LEBEN UND ZEIT DER DICHTERIN A. L. KARSCHIN. (GERMAN TEXT).
Item
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Title
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LEBEN UND ZEIT DER DICHTERIN A. L. KARSCHIN. (GERMAN TEXT).
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Identifier
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AAI8401957
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identifier
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8401957
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Creator
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SINGER, HEIDI MARIA.
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Contributor
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E. Allen McCormick
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Date
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1983
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Germanic
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Abstract
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The dissertation describes the life and work of A. L. Karschin who was the most famous woman poet in Germany during the middle of the 18th century. The life and literary career of A. L. Karschin were quite unusual. During the middle of the 18th century most German poets came from the middle class. A. L. Karschin was the daughter of a peasant. While the great majority of contemporary writers did not regard writing as a source of livelihood A. L. Karschin was supporting herself and her family solely from the income of her poetry. Her struggle to find patrons took place in a society where the patronage system had never been well established and was already in decline at the time of her writing. While fighting for financial support the poetess gradually freed herself of some of the social constraints imposed upon her on account of her sex and class. She may have established a new mode of economic independence for some women. The necessity to support herself dictated in part the choice of her poetry which consists to a large degree of panegyrics but she also wrote poems on many themes prevalent during her time. The poetess became famous at a time when the writing of poetry was still largely dominated by Renaissance poetics, though method and purpose of poetry and the image of the poet were being debated. In contrast to the poets of her time she had almost no formal schooling. She imitated the poetry she encountered by freely mixing elements of different literary movements. She was not always able to conceal her lack of formal training. Perhaps because of her lack of proper schooling she was occasionally able to achieve a more realistic mode of expression than some of her contemporaries. The established critics initially praised her poetry but when she did not write in the way they had proposed, ignored her. The founders of the emerging "Sturm und Drang" movement acknowledged her talent but did little to help her.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Germanic Languages & Literatures
