Kunkellehn
Kunkellehn through Karsch, Klencke and Chézy: persistence of the female poetic voice across three generations
Overview
Researcher: Phoebe Edwards
My background in English Literature and Philosophy fuels my interest in the relationship between music and poetry, particularly the transformation of poetic text into musical form. As a queer female singer and writer, I am particularly interested in female poetic voices and the transmission of creative expression along matrilineal lines. Approaching this material as a performer allows me to engage with these figures not only critically and historically, but also with their afterlives in sound.
My project explores the poetic and epistolary work of three generations of writers: grandmother, Anna Louise Karsch (1722–1791), daughter, Karoline von Klencke (1754–1802) and granddaughter, Helmina von Chézy (1783–1856), seeking to consider the ways in which the anomaly of three generations of poetesses persisted through the patriarchal literary scene of 18th and 19th century Europe. Using evidence of male patronage both hindering and advancing the women’s careers, my project seeks to uncover the extent to which their political and poetic sentiments were altered, and even misconstrued, by male publication and musical setting. Ultimately, my research advocates for the writing of Karsch, Klenke and Chézy during a time in which the passing down of knowledge, wealth, and employment from generation to generation was a right predominantly reserved for men.
Bibliography
Kord Susanne. Women Peasant Poets in Eighteenth-Century England, Scotland, and Germany: Milkmaids on Parnassus. Boydell & Brewer, 2003.
Baumgartner, Karin. ‘“Wozu Eine Amazonen—Literatur?”: Literary Creativity and Productivity in the Writings of Helm Ina von Chézy’, in Writing the Self, Creating Community, NED-New edition, ed. Elisabeth Krimmer and Lauren Nossett, German Women Authors and the Literary Sphere, 1750-1850. Boydell & Brewer, 2020): https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvrdf1pv.11.
Van Hoorickx, Reinhard. “An Unknown Schubert Letter”, The Musical Times 122/1659 (1981): https://doi.org/10.2307/961889.
Image: Phoebe Edwards, Three Figures, film photograph, December 2023