Abstracts Helga Schreckenberger,
University of Vermont The protagonist of Elisabeth Reichart’s monologue Sakkorausch, the nineteenth centuryAustrian philosopher and writer Helene von Druskowitz, was diagnosed as suffering from hallucinations at age 35 and subsequently incarcerated for the remaining twenty seven years of her life. Reichart’s text reveals Druskowitz’s incarceration as the result of two related discourses that gained decisive influence in the nineteenth century. As Jane Ussher points out in her study Women’s Madness: Misogyny or mental illness, the nineteenth century not only marks the close association between woman and pathology but it is also in this period where the construction of female sexuality and deviancy becomes central to the discourse of female insanity. The second discourse is shaped by the cult of the genius that reached its climax with Nietzsche and which, as Christine Batterby points out in Gender and Genius firmly excluded women. Reichart’s text shows the consequences of the male theory of genius. By being excluded from the cultural discourse, women’s intellect and creativity have nooutlet. If a woman like Druskowitz transgressed and offered her own views, she was certainly not considered a genius but a threat to society and, abnormal. In addition, Reichart’s text foregrounds Drukowitz’s insisting on the existence of a female geniusequal to its male counterpart. This theory of genius, as will be shown in my paper, is consciously gendered but does not exclude or favor one gender over the other. By suggesting thatDruskowitz’s creativity and non-conformity is an expression of female genius, Reichart’s text can be seen as historic corrective as well as a visionary conceptualization of female geniality. abstract-liste | core | home | kunstraum.gleisdorf [45•01] |
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