps more operatic, evidence of the musical cry, as discussed in
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Parts I and III) may also be a source of the Peri’s subversive powers. In Part II, No. 11,
the Peri is initially placed in a feminine position, an object of the masculine gaze: her
“hold’ Gesicht” (“lovely face”) is passively looked at by the chorus of Nile’s genies.
However, she is listened to by the chorus as she sings her complaint on the words “Ach
Eden, wie sehnt ich nach dir” (“Ah, Eden, how I long for thee”), her voice soaring high
above the orchestra. Her high, enrapturing vocal utterances appear to be the source of her
power over the Niles genies: under her spell, the chorus stops and listens to her song.
Their gaze is mixed with awe at beholding such an otherworldly, exotic being. Amidst
this intensely lyrical moment, the Peri’s powerful voice erupts on an A5 on “sehnen”
(“longing”): her cry expresses both her sufferings and her longing for Eden (ex. 5.13).51
Ex. 5.13, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part II, No. 11, mm. 62-65
The finale to Part II (No. 17) provides another cogent example of her ability to
enrapture the listener with her voice. It is one of the most lyrical numbers of the entire
work, appearing after a second episode of masculine questing imbued with feminine
values of love, faithfulness, sacrifice, and devotion. The feminine elements in Part II, I
argue, are musically emphasized by song and lied-like elements, which appear to lie in
the Peri’s power. This moment, strategically placed at the end of Part II, evinces the
rising upwards to salvation of the two dead lovers, as if born anew, symbolized by the
51
Peri: “Ach Eden, wie sehnt sich nach dir mein Herz” (“Ah Eden, how does my heart longs for thee”).
Part II, No. 11.
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phoenix’s ashes mentioned in the text.52 Amidst these lyrical surroundings, the power of
the Peri’s high vocal register is displayed on three occasions (at bars 23-24 of ex. 5.14,
bars 53-54 and 57-58 of ex. 5.15). Each instance is sung on a G5 soaring high above
chorus and orchestra.
Ex. 5.14, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part II, No. 17, mm. 20-24
52
Peri: “Schlaf nun und ruhe in Träumen voll Duft,/Balsam’scher umweh’ dich die Luft, als dem
magischen Brand des Phönix entsteigt.” (“Sleep on, in visions of odour rest,/In balmier airs than ever yet
stirr’d/The enchanted [fire of the Phoenix].”) Part II, No. 17.
329
Ex. 5.15, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part II, No. 17, mm. 50-58
The first two instances occur after an octave leap, making them stand out. These
high notes, syncopated, appear to be suspended in mid-air, halting time. All are sung on
the pronoun “du” (“you”) of the phrase “Du, die treueste, liebendste Brust” (“you, the
most truthful, most loving bosom”). I argue that the pronoun evinces a high degree of
intimacy and interconnectedness between the Peri, the woman from whom she takes the
last breath, the chorus, and the listeners. The lyricism appears to reflect this sense of
community, which is often a typically feminine gesture: for a brief moment the Peri,
moving away from her self-centeredness and her goal, puts aside her quest as the plot
momentarily comes to a halt.
Other powerful instances of Poizat’s musical cry are found in Part III, No. 20.
The text and the music affirm the Peri’s assertiveness: the music strongly contrasts with
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the previous gloomy atmosphere, with its falling diminished fifth (bar 21), immediately
following her second rebuke from Heaven (ex. 5.16).
Ex. 5.16, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 20, mm. 19-25
After the double barline, the music resumes a much quicker pace as the Peri increases her
control over the musical discourse. The text underscores her strivings and ceaseless
activity: “Doch will ich nicht ruh’n, will ohne Rast von einem Pole zum andern
schreiten” (“I do not want to rest; I want to stride without halt from one pole to another”).
Her interjections on high notes, at the end of a melodic line, which she obsessively
repeats as if in a trance, outline important words: first “ruh’n” (“rest”) then “Rast”
(“halt”), both on an F-sharp5, reiterating her commitment to continue striving. The
melody’s triadic leanings (recalling the masculine Siegfried motive discussed in the
previous chapter) and wide leaps, combined with powerful interjected high notes, give an
impression of strength and assertiveness to the Peri’s utterances. I argue that this musical
and textual sentence, which recurs three times in this number, not only portrays the Peri’s
desire to travel far and wide to find the right gift, but also, metaphorically, her ability to
move freely from one pole to the other of the gendered continuum. Unlike most idealized
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female characters, she is not restricted to a domestic setting: the music affirms her
mobility, instead of her confinement to one location. In a manner more typical of
masculine characters, the music expresses the Peri’s wish and need to strive until she
attains her goal and finds a suitable gift. Moments later, she then holds a syncopated G5
on “das” (standing for the gift which will allow her to enter Heaven’s gates), on a long
note value making this word stand out (ex. 5.17).
Ex. 5.17, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 20, mm. 40-44
Other powerful vocal interjections occur later in Part III, No. 20, involving high notes and
sheer display of virtuosity, on “Ich will” (“I want”) on a G5 (ex. 5.18 and 5.19). Again,
both words and music reflect the Peri’s agency and ability to voice desires of her own.
Both moments share similarities: the Peri’s voice pierces through the musical fabric, the
high notes occurring at the end of a scalar ascent as she strives to find a suitable gift, even
if that means going amongst horror and night: “Ich muβ es, ich will, ich muβ es, das
Kleinod noch finden, und wär’s bewacht in Grau’n und Nacht.” (“I must, I want, I must
find that treasure even if horror and night were its guardians.”)
332
Ex. 5.18, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 20, mm. 72-79
Ex. 5.19, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 20, mm. 83-89
The power of these utterances is underscored by means similar to those previously
discussed: either their position at the end of a rising melodic line both in voice and
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orchestra, or high notes, reached after a wide leap. Such gestures emphasize the power of
the Peri’s voice, but also her assertiveness at these moments. They not only strongly
impress the listener, but also halt narrative and musical time: they thus symbolize the
Peri’s gradual overcoming of spatial and temporal boundaries, her access to a semiotic
sphere, as the completion of her quest nears.
The vocal interjections discussed above, impressive as they are, constitute a
prelude to more powerful instances of the cry, which forcefully erupts three more times,
later in that number (Part III, No. 20). Each emphasizes the Peri’s heroism and
determination, underlining important words: first feminine “night” (“Nacht”). Then
“das” (for “das höchstes Gut” signifying the sought-after gift). Finally Heaven’s “gate”
(“Tor”) which, as the angel mentioned to the Peri in Part I, is linked with the higher,
gender transitive realm of light. I argue that these three instances, the first on a G-sharp5,
the other two on an A5, again display the sheer power of her voice, evincing instances of
Poizat’s concept of the cry and the semiotic realm which is increasingly under the Peri’s
control. These utterances thus appear to strengthen musically her resolve to carry on with
her quest for a suitable gift.
At bars 95-96 the Peri holds a G5 for six beats on the word “night”: she seems to
believe that the gift lies in this semiotic, feminine and mysterious dark realm. She then
proceeds downwards chromatically for seven bars, reaching D on “muss” and “finden”
(ex. 5.20).
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Ex. 5.20, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 20, mm. 91-107
In the course of this long descent, the listener focuses on her voice. Only when she
reaches a tessitura where language becomes intelligible again when sung does she
resume speech. The words she utters at this point, “Ich will” and “Ich muβ,” are repeated
numerous times in the course of this number, again demonstrating her agency and will.
The second instance of the cry is even more impressive: it again emphasizes the
gift, the sole focus of the Peri’s attention at this point (ex. 5.21). With its syncopated,
long-held note on “das” highlighting the gift, it recalls the Peri’s utterances earlier in this
number (ex. 5.17), on that same word: however it is sung a tone higher, on an A5 instead
of G5, heightening its emotional impact, evincing more cogently Poizat’s cry.
Ex. 5.21, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 20, mm. 137-144
The third instance occurs on the word “gates” of “Das, Eden, mir dein Tor
erschleust!” (“That, Heaven, will open to me your gates!”), on an A5 (ex. 5.22).
335
Ex. 5.22, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 20, mm. 151-159
This musical cry is the most triumphant in this number, the last words sung by the Peri
before the number closes. It appears as the last step in a musical and textual progression
in which, I argue, semiotic processes at the end of this number are expressed with ever
greater clarity: first the feminine night, maternal and semiotic, then her gift, and finally
the fulfilment of the quest symbolized by her admittance into Heaven through the gates of
light. Instead of focusing on the means of the Peri’s redemption, this third instance of the
cry focuses on the goal of the quest. The heroism of her voice at this point foreshadows
her final victory: the opening of Heaven’s gates of light. The moment when this event
occurs bears musical elements which, as I argue below, appear to evince semiotic
processes.
The utmost expression of the Peri’s vocal power is found in the last number (Part
III, No. 26). The sheer power of her voice is impressive: as with the unrepressed tears of
the male sinner witnessing the innocent child, the Peri’s cry bursts forth unhampered.
Occurring in the highest range of her voice, the cry appears to dissolve language and plot.
Perhaps this also signifies the moment in which the fluid gender transitive attributes and
values present throughout the work, such as air, water and light, burst forth at the very
moment in which the quest is completed. The powerful cry reinforces the Peri’s
individuality displayed in the literary text: of the three female characters discussed in this
dissertation, she seems the most assertive, possessing the greatest amount of power and
agency, perhaps due to her constant striving and questing. Key words such as “joy, joy
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for ever” “done,” “blessed,” “bliss” and “on high” are sung on high pitches, typically at
the climax of melodic lines which further emphasizes them. The Peri repeats these words
obsessively, as if in a trance: in doing so she reinforces the combination of variously
gendered aspects of the plot, such as the attainment of the masculine quest, and more
elusive emotions such as bliss and joy which, I argue, lead the Peri into a pre-Oedipal
realm. These emotions are linked to Poizat’s and Kramer’s psychoanalytical concept of
jouissance discussed in Chapter One, which the Peri evinces by her use of the cry. Light
triggers her outbursts of joy, leading her to a higher sphere where semiotic processes are
at work. At the end of Part III, No. 25, she recognizes the holy “Schein,” the ray of light
of the angel’s smile, as a symbol of her redemption: her voice literally bursts out of the
musical texture on a G5, sung fortissimo at the beginning of Part III, No. 26, quickly
rising to an A5 (ex. 5.23).
Ex. 5.23, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 26, mm. 1-4
This stratospheric, virtuosic musical gesture, I argue, symbolizes the breaking of
boundaries which occurred at several moments in Part III due to the influence of feminine
values: the power of her voice pierces through, symbolically shattering the musical
texture. The experience of bliss and eternal joy, of jouissance, which the cry evokes,
musically reflects not only the attainment of the Peri’s goal, but also, following Kramer’s
concept of gender synergy discussed in Chapter One, her ability to travel musically
between various gendered subject positions. Throughout this number, most instances of
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the Peri’s cry are sung fortissimo, and outline significant words, linked with the
completion of her masculine quest and her attainment of a higher, gender transitive
semiotic sphere. All are sung on G5: first “Freud’” (“joy”) then “getan” (“done,” from
her phrase “my task is done”), and again at bar 18 (“Freud’”), bar 39 (“hinan”), and bar
44 (“Wonne”). Later in that number, those same words are again emphasized: bar 138
(“Freud’”), bar 158 (“hinan”) and bar 163 (“Wonne”). With these, the Peri brings the
listener into a maelstrom of raw emotions. This happens again later in the number, again
on G5: bar 237 (on “O” of “O ewige Freud’”), bar 245 (“Himmel”, after which follows a
long, sweeping descent from G5 to D5, which foreshadows later powerful instances of
the cry), and bar 254 (“ewige” of “ewige Freud’”).
The Peri’s voice emphasizes the text throughout the number, but its power is most
clearly audible at the end of the oratorio. Musically, the finale of Part III (No. 26) shares
strong similarities with the finale of Part I (No. 9): both numbers show the Peri’s selfconfidence, power and influence at these moments in the work. The ends of both
numbers feature long, sweeping descents from a high A to D after a wide leap,
challenging the singer’s vocal capacities. Part III, No. 26, however, pushes the concept
of the cry further than the earlier number. Two moments are particularly striking: both
involve long-held, stratospheric high notes on “wie selig.” The Peri first takes control of
the musical texture, holding an A5 for 10 bars before proceeding chromatically
downwards to D (ex. 5.24).
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Ex. 5.24, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 26, mm. 268-302
The second moment is preceded by two shorter instances of the cry (ex. 5.25):
first at bar 361 (F5 on the word “getan”) and bar 365 (A5 on the word “hinan”).
Ex. 5.25, Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri, Part III, No. 26, mm. 353-382
The Peri then sings “how happy” (“wie selig”) on an A5 (bars 368-373): but she
carries on higher still, reaching C6 on “selig” (bars 374-379). This high C is the Peri’s
highest note in the work, the culmination of the semiotic processes evinced throughout
the oratorio: by its vocal power and its position at the end, it is a fitting climax not only
for this number, but the oratorio as a whole.
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Schumann’s oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri thus presents on a literary and
musical level a gender transitive character: the Peri, a female character, expectedly does
display some stereotypical attributes of femininity. However, she also possesses a
number of traits, such as assertiveness, independence, confidence and strength, as well as
her use of the masculine scheme of the quest, which render her akin to male protagonists
of Bildungsromane. The text makes clear that the Peri, in important respects, stands out
from fellow female characters and stereotypical norms of femininity, by her quest, her
assertiveness and her control of the gaze which allows her to assume more masculine
gender roles. The feminine imagery pervading the text relates to love, flowers, water and
tears: it presents the Peri as evolving in a realm which Cixous has termed a feminine
libidinal economy, while light leads her to a gender transitive, semiotic sphere.
Musically, the Peri departs from stereotypical notions of femininity by her use of the
musical cry. The strength of her voice allows her to control the listener, and channel his
or her musical experience: no other character in the work inflects the musical discourse in
such a powerful manner. From my analysis of Das Paradies und die Peri presented
above, the Peri’s powerful voice seemingly allows her to transgress conventional gender
boundaries and assume a masculine subject position. The Peri’s final redemption occurs
on her own terms, without any mediating agent (male or female). This shows how her
gender transitive character takes control of a male plot archetype to her benefit. In this
sense, Schumann’s “new genre for the concert hall” may also signal the composer’s
innovative ways of tackling gender relations, in a genre whose hybridity was seen by his
contemporaries as ideal for the blurring of various boundaries. 53
53
From Schumann’s often-cited letter to Kossmaly of May 5th, 1843, in Briefe, Neue Folge, 2nd ed., ed.
Gustav Jansen (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1904), 226-227.
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CONCLUSION
This dissertation has explored representations of feminine identity and subjectivity in
three of Robert Schumann’s dramatic works, the Szenen aus Goethes Faust WoO 3, Genoveva
op. 81 and Das Paradies und die Peri op. 50, against the backdrop of early-to-mid-nineteenthcentury philosophical and literary debates on gender. Literary and feminist scholars have shown
that during this time period, a less polarized conception of subjectivity arose. While still relying
on fixed referents for masculinity and femininity, the early Romantics nonetheless problematized
eighteenth-century views which upheld strict gendered opposition between an active, reasoning
masculine subject and a passive, receptive feminine object. Devising my theoretical framework
from the considerable amount of scholarly research done in three main areas of investigation
(gender, romanticism and literature), I have first examined in what ways authors such as Goethe,
Jean Paul, Novalis, and Friedrich Schlegel treated gender as a pluridimensional concept. I have
summarized in what ways these authors have theorized the blurring of gendered attributes and
overcoming of stereotypical norms for femininity and masculinity in novels and theoretical
works, and have then applied these insights to my analysis of the blurring of gender in three
common literary archetypes: women as redemptive figures, women as archetypes of the Virgin
Mary, women as angelic figures (Chapter One). This laid the groundwork for my examination of
the ways in which Clara Schumann embodied those three archetypes in Robert Schumann’s
writings (Chapter Two).
This pluridimensional, ambiguous dimension of gender that literary and feminist scholars
have uncovered in early nineteenth-century literary and theoretical works has fuelled my own
analyses, from a gendered perspective, of three female characters in Schumann’s large-scale
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dramatic works: I wished put to the test the flexibility of the concept. In Chapters Three to Five,
I have shown that while Schumann created seemingly passive, easily manipulable Gretchen-like
female characters in the three works discussed, he also worked with pluralistic ideas about
gender drawn from his extensive knowledge of early nineteenth-century literature and
philosophy. To this aim, I have surveyed in great details and quoted from the extensive body of
primary sources currently available to Schumann scholars (letters, diaries, music criticism and
collections of poems and quotes), and looked at the depiction of women they contain. I have
wondered if perhaps Clara, who in my view appears to blur fixed attributes of gender, provided a
further model for these female characters, a point which, until now, I believe has not been
thoroughly investigated. Making links between literature and music, I have shown how
Schumann explored alternative femininities and masculinities in order to depict fictional
characters (Genoveva, Gretchen and the Peri), acknowledging the transitive, fluid nature of
gender concepts as theorized by early Romantic writers. My dissertation examined in what ways
three selected female figures display attributes and values of both gender, such as freedom,
strength, independence, assertiveness, and boldness (gendered masculine) in tandem with
childishness, softness, tenderness, religiosity, sacrifice, devotion and submission (associated with
femininity). The coexistence of these binary opposites in the literary and musical depiction of
one given female character enables a rethinking of stereotypical notions of gender, presenting
such characters in novel and more complex ways than previously imagined. I argue that selected
feminine subjects, as envisioned by Schumann in the three works discussed above, assume both
masculine and feminine subject positions along the gendered continuum at crucial moments
during the plot. All three female figures do respond to and exercise power by resisting their
idealization as stereotypical female characters: in so doing, they also affirm their individuality.
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By looking at the numerous mentions of women in Schumann’s letters and diaries, my
study has also shown in what ways real women are idealized and objectified as naïve, passive,
and loving female figures. I have argued that this psychological process, which frequently recurs
in Schumann’s writings, brings them in dialogue with their literary and musical counterparts.
Such real-life women were idealized as loving, redemptive archetypal images of femininity,
close to the three literary archetypes which appear in counterpoint throughout my dissertation: I
have investigated in what ways Schumann’s metaphorical language describing a certain number
of these women, redolent of stereotypical female figures depicted in early romantic literary
works, is deeply gendered. The composer viewed his wife Clara in similar ways, as a
redemptive, angelic figure: however, she also departs from clear-cut configurations of gender by
displaying a greater amount of outward strength and assertiveness which is reflected, I claim, in
her activities as a concert pianist and composer within the public sphere.
In order to conduct this analysis, I have explored the potential of various critical and
feminist theories that examine alternative configurations of gender, such as literary constructions
of gender, psychoanalysis and the semiotic chora, androgyny, specular reciprocity and gender
hybridity, feminine writing, gender synergy and the narrative voice. From these various
methodological avenues and theoretical apparatuses, I have developed in Chapter One my own
understanding of what I term gender transitivity: the concept itself is not new, but has been as yet
little used in Schumann scholarship. I have used the concept to analyse the characterization of
female characters, and to demonstrate how such characterizations are reinforced or thwarted by
themes which recur throughout the three works discussed (among them love, redemption,
religiosity, devotion). The way I understand it, gender transitivity is revealed by these theoretical
concepts, which have been developed by contemporary scholars of feminist and gender studies to
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analyze the blurring, flexibility and mobility of gender boundaries observed in sources from the
first half of the nineteenth century. In light of this theoretical apparatus, I have examined the
presence in Schumann’s dramatic works of the three archetypes commonly found in romantic
literary works mentioned above. These archetypes are often linked with stereotypical attributes
and values, bearing positive connotations. Encapsulated by the Goethean archetype of the
Eternal feminine, redemption and love endow women with a strong moral sense, which presents
them in a positive light. However, the seemingly positive attributes and values displayed by
female characters could equally well serve as powerful patriarchal tools for controlling and
containing their power, thwarting their attempts to act beyond the narrow roles to which such
idealizations confine them. Gender transitivity, I believe, may allow for the examination of
female figures’ movement between emancipation and containment, and the interplay of power
involved.
In the course of my analysis, Schumann’s wife Clara, who provided him with the
most important female influence in the composer’s life, has emerged as the focal point of
my investigation: taking as my departure point the influential biography by Nancy B.
Reich, I have sought to uncover the potential source and nature of her significant
influence on her husband’s large-scale works. My concept of gender transitivity has
allowed me to explain and place her influence in sharper focus. I discussed how in her
everyday life Clara displayed feminine qualities of love, devotion and care, but also
moral strength, assertiveness, independence and strivings, values which were typically
considered masculine by nineteenth-century society. I have argued that from Clara’s
powerful example, Schumann devised gender ambiguous female characters which, I
claim, at once reiterate and challenge nineteenth-century stereotypical views of women.
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To her husband and contemporaries, she was understood in reference to a combination of
feminine values, roles, attributes and symbols, both religious and secular: childishness,
naivety, suffering, care, devotion, angel, Virgin Mary, distant shrine, higher realm above,
embodiment of faithfulness and love. My research, inspired by the work of Reich, has
shown how the real Clara, in contrast, by her strength, stamina, entrepreneurial skills and
determination, seems to have effected a positive change in Schumann’s perception and
use of the three archetypes examined in this dissertation. I claim that more than any other
woman in Schumann’s writings, she reconfigures and puts to the test stereotypical
notions of gender. Attributes such as leadership and strength within the public sphere
contributed to masculinise her and allowed her to break out of the narrow bounds within
which these romantic archetypes confined her, and which often served to limit women’s
agency and assertiveness.
I have shown evidence that while using values and characteristics traditionally
coded as male (courage, leadership, moral strength, and determination), female characters
do not repudiate their femininity: in fact, the latter often figures as the catalyst for their
influence on male characters. These idealized figures are depicted by male artists in
appealing ways, embodying a series of roles and attributes which nineteenth-century
society typically viewed positively, and which seemingly empowered them. Despite such
optimism, however, these female characters rearticulated the widespread literary
archetype of the passive, loving and submissive woman acting as muse and mediator, but
little inclined to psychological development. Such idealized female characters are
regulated by patriarchal norms of behaviour. While placing these idealized female
characters in a positive light, the archetype, as a male fabrication, in fact often oppressed
345
them by confining them to a private, domestic sphere. The portrayal of female figures
such as, for instance, Gretchen, Genoveva and the Peri, was controlled by male artists,
and their apparent freedom in musical or literary works more often than not reflected
male prerogatives and aspirations of their time. Despite these qualifications, however, I
have also sought, with the use of the concept of gender transitivity, to present the more
active side of such characters. I have been concerned to show how their strength and
powerful impact on the psyche of male characters allowed them to challenge androcentric
literary models, notably by their use of musical and psychoanalytical concepts such as the
semiotic chora, the gaze and the voice.
My dissertation thus hopes to provide further insights as well as expand on the
considerable body of scholarly publications already available on Schumann, his largescale dramatic works, theoretical constructions of gender and feminism, and early
nineteenth-century literature, by linking these areas of study. This research also hopes to
open up further avenues for investigation, using similar methodological and analytical
tools, since not all concerns could be fully assessed here. Other works by Schumann in
which themes similar to those discussed above are evinced, and in which female
characters, embodying in similar ways the three archetypes discussed above, also occur:
the oratorio Der Rose Pilgerfahrt Op. 112 (with the character of the Rose) and the
melodrama Manfred Op. 115 (with the character of Astarte) come readily to mind. An
analysis of the female characters in these works, which have not traditionally received
sustained critical attention, from the perspective of gender might also yield interesting
results. Smaller-scale works, such as lieder, could also be subjected to similar scrutiny: I
346
believe it could bring to these works, widely performed in today’s concert halls, a
different perspective.
Certain problems resulting from the methodology used emerge: the paradox of
affirming that a female character may be at once “feminine” and “beyond gender” for
instance, which both blurs and reinstates fixed gendered stereotypes, could not be fully
avoided since my research depends on certain roles and attributes being described in
binary terms as either “male” or “female.” Despite my recourse to fixed referents for
masculinity and femininity as conceived by early nineteenth-century society, however, I
hope to have shown that those, in fact, were far from fixed and stable entities but may be
subjected to reinterpretations and blurred in various ways. Another problem is that
certain aspects of such an investigation, in Schumann’s case, must necessarily remain
speculative: there is little, if any, way of knowing if this is how the composer thought or
what he intended. The primary sources used in this dissertation have yielded interesting
possibilities, but it has not been possible to uncover direct correlations between Clara
Schumann, women in Robert Schumann’s writings, and the three female characters
discussed above, even if strong similarities have emerged.
My study also wishes to contribute to the reappraisal of Schumann’s three largescale works discussed above, which despite some revivals remain infrequently
performed, but whose high quality music certainly deserves more hearings. Furthermore,
it hopes to inspire further investigations, from a biographical and social perspective, of
the extensive, if often unacknowledged, roles played by Clara Schumann and other
women mentioned in Schumann’s writings, in the composer’s creative undertakings,
roles which in my view remain under-investigated. By paying closer attention to
347
elements not usually subjected to critical inquiry in scholarly work on Schumann, new
light on certain aspects of Schumann’s biography and compositional output may be shed.
It would also bring into sharper focus the covert influence that nineteenth-century women
who played a significant role in male artists’ lives may have had on the latter’s creative
output, and the multivalent ways in which this influence could have been expressed.
348
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