Women of Letters: A Study of Self and Genre in the Personal Writing of Caroline Schlegel-Schelling, Rachel Levin Varnhagen, and Bettina von Arnim

Daley maintains that Schlegel-Schelling defines herself "as a woman intellectual against the radical backdrop of the French Revolution," that Varnhagen describes "her yearning for sublime transcendence," and that von Arnim "produce[s] an idealized expression of Romantic love" (x), all as "quest[s] for self-vision" (xii). Daley references some of the recent literary critics who have helped us to read Varnhagen-Katherine Goodman and Elke Frederiksen, to name just two. [...]Daley seems to contradict herself on this point when in the same chapter she states, "Her [Varnhagen's] proclivity for self-reflection pinpoints a moment of conflict that is intriguing to critical and casual readers alike [...]" Daley does, however, make a strong and compelling case for what she calls "Varnhagen's cultivation of a concentricity of readers" (64). [...]she makes abundantly clear that Varnhagen's writings emanate from and reflect her Jewish, female experience of feeling simultaneously (and paradoxically) egocentric (and optimistic) and frustrated (and pessimistic).