Karoline von Günderrode’s Love Philosophy (book chapter)

What is it about?

The chapter rxplores Günderrode’s conceptualizations of friendship and romantic relationships in the context of a symphilosophical community bonded through common intellectual interests. As a woman writer, being denied the female body agency and attempting to enter the public sphere in a male-dominated society, she constructed dialogical projects based on a simultaneously intellectual and passionate ideal of love that fueled her artistic imagination and propelled her inspiration. Her social identity depended on role play and on maintaining her status as an unmarried woman. By imagining herself as a strong-willed hero, rather than a passive heroine, she created models for social change.

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Why is it important?

Just like other Romantic women writers, Günderrode pioneered a way forward that sought to erase the divide between love and fellowship between lovers and spouses. She drew attention to libidinal desire and sensual love, and in doing so inscribed sexual pleasure into companionate relationship and marriage. She desired to establish a noble cult of love rooted in a sensual Romanticism that would restore the dignity of women. Namely, she saw emotional and physical equality between a woman and a man as the natural and intended state of being, expressed through a balance between a giving of self and protecting individuality. This unspoken criticism of marriage of convenience implied a demand for the economic independence of women.

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