Embodying Ambiguity: Androgyny and Aesthetics from Winckelmann to Keller

Catriona MacLeod

Wayne State University Press, 1998 - Literary Criticism - 302 pages

This study shows how crises of sexual ambiguity in late Romantic texts tend to be resolved by transforming androgynous figures into inanimate, ultra-feminine statues. It includes discussions about Eichendorff's Marmorbild and Ahnung and Gegenwart and Heine's Florentinische Nchte. Finally, MacLeod explores Realist responses to androgyny, from Stifter's nostalgic citation of the marble statue in Der Nachsommer to Keller's parodic treatment, in works like Das Sinngedicht, of a myth of sexual unity, untenable in an age of science.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Embodying Ambiguity: Androgyny and Aesthetics from Winckelmann to Keller; Cultural Studies; Kritik (Detroit, Mich.); Kritik: German Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Author: Catriona MacLeod
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press, 1998
• ISBN: 0814325394, 9780814325391
• Length: 302 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / German; Literary Criticism / Renaissance; Philosophy / Aesthetics; Psychology / Human Sexuality