Samuel C Lindsey, Michelle Stott and Dr. Robert McFarland, German Slavic and Detail

Scholars have failed to systematically observe and record old German facsimiles of German women’s literature for a variety of reasons. First, many of the records have remained unpublished. Second, it is expensive to get hold of these texts due to their rare and fragile condition. Third, it is difficult to read the Old German type and handwriting. Johann Christoph Gottsched was one of the most important dramatic theorists of Enlightenment-era Germany. One of his greatest students and influences was his very gifted and intelligent wife, Louise Adelgunde Victorie Kulmus. While some of her dramatic and theoretical works have been published, there are still many of her works which remain unavailable to researchers in the fields of German cultural studies and women’s studies.

My main researching task was to unveil the first volume of the eighteenth century personal letters of Louise Gottsched, her biography, and more specifically her influence on the Enlightenment period. This project provides free material for students and scholars to download and print for their own personal scholarship, family history research, and classroom purposes.

Researching Louise Gottsched’s literature was of crucial worth because it opened numerous avenues of historical influences that have hitherto been unavailable. Her restored manuscripts have provided answers toward historical, sociological, and spiritual enlightenment. On a less scholarly plane, her works reflect inner pains and struggles in her personal life from which readers will now benefit. This soon to be published first volume of letters (from a two volume set) have helped by adding influential insights to history, and have supplanted valuable contributions to world literature. For example, in a time where society values individual rights and economic prosperity, the traditional role of mother is being threatened. In a passage written to Johann Gottsched, Louise remarks on the importance of a mother’s role in shaping the character of human minds. She writes, “How exquisitely this mother taught her daughter not to rely on the outer attraction, but rather to mould and develop the heart, to illuminate her mind, and truly create advantages for her.” (20 October 1730, Danzig)

As investigation of these letters continues, links to Family History Data bases will be restored, and other insights to understanding European growth in the Arts during the eighteenth through nineteenth centuries will be added.

The letters of Louise Gottsched are one of many volumes of primary materials collected over the past ten years by Professor Michelle James of the department of Germanic Languages from remote libraries in Germany. There are, at this time, several untouched volumes that she has brought back which are now ready to be researched and eventually published.

The process of working with a text was a long but exciting task. The methods involved first transcribing the old German font into legible type. This was often difficult to read because of the antiquity of the text, and often smudges on the page made it challenging to distinguish between certain characters. Moreover, many words in the German language have changed in spelling over the past 250 years, and the research team needed to be trained on sound shifts that took place in the texts. The second step to the process was to gloss the text. All unknown words, dates, places, and events are to be researched and entered as footnotes to allow the reader to understand the literature and how it related to the events of time. Although arduous (of the 351 pages of the historical letters were more than 700 words that needed to be glossed) I found this process to be the most intriguing. With each new definition, came colorful understanding and the letters came to life. This was much like brushing the accumulated dust from an old battered book to slowly reveal the title. The third part of the process was to research the life of Louise Gottsched and prepare a biographical sketch. With so much information, and so much insight into the very personal corners of a brilliant mind, the task to synthesize such a summary was quite daunting. Only the letters themselves seem to adequately express the true character of Miss Gottsched. The final process was to cross reference the text with all other relevant online texts and links.

Overall, this process was illuminating. The completed text will be published in the next few months with a journal on the Digital Library of Early German Women’s Writing online website (http//:humanities.byu.edu/Sophie/home.htm). I plan to continue the research on this author and other German female writers from this time period, and publish these works. The process of bringing forth this urgently needed literature from the most significant women authors of the Enlightenment era continues.

Bibliography

• Gottsched, Louise Adelgunde Victorie. Briefe der Frau Louise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched geborhne Kulmus—Erster Theil. Dresden, 1771.
• This project was made possible by grants from ORCA and funding by project leader Professor Michelle Stott James of the Sophie Digital Journal. Special thanks to the Sophie Digital Library undergraduate research team, and again Professor James and McFarland for guidance and much needed enthusiasm throughout the past ten months.