Malwida von Meysenbug (1816–1903)
Auteur de Memoiren einer Idealistin
A propos de l'auteur
Crédit image: Franz von Lenbach
Œuvres de Malwida von Meysenbug
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Nom canonique
- Meysenbug, Malwida von
- Autres noms
- Meysenbug, Malwide Rivalier von
- Date de naissance
- 1816-10-28
- Date de décès
- 1903-04-23
- Lieu de sépulture
- Protestant Cemetery, Rome, Italy
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- Germany
- Lieu de naissance
- Kassel, Germany
- Lieu du décès
- Rome, Italy
- Lieux de résidence
- Rome, Italy
Berlin, Germany
London, England, UK - Professions
- memoirist
social reformer
translator
teacher
novelist - Relations
- Nietzsche, Friedrich (friend)
Kinkel, Johanna (friend)
Schurz, Carl (friend) - Courte biographie
- Malwida von Meysenbug was born to a large German family descended from French Huguenots. Her father, Carl Rivalier, a courtier to the archdukes of Hesse-Kassel, was raised to the nobility. She parted with her mother and siblings over her more democratic politics and advocacy for women's rights. She sympathized with the 1848 revolutions in Europe, showing support for Joanna Kinkel, although she was not an active participant. She worked for educational and labor reforms throughout Germany. In 1852, having been warned of her imminent arrest for these activities, she fled to England. There she supported herself by teaching German and translating, and was part of a circle of political émigrés that included Blanc, Garibaldi, Kossuth, and Mazzini. She also was a close friend of Friedrich Nietzsche. She was the author of Memories of an Idealist, first published anonymously in 1869. She later moved to Italy, where she wrote romantic novels and short stories.
Membres
Critiques
1 
thorold | Jul 27, 2015 |
thorold | Jul 27, 2015 | Listes
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 8
- Membres
- 22
- Popularité
- #553,378
- Évaluation
- 3.3
- Critiques
- 1
- ISBN
- 7
- Langues
- 2
A period of exile in London gave her the opportunity to break with her family and build up an independent career for herself as a translator and journalist, as well as bringing her into close contact with the dazzling array of subversive foreign geniuses that were living in London at the time. In particular, she became very close to Johanna and Gottfried Kinkel, Alexander Herzen, and Giuseppe Mazzini. Presumably because of her friendship with the Kinkels, the most famous London revolutionary of them all, Karl Marx, is only mentioned once, rather dismissively. Whilst she firmly resisted any suggestion that she should take up the demeaning role of governess, she did look after the widowed Herzen's two young daughters "as a friend" for a time. She broke off this arrangement for a while when he installed his Russian mistress and her husband in the house, but went back to him later, adopting Olga Herzen as her "elective daughter".
She was a devoted Wagnerite, becoming a fan of his books before she had ever heard any of the music. She met him a couple of times in London, and later became a firm friend of the Wagners during a stay in Paris. She and Olga were excited participants in the celebrated controversy over the Paris premiere of Tannhäuser in 1861, which she describes in the final chapters of this memoir.
Memoiren einer Idealistin was originally published anonymously, in French, in 1869, and later translated and revised by the author a number of times. Even in the later editions, the book shows signs of its original anonymous form, and is sometimes frustratingly evasive about names and places. It's not a work of outstanding genius, but she generally comes across as a remarkably open and honest narrator. However, there are moments where she does seem to be deliberately muddying things. I was struck by the way she managed to imply that she was still a naive young thing - practically a teenager - during the events of 1848, when she was already over thirty. And the whole business of her relationship with Herzen is rather odd. Very possibly it was all as purely platonic as she says, but she certainly behaved towards him in the way you would expect a jealous lover to do...
For modern readers, the most obvious reason to tackle these three substantial volumes (plus the single-volume postscript Der Lebensabend einer Idealistin of 1896) is probably the glorious feast of nineteenth-century name-dropping (even die-hard eurosceptics will have the pleasure of bumping into Lord Palmerston (MvM was not a fan), Mrs Gaskell and Richard Cobden!). That was my starting point, really, but I found myself drawn in to a surprising amount by MvM's account of her own intellectual development. The "question everything" attitude she taught herself to adopt from an early age reminded me very much of growing up in the 1960s and 70s - it was really fascinating to see it coming out in someone born a couple of years after Waterloo, growing up in exactly the period when fat-headed reaction and social conservatism were becoming the dominant forces in upper-middle-class life throughout Europe. The book seems to have been quite an inspiration to the subsequent generation of feminists, and MvM was something of a minor cult figure for a while, although she now seems to be retreating into obscurity again.
Probably not for everyone, but good fun if you're a fan of 19th century Europe.… (plus d'informations)