The Mask and the Quill: Actress-Writers in Germany from Enlightenment to Romanticism

Dupree presents Bürger as the counterexample that helps to flesh out the complicated strategies deployed by 1 8th-century actress-writers, arguing that in her salon performances and in plays like Die antike Statue aus Florenz (1814) Bürger exposed and parodied contemporary images of femininity and mobilized conventions like the "authenticity of the Gefühlsschauspielerin in order to "reflect on the . . . potential of women's theatrical interventions to make and unmake gender relationships and identities" (161). Dupree's book is a valuable addition to the study of both women's writing and actresses' self-representation in 18th-century Germany, and it merits particular attention for providing what I believe is the first major account in English of the strange and fascinating literary-cultural response to Charlotte Ackermann's death, an event that should be of particular interest to theater historians studying early manifestations of celebrity culture in Europe.