Pedagogy and Androgyny in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre

Author(s): Catriona MacLeod

Source: MLN , Apr., 1993, Vol. 108, No. 3, German Issue (Apr., 1993), pp. 389-426
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/2904753

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 Pedagogy and Androgyny in
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre

Catriona MacLeod

"... deswegen geht sich's so angenehm mit

Weibern um, die sich niemals in ihrer
naturlichen Gestalt sehen lassen."'

Laertes

In an essay of 1835, Karl August Varnhagen von Ense reflected on a

curious aspect of Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, pub-
lished forty years previously: why, he wondered, had no critical
attention been paid to the strange transvestite women who dominate
the text?2 They remain an arresting, even troubling, feature of this
novel. From the first page of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, the reader is
cast into a deeply perplexing world of sexual ambiguity. Within the
framework of the classical Bildungsroman, typically the account of
male maturation, Goethe presents a huge supporting cast of wom-
en, many of whom are marked with the signature of transvestism, of
gender transgression. That such sexual indeterminacy is bound to
generate almost boundless confusion is suggested by the following

I would like to thank Eric Downing, Dorrit Cohn, and Marjorie Garber for their
helpful comments.
Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Artemis-Gedenkausgabe, ed. Ernst Beutler
(Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1977), vol. VII, 126. All subsequent
Goethe references will be to this edition.
2 Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, "Frauen in Mannskleidern," Denkwiirdigkeiten
und Vermischte Schriften (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1843), vol. VI, 66-68. Even An-
neliese Dick's recent study of the female characters in the novel, Weiblichkeit als
natiirliche Dienstbarkeit: Eine Studie zum klassischen Frauenbild in Goethes Wilhelm Meister
(Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1986), omits a consideration of the transvestism that
occurs throughout the text.

MLN, 108 (1993): 389-426 ? 1993 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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390 CATRIONA MACLEOD

prefatory remarks by Freud in his le

oder weiblich ist die erste Unterschei
mit einem anderen menschlichen Wesen zusammentreffen, und Sie
sind gewohnt, diese Unterscheidung mit unbedenklicher Sicherheit
zu machen."3 At the most basic level, we find ourselves caught,
whenever we encounter new characters in the novel, and like Wil-
helm Meister himself, in an interpretive snare-what unnerves hu-
man beings more than having to puzzle out the sex of the person
standing before them? The novel's permutations on the theme of
gender confusion are suggestive and wide-ranging, from theatrical
travesty, to androgyny, to the Amazonian clan centered around
Natalie. One of the few female characters in this novel who never
presents us with such decision-making problems is Philine, the anar-
chic coquette, whom Laertes, setting her apart from the rest of her
dissimulating sex, describes as "keine Heuchlerin"-but the fact
that it is this female who is apostrophised as the "wahre Eva," the
original woman, invites critical exploration (106).
Varnhagen von Ense, a nineteenth century reader, proceeded to
explain the female transvestites of this novel empirically, through
the lens of fashion history: English trends in men's clothing, which
had begun to efface class distinctions in male dress towards the end
of the eighteenth century, became the rage for modish women too,
now blurring gender difference as well as class difference. Fashion
journals of the eighteenth century do indeed furnish evidence of
such transvestite trends in clothing for women. An illustration from
a 1790 issue of the Journal des Dames, for example, shows a young
woman in the elegant riding costume modelled after English men's
fashions and adopted for city wear: she sports black britches, cravat,
waistcoat and redingote, and flourishes a cane and a mannish black
hat in her left hand.4 And a few years later, in 1796, the Journal des
Luxus und der Moden commented on the trend for women to imitate
men "... in Tracht, Manieren und Beschaftigung soviel als mdg-
lich .. "5
However, to explain away the female cross-dressing that is
dominant feature of Wilhelm Meister as a simple reflection of co

3 Sigmund Freud, "Die Weiblichkeit," Studienausgabe, eds. Alexander Mits

lich, Angela Richards and James Strachey (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1982),
545.
4 Cf. Max von Boehn, Die Mode: Menschen und Moden im neunzehnten Jahrhundert
nach Bildern und Kupfern der Zeit, (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1908) vol. I: 1790-1817,
facing page 4.
5 Cited by Erika Thiel, Geschichte des Kostiims: Die europdische Mode von den Anfdngen
bis zur Gegenwart (Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen, 1980), 273.

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 M L N 391

porary women's f
fects of such tran
ficial detail of inte
places in the fore
contemporary de
be stressed, the a
inscribed as scien
tral element in th
but more than th
barked upon by t
Here, as in the th
Schiller and Schle
ness, pedagogics
Let me begin wit
servant of Wilhel
of the actress, de
strides into the n
theatre enters re
Mariane, theatric
level of the liter
of the classical Bi
than skillful stag
such a pivotal ele
literally, on to th
most hybrid of g
jahre, of course, i
atre, notably Sha
Mariane's male co
of travesty, or th
the textual stage
that marks her as a member of the theatrical world: "Ein kurzes
seidnes Westchen mit geschlitzten spanischen Armeln, knappe lan-

6 William Larrett notes that the novel would have been published in the journal Die
Horen, had Goethe notjust promised it to Unger, in Berlin. Significantly, its compan-
ion pieces in Die Horen would have been Schiller's Asthetische Briefe, as well as Wilhelm
von Humboldt's pivotal and programmatic essays on difference: "Uber den Ge-
schlechtsunterschied und dessen EinfluB auf die organische Natur" and "Uber die
mannliche und weibliche Form." William Larrett, "Wilhelm Meister and the Ama-
zons: The Quest for Wholeness," Publications of the English Goethe Society 39 (1968-69):
31-56. See p. 32.
7 See M. M. Bakhtin's essay "Epic and Novel" for a discussion of the multiple
generic layers self-consciously incorporated within the novel. Trans. Caryl Emerson
and Michael Holquist, in The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist (Austin: U of
Texas P, 1981): 3-40.

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392 CATRIONA MACLEOD

ge Beinkleider mit Puffen standen dem

worthy of mention, too, that the "act
generally characterised by their costu
Mignon, rather than by their bodily a
character descriptions in dramatic text
too are seen to participate in such the
presario Serlo intends, for example, to
crantz or Guildenstern to a woman,
interest in his production of Hamlet (
nesse reveals a fondness for carnivales
her case permits her to cross over the
well as between sexes: ". . . sie liebte d
um die Gesellschaft zu uberraschen, b
als Page, bald als Jagerbursche zum
It has been argued that this initial am
principally to contribute to the carniv
lence that marks the appearance at cour
see more than careful stage setting at w
in of a persuasively realistic backdrop.
the multi-dimensionality of such thea
Mignon, who reveal so much more c
recognisable standard types characteris
tism prevalent in the theatre serves, too,
the stolid bourgeois values of Werner
realm. The world of actors and actress
transgression of entrenched societal bo
Indeed, during the troupe's interlude a
hilation of what little order they set
costuming and disguise, as well as by
class boundaries and proprieties (174).
Wilhelm's journey towards maturity, t
hybrid marriage of bourgeois and aris
for intense intellectual controversy. Cr

8 Frederick Amrine, "Comic Configurations an

jahre" in Seminar 19 (1983): 6-19. Amrine makes
novel, based on Northrop Frye's definition
"Lustspielhaftes in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre," in G
Rezeption Goethes und seiner Zeitgenossen, ed. G
1981): 129-144.
9 I distinguish them from other characters in th
stock roles of comedy, as for example the proc
"gehort zum Arsenal der Lustspieltradition" (13

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 M L N 393

cross-dressing of
one way of regis
with societally i
tism in Wilhelm M
that ripple throu
gender, and of g
work on masquer
od that saw a de
". .. not only wa
ing in which the
in turn a kind o
being beneath t
occupation-all th
cause the mean
scribed, this sys
the linguistic c
serves the eighte
deceitfulness. M
exotic theatrical
self-conscious de
for construction
Goethe himself,
with a contempo
vestism, the fan
In this orgiastic
effaced, as are
plete with mock
livery of a "new
woman. Both sex
dressing, and Go

'1 Cf. Inge Stephan

literarisches Thema," D
wissenschaft, eds. In
153-75. Marjorie Gar
non, showing that c
dissonance, and that
and West, between cl
Dressing and Cultural
illuminating insight
literature of the eig
Carnivalesque in Eight
1986).
11 Castle, 55.

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394 CATRIONA MACLEOD

them a rather erotic allure. (". . . m

gelingt, in dieser Zwittergestalt oft h
also observes that the revellers ind
the masking and unmasking of sex
gierig, unter den vielen mannlichen
scheinen, die weiblichen herauszusu
niedlichen Offizier den Gegenstand
(550, my emphasis). It is precisely t
garding gender that generates er
cross-dressing may also go beyond f
an essay written by Goethe while in
transvestism on the Roman stage, "
Theater durch Manner gespielt" (XIV
bition on female actors still holds f
argue for the creative possibilities o
istic limitation. Cross-dressing, he su
function of drawing attention to th
the theatrical experience:
... ich fuhlte ein mir noch unbekannt
es viele andre mit mir teilten. Ich dac
sie darin gefunden zu haben: daB bei
griff der Nachahmung, der Gedanke a
durch das geschickte Spiel nur eine Ar
vorgebracht wurde. (11)

Transvestism, as Judith Butler, too

tative, performative nature of gend
between "imitation" and "original."
gency, Butler argues, adds to the g
mance, and presents viewers with
mechanisms: "This perpetual displac
identities that suggests an openness
tualisation; parodic proliferation de
its critics of the claim to naturalis
ties."12 But cross-dressing may hav
rather than simply reproducing the
sex, the transvestite can perhaps g
transcends divisions between male and female. In other words,
transvestism, in its self-reflexive artfulness and artificiality, may

12 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York:
Routledge, 1990), 137-38.

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 ML N 395

open up an andr
male and female. Marjorie Garber, indeed, sees in this aesthetic
position of "thirdness" an analogue to the Lacanian symbolic, and
asserts that "transvestite theatre is the Symbolic on the stage."'3
Goethe's comments on cross-dressing in the Roman theatre would
seem to support this line of thought: he likens this heightened state
attained through impersonation to the operation of art in general,
which can never be reduced to simple mimesis:

Ebenso entsteht ein doppelter Reiz daher, daB diese Personen keine
Frauenzimmer sind, sondern Frauenzimmer vorstellen. Der Jiingling
hat die Eigenheiten des weiblichen Geschlechts in ihrem Wesen und Be-
tragen studiert; er kennt sie und bringt sie als Kiunstler wieder hervor; er
spielt nicht sich selbst, sondern eine dritte und eigentlich fremde Natur.
Wir lernen diese dadurch nur desto besser kennen, weil siejemand be-
obachtet, jemand uiberdacht hat, und uns nicht die Sache, sondern das
Resultat der Sache vorgestellt wird.
Da sich nun alle Kunst hierdurch vorziiglich von der einfachen
Nachahmung unterscheidet, so ist naturlich, daB wir bei einer solchen
Vorstellung eine eigne Art von Vergnugen empfinden.... (11)

These theoretical statements on transvestism uncover new con-

nections between the heterogeneous sexual shape-shifters in
Goethe's novel. Cross-dressing may be a way for a character to gain
access to what Goethe terms a "third nature," a phenomenon not
unrelated to the androgynous aesthetic proposed by writers such as
Friedrich Schlegel. Curiously, however, while Goethe's revealing
comments on theatrical travesty are based on male cross-dressing,
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre is predominantly populated by women
who impersonate men. Since so many female characters in the novel
bear the transvestite signature, one might be led to conclude that
these masquerading women enjoy privileged access to an aesthetic,
androgynous state. (Only one male, Friedrich, shares their sexual
polymorphousness-I will return to this remarkable point later in
my discussion.) The carnivalesque world of female theatrical trans-
vestism, then, seems to make possible a radical new aesthetic posi-
tion, one that transcends biological sex. Indeed, the claim has been
made that the sexually ambivalent female characters of Wilhelm
Meisters Lehrjahre have the power to efface, as a consequence of their
aesthetic nature, the "Zersplitterung" that plagues the male hero,

13 Garber, 11-13, 40.

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396 CATRIONA MACLEOD

Wilhelm Meister.14 A central qu

Goethe's novel will concern the di
nous" Bildung: who precisely is gai
not the female androgyne. As I wil
Garber's notion of symbolic "thir
dyadic oscillation between masculin
longs to the pre-Oedipal sphere of
survive in the triangulated world
"polymorphous perverse," as Fr
noted, with direct reference to the
is the initial phase of infantile sex
respond to others indiscriminately
identification. Adulthood, on the o
ference.16
These theoretical considerations serve to shed more light on Ma-
riane's appearance in the opening chapter. The first words used to
describe Barbara's "schone Gebieterin" already hint at a sexual am-
bivalence that may run deeper than theatrical travesty. When the
reader first sees Mariane she is no longer masquerading as an army
officer solely because this is part of her theatrical profession. She
self-consciously returns to her lodgings in costume, and counters
Barbara's cajoling reminders of Norberg and his "feminising" gift of
a flimsy white nightgown with physical violence:
Die Alte lachte iiberlaut. Ich werde sorgen mussen, rief sie aus, daB sie
wieder bald in lange Kleider kommt, wenn ich meines Lebens sicher sein
will. Fort, zieht Euch aus! . . . es ist eine unbequeme Tracht, und fur
Euch gefahrlich, wie ich merke. Die Achselbander begeistern Euch. (10)

Transvestite costume is perceived by Barbara as dangerously in-

fectious and threatening; but for Mariane the officer's uniform is a

14 This is the central argument proposed by William Larrett in his article "Wilhelm
Meister and the Amazons: The Quest for Wholeness." Larrett sees this novel as a
fictional counterpart to Schiller's Asthetische Briefe. Raymond Furness similarly pro-
poses androgyny as "a state of perfection . . . in which all dissonances are resolved."
"The Androgynous Ideal: Its Significance in German Literature, Modern Language
Review 60 (1965): 58-64.
15 Cf. Francette Pacteau's reading of androgyny, "The Impossible Referent: Repre-
sentations of the Androgyne," in Formations of Fantasy, ed. Victor Burgin (New York:
Methuen, 1986): 62-84. Pacteau relates androgyny to the pre-Oedipal phase of devel-
opment, in which sexual difference is not yet acknowledged, and to the realm of the
imaginary, where desire is unobstructed.
16 Freud, Drei Abhandlungen zurSexualtheorie. Significantly, Freud notes that women
often retain aspects of this infantile disposition, which children grow out of when
guided by the correct form of Bildung (SA vol. V, 97).

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 M L N 397

means of authen
guise: "Wenn N
dein, mache mit mir, was du willst, aber dahin will ich mein
sein .. ." (10) Mariane refuses to comply with Barbara's command
that she change into women's clothing, however, and it is in officer's
dress that she greets Wilhelm. Her deliberate rejection of the trap-
pings of femininity, while merely adding to Wilhelm's amorous fer-
vour, does nothing but repel and infuriate her wealthy bourgeois
suitor Norberg, who urges her to put aside sombre male costume. It
is this clothing, Norberg implies, that lends Mariane subversive and
threatening powers of prophecy and wisdom: "Hore, tu mir nicht
wieder die schwarzgrunbraune Jacke an, du siehst drin aus wie die
Hexe von Endor. Hab' ich dir nicht das weiBe Neglige darum ge-
schickt, daB ich ein weiBes Schafchen in meinen Armen haben will?"
(79)
Wilhelm, by contrast, literally embraces the theatrical world of
costume, travesty, and sexual ambivalence. Mariane herself almost
occupies second place in the arms of her lover, after the male gar-
ments she is wearing: ". . . mit welchem Entzicken umschlang er
die rote Uniform! drickte er das weiBe Atlaswestchen an seine
Brust!" (11) The clothing of his beloved acquires fetishistic power
in touching these garments, Wilhelm is somehow cloaked by th
absent body of Mariane herself:

Wie oft ist mir's geschehen, daB ich abwesend von ihr, in Gedanken an si
verloren, ein Buch, ein Kleid oder sonst etwas beruhrte, und glaubte i
Hand zu fUhlen, so ganz war ich mit ihrer Gegenwart umkleidet...
Er fuhlte nach dem Halstuch, das er von ihr mitgenommen hatte, e
war vergessen, es steckte im vorigen Kleide. Seine Lippen lechzten, se
Glieder zitterten vor Verlangen. (My emphasis, 77.)

The romantic liaison with the transvestite, Mariane, also repre

sents, for Wilhelm, an emotionally charged encounter with the a
thetic domain. Both she and the theatre are repeatedly apost
phised as "reizend," and Wilhelm's first glimpse of the charmin
actress is enhanced by the flattering stage light illuminating her face
The theatrical world is mysterious, confusing in its verisimilitud
Caught up in the disarray of an actor's world, Wilhelm understan
something of its artificiality as he surveys ". . . die Trimmer ein
augenblicklichen, leichten und falschen Putzes." Yet the chaos of t
dressing-room-and the giddying sensuality that prevails-h
their own appeal: "... so fand er zuletzt in dieser verworrene

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398 CATRIONA MACLEOD

Wirtschaft einen Reiz, den er in s

niemals empfunden hatte" (63). Lik
Wilhelm surrenders himself fully
however, prove devastating.
In Book VII, Barbara reveals the t
that fateful night when Wilhelm b
pany of his rival. Wilhelm learns
both Norberg and Barbara, for bot
proved so threatening, and, signifi
riane had dressed to receive him th
Ich fand sie zu meiner Verwunderun
unglaublich heiter und reizend aus. V
Mannstracht zu erscheinen? Habe ich
Geliebter soil mich heute wie das erst
und mit mehr Freiheit an mein Herz
jetzt nicht viel mehr die Seine als da
noch nicht frei gemacht hatte? . . . D
ich mir zu ... (516)

Contrary to the opinions of Norberg and Barbara, it is possible for

Mariane to dress as a man while at the same time exhibiting beauty
and "Heiterkeit," qualities so commonly attributed to both women
and to the aesthetic ideal, most notably in the works of Schiller.'7
Mariane deliberately makes use of the language of artistic conven-
tion, and, like the transvestite Roman actor described by Goethe,
self-consciously presents herself as an actor in a "Szene." Paradox-
ically, her male disguise is no simple impersonation, but rather a
mark of authenticity. This triumphant assertion of "thirdness"
might lead the reader to interpret the theatrical travesty at the begin-
ning of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre as the first tentative step in a pro-
gression towards a utopian vision of androgyny. But the transvestite
Mariane cannot be sustained in this fictional world as an androgy-
nous being, and indeed by the time the novel reports her proud
scenario of self she is already dead. Earlier, Wilhelm's apparently
interminable account of his childhood had lulled her into a deep
sleep (31, 35). But the soporific story has more sinister overtones-as
Mariane dozes, Wilhelm relates the horrible fate of Tasso's hero
Tancred, who mistakenly kills the woman he loves, having failed to

17 See, for example, Schiller's description of the "sch6ne Seele" in the essay "An-
mut und Wirde," Nationalausgabe, eds. Julius Petersen and Gerhard Fricke
(Weimar: Bohlau, 1943- ), vol. XX, 287-288.

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 M L N 399

recognise her in
tive of Bildung, to
opening chapters,
elmannian statue
no more than an
into the formless
ditic ideal.19 The
spires both eroti
. . dein Bild schwe
die Sonne beschien
es wahrte nicht lan
tergleiten; ich strec
die Ferne. Immer
am Fule des Hugels
einmal gab dir ei
wollen, aber leitet
Ich rief, da ich dic
Wollte ich gehen,
erstickte in der be

At the opening o
"reliquary" to the
Mariane, along wi
of her daily life
from this phase o
ane's trinkets-a
eration, and circu
ter to the next
functioning as te

18 Freud, injenseits d
epic (via Goethe!) in or
to restore a primal st
SA, vol. III.
19 See Winckelmann
einer anhebenden Bew
Unruhe mit spielende
aus derselben wieder
schwebend gezogen fl
zwischen ihnen erheb
jene, und unser Blick
mann, Samtliche We
Classiker, 1825-29), v
20 Costume serves as
Goethe's novel. To nam

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400 CATRIONA MACLEOD

male characters are repeatedly r

changeable, fillers of "Licken" wit
Irigaray has expressed it: "La fe
pouvoir s'echanger."22) Not only ar
ous, and thus highly elusive in an
physically from the text. Epheme
clothing remains tangible.
As Mariane fades from the novel
Book I, it is Mignon who comes to
figures are intimately connected i
non comes to wear the pearls belon
survived the flames-but Mignon w
her hat as she readies herself for t
carries a hunting knife in her han
ambiguity we already recognise as
(237). (Later, we discover that Mig
ane's scarf [382].) The pearls reson
commonly associated with the rep
rodite, goddess of love and of war,
between the transvestite Mariane,
Amazonian family of the "sch6ne
lar pearl necklace from their aunt

se are described as wearing huntsman's clot

is replicated in Philine's rather grubby versi
the neglig6 to Philine suggests that Mariane
feminine oedipal role (later to be displac
position. (Since Mignon gains possession of
garments attain totemic, fetishistic status
ceremoniously burns the contents of a "Re
clothing belonging to Mariane. Yet by Boo
theatrical garb, wearing Mariane's silk sca
rather her uncle's coat, marker of the pat
status: "Mit der groBten Sorgfalt fur dies
verbunden, sich damit zu bekleiden. Sobald
firchtete den ganzen Tag, es mochte durch
beschidigt werden" (252).
21Jochen Horisch provides a convincin
"Lficken" in the novel, characterising Wil
path towards Bildung is paved with a horrif
Geld und Glick: Zur Logik der Liebe in den Bi
Manns (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1983
22 Luce Irigaray, "Le march6 des femmes
Editions de Minuit, 1977): 167-85. See p.
23 Cf. Johanna Lienhard, Mignon und ihre L

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 M L N 401

dream-like encoun
erotic relationsh
"... die schone Grafin erschien ihm als Kind mit den Perlen ihrer
Tante um den Hals; auch er war diesen Perlen so nahe gewesen, als
ihre zarten liebevollen Lippen sich zu den seinigen neigten....
(557) As I will be showing, however, these legacies of garments and
jewelry from one woman to the other frequently prove to be fata
exchanges.
In the deeply ambivalent figure of Mignon is to be found the most
radical image of androgyny in Goethe's work. As I already noted
above, Mignon's initial appearance, in exotic male costume, places
her, like Mariane, in the theatrical world of travesty, of professional
transvestism, and her strange ritual greeting, too, has the air of the
overstated stage gesture (104). Mignon is first presented by the nar-
rator in strictly neuter terms, as "einjunges Geschopf," "das Kind"
(97). In fact, the narrator only switches to the use of the pronoun
"sie" when it seems that Wilhelm himself has established mentally
the gender of the child. In other contexts, pronouns shift apparently
at random: "Auch hatte Wilhelm bemerkt, daB es fir jeden eine
besondere Art fur GruB hatte. Ihn gruBlte sie, seit einiger Zeit, mit
uber die Brust geschlagenen Armen" (my emphasis, 117). Indeed,
in earlier scenes narrated in the Theatralische Sendung, the sexual/
textual confusion is still more extreme. Not only is Mignon referred
to, apparently at random, as "sie" or "es" (for "das Kind"), but the
androgynous creature can also attract masculine pronouns: "Mig-
non, der sich hinter Wilhelms Stuhl ganz ruhig hingestellt hatte,
antwortete ...." (VIII, 671; my emphasis). The following passage
from the Theatralische Sendung perfectly illustrates the grammatical
chaos so prevalent in the earlier work:
. . Mignon trat herein mit einem Kastchen unter dem Arme. Was
bringst du mir, rief Wilhelm ihr entgegen. Mignon hatte die rechte Hand
auf das Herz gelegt und machte, indem er den rechten FuB hinter den
linken brachte und beinah mit dem Knie die Erde beriihrte, eine Art von
spanischem Kompliment mit der gr6Bten Ernsthaftigkeit. Eine gleiche
Verbeugung folgte mitten in der Stube, und endlich, als er gegen Wilhel-
men herankam, kniete er ganz auf das rechte Knie nieder, stellte die
Schachtel auf den Boden, faBte Wilhelms FuB und kui3te sie mit groBem

Romanen (Zurich: Artemis, 1978), 57, for a fuller discussion of the mythological
significance of the pearls.

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402 CATRIONA MACLEOD

Eifer, doch ohne eine anscheinende

Ausdruck von Ruhrung oder Zartlich
er daraus machen sollte, wollte sie a

Part of this sexual confusion of

name, of French origins, which is
On every level, from Mignon's na
what has aptly been called the n
hand,"25 we find ourselves as read
tive snare as Wilhelm:

Er sah die Gestalt mit Verwunderung an, und konnte nicht mit sich
einig werden, ob er sie fur einen Knaben oder fur ein Madchen erklaren
sollte. Doch entschied er sich bald fur das letzte, und hielt sie auf, da sie
bei ihm vorbei kam, bot ihr einen guten Tag und fragte sie, wem sie ange-
hore.... (97)

But if the gender label Wilhelm finally decides upon is female, it is

this sex with which Mignon refuses to identify. Wilhelm promises
her "ein neues Kleid," and she enters his room at daybreak the
following morning accompanied by a tailor: "Sie brachte graues
Tuch und blauen Taffet, und erklarte nach ihrer Art, daB sie ein
neues Westchen und Schifferhosen, wie sie solche an den Knaben in
der Stadt gesehen, mit blauen Aufschlagen und Bandern haben
wolle" (124). The novel reveals that Mignon enjoyed, as a small child,
exchanging clothes with her male friends (629), and now she vehe-
mently resists the efforts of successive guardians to dress her as a girl
(e.g. 222, 361), declaring "Ich bin ein Knabe, ich will kein Madchen
sein!" Mignon actually joins in the skirmish with bandits, and her
denial of her biological sex is sufficiently strong that she remains
silent about the wound she has been dealt lest the truth of her sex be
discovered by the doctor (253). Mignon's transvestism, even more
obviously than Mariane's, goes beyond theatrical cross-dressing, be-
yond a childish desire to behave as a tomboy, and can be read as
emblematic of her desire for a transcendent position of "thirdness."
Mignon bears multiple marks of the androgyne. On the rare occa-
sions where she has not lapsed into muteness, she speaks a strange
hybrid language containing elements of French, Italian and

24 This name also has distinct erotic overtones: the French "mignon" signifies
"sexual favourite" both in male homosexual circles and in female prostitution, as
Camille Paglia notes in her Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily
Dickinson (New Haven: Yale U P, 1990), 250.
25 Amrine, p. 18.

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 M L N 403

German-a litera
(117). Like Winck
poised between c
in this polymorp
angelic song, "Ma
presented by ad
account of andro
brings differenti
predictable in he
stantly bewilders
auf noch ab, sond
weg, und eh man
(117) Surprised b
with maps, Wilhe
arly interest is s
cares only about
bei den Landern k
oder warm seien.
daselbst, und von
ihnen entfernte,
Her very parent
produce such a du
product of an in
Mignon's father s
state of androgy
same flesh and b
Sperata, justifies
Fragt nicht den W
Pergament, nicht
die Natur und euer
habt .... Seht die L
Stengel? Verbinde
Lilie nicht das Bild
nicht fruchtbar? (

Mignon, as the n
transgressive and

26 Plato, Symposium
Hackett, 1989), 189E-
27 See Raymond Fu
nachgetragene Vorge
Goetheschen Geniusg

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404 CATRIONA MACLEOD

androgyne thrown up as the mark o

cantly, when she makes her appe
she carries in her hand what Aug
emblem of the androgyne, a single
origins ripple throughout the nov
androgynous child and Wilhelm o
daughter and father and that of l
Mein Kind! rief er aus, indem er sie
Kind, was ist dir?-Die Zuckung dauer
schlotternden Gliedern mitteilte; sie
sie an sein Herz, und benetzte sie mi
sie wieder angespannt, wie eins, das
ertragt; und bald mit einer neuen H
wieder lebendig, und sie warf sich ihm
den Hals, indem in ihrem Innersten
in dem Augenblick floB ein Strom
Augen in seinen Busen. (153)

The pathological embraces of Mi

in this orgasmic moment, are als
physical fusion, one which goes be
sexual act and echoes the heter
drogyny found in Schlegel's Lucin
lassene Wesen ... seinem Herzen einzuverleiben .. ." (124) How-
ever, Wilhelm's erotic union with this second androgynous female
again seems inevitably to lead to her physical dissolution:29
Sie weinte, und keine Zunge spricht die Gewalt dieser Tranen aus. Ihre
langen Haare waren aufgegangen, und hingen von der Weinenden
nieder, und ihr ganzes Wesen schien in einen Bach von Tranen un-
aufhaltsam dahin zu schmelzen. Ihre starren Glieder wurden gelinde, es

28 Botanically speaking, the lily is classified as "hermaphroditic," or monoclinous,

in that both male and female reproductive organs are present in the same flower.
29 It is also worth pointing out that Mignon is repeatedly associated with water and
drowning, which is symptomatic of the androgynous condition of fluidity and non-
differentiation. For example, the troupe of gymnasts, on hearing that the child is
missing, immediately assume that she has drowned (112). We later learn from the
Marchese that Mignon's family had also believed her to have suffered this watery fate
(618, 629). Finally, in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, Mignon is no more than a succes-
sion of artistic images inspired by the view of the Lago Maggiore: "Und so sah man
das Knaben-Madchen in mannigfaltiger Stellung und Bedeutung aufgefuhrt. Unter
dem hohen Saulenportale des herrlichen Landhauses stand sie, nachdenklich die
Statuen der Vorhalle betrachtend. Hier schaukelte sie sich platschernd auf dem
angebundenen Kahn, dort erkletterte sie den Mast und erzeigte sich als ein kuhner
Matrose" (VIII, 247).

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 M L N 405

ergoB sich ihr Inn

tete Wilhelm, sie
ihr iibrig behalte

This erotically c
addressing one
ments later, the
non's father, ma
underscores, or
incestuous desire.
Even more deeply than Mariane, this androgynous love-object is
bound up with the aesthetic realm. The identification with the aes-
thetic domain has been understood as being, at least in part, a re-
sponse to Winckelmann's theory of androgynous indeterminacy.30
As I noted when discussing her bewildering first appearance on the
stage of the novel, the reader's perspective, as well as that of Wil-
helm, is involved in the deciphering of her sex. Mignon engages her
viewers in a kaleidoscopic process of seeing-the perspective of
Wilhelm, who finally arrives at the decision that this creature is
female, contradicts the firm belief of the doctor, ". .. der sie bisher
immer fur einen Knaben gehalten hatte" (253). The androgyne is
profoundly enigmatic, described repeatedly as "das wunderbare
Kind," "das Ritsel" (104), or as "geheimnisvoll" (105). Wilhelm, the
narrator reports, ". . . machte sich vielerlei Gedanken fiber diese
Gestalt, und konnte sich bei ihr nichts Bestimmtes denken." (117)
Similarly, the oxymoron "rastlose Stille" (281), used to describe Mig-
non's fluid position of "in-betweenness," recalls Winckelmann's an-
drogynous aesthetic ideal, expressed most evocatively in the dualis-
tic structures of his writings on the Belvedere Apollo.
Mignon is consistently more articulate in song than in free speech,
and it is in her aesthetic productions that the reader learns most
about her origins and motivations, as, for example, in "Kennst du
das Land?"-a song permeated by images of incest and sexual ta-
boo. She can scarcely exist, in fact, outside the realm of art, arti-
ficiality, "Schein." The novel first displays her in theatrical costume,

30 Achim Aurnhammer develops this comparison more fully in his book An-
drogynie: Studien zu einem Motiv in der europdischen Literatur (Cologne: Bohlau, 1986).
See esp. pp. 166-72. An androgynous aesthetic ideal forms a central focus in the works
of Classical and Romantic theorists like Winckelmann, Schiller, Schlegel and Novalis.
For Goethe, too, it is a recurring motif, from the dual-sexed Euphorion and the
homunculus of Faust II, to the ginkgo biloba tree of the West-Ostlicher Divan, a botani-
cal image of duality within unity, both "eins und doppelt."

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406 CATRIONA MACLEOD

and her funeral is an elaborately

deed, it is possible to view Mignon
particularly in the light of Wilhe
sion of Shakespeare. (Significant
described as a harmonious union o
heit," "Gewalt und Ruhe" [205].) Sh
helm, seem both artificial and hu
pherable. They function with har
form, the mechanisms by which t
visible:

Seine Menschen scheinen natiirliche Menschen zu sein, und sie sind

es doch nicht. Diese geheimnisvollsten und zusammengesetztesten Ge-
schopfe der Natur handeln vor uns in seinen Sticken, als wenn sie Uhren
waren, deren Zifferblatt und Gehause man von Kristall gebildet hatte, sie
zeigen nach ihrer Bestimmung den Laufder Stunden an, und man kann
zugleich das Rader- und Federwerk erkennen, das sie treibt. (205-06)

On the one hand Mignon, too, is a living child of flesh and blood.
Yet the description of her strange, mechanical "Eiertanz," too,
points forward to the later discussion of Shakespeare's artistic cre-
ations:

... sie verband sich die Augen, gab das Zeichen, und fing zugleich mit
der Musik, wie ein aufgezogenes Raderwerk, ihre Bewegungen an, in-
dem sie Takt und Melodie mit dem Schlage der Kastagnetten beglei-
tete.... Unaufhaltsam, wie ein Uhrwerk, lief sie ihren Weg.... (123)

Later, as Mignon dances for Wilhelm and the other actors, the
narrator calls her a "Holzpuppe" (350), recalling the marionettes
that first drew Wilhelm, as a child, into this aesthetic realm. The
crazed Sperata, moreover, believing her child to have been lost at
sea, engages in a strange ars combinatoria: she collects animal bones
washed up on the shore, and attempts to reconstruct her daughter,
as if she were a work of art:

Sie nahm an. .., da3 es nur darauf ankomme, die Gebeine des Kindes
wiederzufinden, um sie nach Rom zu bringen, so wurde das Kind auf den
Stufen des groBen Altars der Petruskirche wieder, mit seiner schonen
frischen Haut umgeben, vor dem Volke dastehn. (630)
. . eine unglaubliche Wonne verbreitete sich uiber die arme Kranke,
als die Teile sich nach und nach zusammen fanden, und man diejenigen
bezeichnen konnte, die noch fehlten. Sie hatte mit groBer Sorgfaltjeden
Teil, wo er hingehorte, mit Faden und Bandern befestigt; sie hatte, wie

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 M L N 407

man die Korper de

Zwischenraume au

Like Mariane, ho
perfect aesthetic
world. Barbara, a
Schiller, the firs
for the hermaph
"MiBgeburt der N
nious and beautif
it is her very an
makes her into a
through her deat
importance, that
The physically f
longer disturbing
Mignon hat gerade
cherzu erscheinen
die abstoBende Fre
lassenden Kraft ha
abschreckte. (222)

Schiller's view ec
Wilhelm in no uncertain terms of the "albernes zwitterhaftes Ge-
schopf" who holds such fascination for the young man (207). It is
curious to consider the affect in both these statements-how are
these expressions of "Ekel und VerdruB," of fear and scathing ridi-
cule to be understood? And how is it possible to reconcile the word
of Schiller and Jarno with Schiller's own integrational model of aes-
thetic Bildung, which finds its most perfect expression in the sculp
ture of the Juno Ludovisi, itself representationally ambiguous?32

31 Der Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe, ed. Emil Staiger (Frankfurt/Main:
Insel, 1977), vol. I, 221-22. Letter of 2 July, 1796.
32 TheJuno Ludovisi unites the gender-based qualities of"Anmut" (feminine) and
"Wiirde" (masculine). "Es ist weder Anmuth, noch ist es Wiirde, was aus dem herr
lichen Antlitz einer Juno Ludovisi zu uns spricht; es ist keines von beyden, weil e
beides zugleich ist. Indem der weibliche Gott unsre Anbetung heischt, entziindet da
gottgleiche Weib unsre Liebe; aber indem wir uns der himmlischen Holdseligkei
aufgelost hingeben, schreckt die himmlische Selbstgeniigsamkeit uns zuriick. In sich
selbst ruhet und wohnt die ganze Gestalt, eine vollig geschlossene Schopfung. . . . wir
[befinden] uns zugleich in dem Zustand der hochsten Ruhe und der hochsten Be
wegung, und es entstehtjene wunderbare Ruhrung, fur welche der Verstand keinen
Begriff und die Sprache keinen Nahmen hat." Schiller, Uber die isthetische Erziehung
des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen in NA, vol. XX, 359-60.

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408 CATRIONA MACLEOD

The answer is complex. On the one

and the androgynous Mignon provid
and erotic experiences that form
gramme of Bildung. I will be arguin
when it comes into contact with an aut
like the Turmgesellschaft, may be m
agogical tool. On the other hand, w
incarnations of this ideal in the nove
ters like Mariane and Mignon, they r
bility of growth, and are denied acc
world of the Turmgesellschaft. Mign
ably impervious to conventional e
handwriting, despite all her efforts,
she is incapable of processing, in th
gleaned from books: ". . . sie fing nu
teils herauszusagen, teils nach ihrer
zu tun. Man konnte auch hier wieder bemerken, daB bei einer
groBen Anstrengung sie nur schwer und miihsam begriff" (281).
Significantly, various members of the Turmgesellschaft turn their ped-
agogical attention to Mignon-it is Natalie who attempts to have
Mignon dress in a manner befitting her sex, and another education-
al plan involves sending the child to Therese's disciplined house-
hold. However, Mignon remains, to the end, resistant to Bildung,
protesting "Ich bin gebildet genug" (525).
If the androgynous ideal promises endless possibilities, endless
openness, in the figure of Mignon we find instead the perpetuation
of rigid binaries, exclusion from progress. Indeed, the Turmgesell-
schaft actually impedes a move toward "thirdness:" at Mignon's elab-
orate, aestheticised funeral, organised by this society of pedagogues,
we find a careful ritualisation of dualisms. In the alternating, incan-
tatory responses of the children's choir and the four angelic young
boys, Mignon is celebrated, in turn, as male and female:

KNABEN. Ach! wie ungern brachten wir ihn her! Ach! und er soil hier
bleiben! la3t uns auch bleiben, la3t uns weinen, weinen an seinem Sarge!
CHOR. [. . .]
KNABEN. Ach! die Fligel heben sie nicht; im leichten Spiele flattert das
Gewand nicht mehr; als wir mit Rosen kranzten ihr Haupt, blickte sie hold
und freundlich nach uns. (My emphasis, 616.)

While Winckelmann's hermaphroditic ideal of indeterminacy ap-

pears to result in the animation of the work of art, here the opposite

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 M L N 409

move is staged: t
faded away, her
served in a state o
tive of male Bild
drogyne and her
Mignon is entomb
the embalmer's s
(As if to undersco
der Vergangenhe
Egyptian sphinxe
The Abbe display
Aber wenn die Kun
so hat sie alle ihre
der Verganglichke
Adern gedrungen,
verblichenen Wan
das Wunder der K

With this melodr

the Bildungsrom
itself as the agen
here, in a striki
"Fremdkorper" in
child is sealed fro
context the notio
staged by the Tur
Mignon is identif

33 For a discussion o
Mayer's "Midas statt
Hofmannsthal and Geo
und Geistesgeschicht
adopts the Midas top
uncover the paradoxic
into immutable gold, s
by it. (See Goethe's V
er's argument obviou
novels, who are so o
identified-I am think
nineteenth century c
review of Goethes Brie
Leier und begrub sie
dern." Kritische Schri
p. 281. Heine, in Die R
lifeless marble statue
Heine, Sdmtliche Sch

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410 CATRIONA MACLEOD

but it is important to note that this is

nomadic world of circus. (On a psy
course be linked with Mignon's pol
Mignon, unlike the successfully int
comprise the ranks of the Turmgesells
from reality-hence, for example, h
attempts to remove stage make-up fro
an ein GefaB mit Wasser, und wusch
sigkeit und Heftigkeit, daB sie si
Laertes durch Fragen und Necken er
ihren Wangen auf alle Weise los zu
Eifer, womit sie es tat, die Rote, die sie durchs Reiben her-
vorgebracht hatte, fur die hartnackigste Schminke halte" (114). In
the hands of the Turmgesellschaft, however, theatre is no longer a
world in which desires roam freely, but rather a mechanism for
controlling desire and for channeling it into the appropriate-
oedipal-directions.34 As it is described in Wilhelm's account of his
childhood, in fact, bourgeois theatre becomes a forum for boys to
learn how to be boys, for girls to learn how to be girls, with the
polymorphous play of transvestism as a developmental stage to be
passed through on the way to "correct" gender roles: "Erst spielten
wir die wenigen Stucke durch, in welchen nur Mannspersonen auf-
treten; dann verkleideten wir einige aus unserm Mittel, und zogen
zuletzt die Schwestern mit ins Spiel.... Knaben und Madchen
waren in diesen Spielen nicht lange beisammen, als die Natur sich zu
regen, und die Gesellschaft sich in verschiedene kleine Lie-
besgeschichten zu teilen anfing...." (33) On a later occasion, the
novel explicitly reveals a transvestite female being yoked in the ser-
vice of the Turmgesellschaft. Thus the cross-dressing Baronesse, Jar-
no's mistress, participates in the theatrical oedipalisation of
Wilhelm-it is she who sets Wilhelm up in his calamitous masquer-
ade as the Grafin's husband. In Mignon's case, the contradiction

34 Cf. Freud's comments on the role of theatre in the sexual initiation and matura-
tion of bourgeois women: "Naive Midchen sollen haufig nach ihrer Verlobung ihre
Freude dariiber verraten haben, daB sie nun bald zu allen bisher verbotenen Stiicken
ins Theater gehen, alles mitansehen dirfen." "Die Wunscherfullung," in SA, vol. I,
224. For a detailed reading of the instrumental role of theatre in Wilhelm Meister's
oedipal socialisation, see Friedrich A. Kittler, "Uber die Sozialisation Wilhelm Meis-
ters," in Dichtung als Sozialisationsspiel: Studien zu Goethe und Gottfried Keller, Gerhard
Kaiser and Friedrich A. Kittler (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978):
13-124; and David Roberts, The Indirections of Desire: Hamlet in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister
(Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1980).

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 M LN 411

between biolog
non is in Natali
role which nece
prerequisite pa
nessed in the se
order to impar
of correct gend
subversive pote
the Roman stag
truth, rather t
angelic garb aft
against relinqu
long white dre
she borrows th
angel:
So la3t mich scheinen, bis ich werde;
Zieht mir das weiBe Kleid nicht aus!
Ich eile von der schonen Erde
Hinab injenes feste Haus. (553)

What is more, she believes that, as an angel, the question of sex will
become irrelevant; the polarities of male and female suspended:
Undjene himmlischen Gestalten
Sie fragen nicht nach Mann und Weib,
Und keine Kleider, keine Falten
Umgeben den verklarten Leib. (554)

Here the figure of the angel becomes a stylised and radical image
of androgyny.35 But in order to retain her sexual polymorphous-
ness, Mignon finds herself death-bound. In a connected move, it is
also the Abbe who relates, at third hand, the story of Mignon's
origins. For this representative of the Turmgesellschaft, power resides
in telling stories, "Vorgeschichten," as well as in staging dramas.
Mignon, as a living creature unable to communicate her own history,
is a second time appropriated aesthetically by the Turmgesellschaft-
after her elaborately theatrical funeral, she is turned into narrative.
The content of the Abbe's narrative is itself revealing, in that it casts
the child's story as an incest plot, the only form in which the androgy-
nous Mignon can be rendered intelligible by these purveyors of

35 On the religious tradition of the sexlessness of angels, see Stuart Schneiderman,

An Angel Passes: How the Sexes Became Undivided (New York: New York U P, 1988).

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 412 CATRIONA MACLEOD

bourgeois socialisation. Explaining

of the oedipal drama is a way of c
of androgyny. Significantly, the Abb
following her disappearance, liter
body for the missing Mignon, wh
despairing Sperata with the skel
strategically placed "double" whic
When Mignon has been fixed as a
jahre, as I remarked, she exists onl
able to follow a more conventional
attentions away from the aestheti
paternal responsibilities towards a
blood. Tellingly, it is the Turmgesell
father, and Wilhelm accepts from
the assignation of paternity tha
father-son relationship will domi
helm's Bildung-and it is surely no
moment of this process comes w
drowning, from the watery eleme
flow.

Mignon im langen weiBen Frauengewande, teils mit lokkigen, teils aufge-

bundenen, reichen, braunen Haaren, saB, hatte Felix auf dem SchoBe
und driickte ihn an ihr Herz; sie sah vollig aus wie ein abgeschiedener
Geist, und der Knabe wie das Leben selbst; es schien, als wenn Himmel
und Erde sich umarmten. (564)

Indeed, Felix is to become the ultimate replacement object for all

of the androgynous women who have passed through Wilhelm's life:
Komm, lieber Knabe! . . . sei und bleibe du mir alles! Du warst mir zum
Ersatz deiner geliebten Mutter gegeben, du solltest mir die zweite Mutter
ersetzen, die ich dir bestimmt hatte, und nun hast du noch die groBere
Licke auszufiillen. (My emphasis, 610.)

This exclusion of the dual-sexed Mignon from the social sphere,

or from any satisfactory human relationships, may result from the
particular model of androgyny being expressed. Mignon longs for a
state of "thirdness" that resembles most closely the first phase delin-
eated by Aristophanes's narrative of androgyny: a primordial, sex-
less creature (Symposium, 189E-191A). Mignon, however, represents
a self-absorbed, even autistic version of androgyny, a dual-sexed
creature whose hopelessly divided nature can result only in death.
Lothario confides to Wilhelm, for example, that Mignon is "consum-

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 ML N 413

ing" herself: ".

Such a solipsis
within the peda
serve this socie
I turn now to a
cal female tran
nian tribe whic
throughout his
hand, the drea
developmental
nations through
to Therese and
chronology of
exotic Ethiopian
rata.38 From th
aesthetically an
wendig wuBte,
mich Chlorinde
Wilhelm throu
sexual polariti
Daseins" (28), a
with the marti
zon.39

36 An interesting analogy may be drawn between Mignon and the autoerotic acro-
bat Bettina, of the Venetian Epigrams, a morphologically and sexually ambiguous
figure. Epigram 37 lists her kaleidoscopic array of forms: statue, mollusc, bird, fish,
reptile, angel. Like Mignon, Bettina plunges the viewer into an aethetics of indeter-
minacy: "So beweget ein Traum den Sorglichen, wenn er zu greifen, / Vorwarts
glaubet zu gehn, alles veranderlich schwebt: / So verwirrt uns Bettine, die holden
Glieder verwechselnd" (Epigram 41). See Epigramme, AG, vol. I, 221-42. Bettina, as
the self-absorbed incarnation of the polymorphous perverse, also provokes deep
anxiety: "Was ich am meisten besorge: Bettina wird immer geschickter, / Immer
beweglicher wird jegliches Gliedchen an ihr; / Endlich bringt sie das Ziingelchen
noch ins zierliche F . . ., / Spielt mit dem artigen Selbst, achtet die Manner nicht viel."
Withheld Venetian Epigram 34, AG, vol. II, 181.
37 For details on the cultural significance of the Amazon figure, especially for the
history and iconography of the French Revolution, see the following: Inge Stephan,
"'Da werden Weiber zu Hyanen. .. .' Amazonen und Amazonenmythen bei Schiller
und Kleist," in Feministische Literaturwissenschaft, eds. Inge Stephan and Sigrid Weigel.
Spec. issue of Argument, 120 (1984): 23-42.
38 For a painstaking analysis of the correspondences between Tasso's epic and
Goethe's novel, see the article by Hans-Jiirgen Schings, "Wilhelm Meisters Sch6ne
Amazone," inJahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft 29 (1985): 141-206.
39 The Goethe-Handbuch suggests that the Amazon, while apparently unrelated to
an androgynous ideal of harmony between the sexes, in fact exhibits similar charac-

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414 CATRIONA MACLEOD

On the one hand, Goethe's nov

ately seek to break away from
transsexual phantasies-these fig
al, among them the desperate
practical Therese, who is char
(473); the "sch6ne Seele," disci
unwomanly conduct. Both Mari
quintessentially Amazonian ten
refusing to accept female norms
powerfully linked with Wilhe
"sch6ne Amazonin"-bears scant
male warrior. The male costume
in fact, not her preferred form
uncle's heavy cloak for purely u
from the cold (244). The subver
muted here, rendered symbolic, in
schaft's project of Bildung. Wh
"sch6ne Amazonin" who slips in
place of all the other women, as
vision, and as the Turmgesellschaft
Er sah die schone Amazone reitend
naherte sich ihm, stieg ab, ging hi
seinetwillen. Er sah das umhiillende
Gesicht, ihre Gestalt glanzend ver
kniipften sich an dieses Bild. Er gl
Chlorinde mit eignen Augen ges
Before turning to a closer exam
however, it is illuminating to co
to subvert stereotypical gender
fate in the novel. Both Mariane
exist at the end of the novel onl
ings. Unlike so many of the fem
Lehrjahre, the actress Aurelie is

teristics: "Doch die gelegentlich geauBer

flachen Mannesbrust und der vollen, her
demselben Leibe hatte man die Vereinig
nicht eingetretene Trennung, ihren (fa
Person andeuten wollen, weist in eine
goetheschem Denken beruihrt...." Goeth
Metzler, 1961), vol. I, 204.

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 M LN 415

form. Yet Schill

is doomed preci
her "Mannweibli
relie notably ch
the mannish Gr
famously flout
woman and now
unauthentic role after another: ". .. welche entsetzliche Arbeit ist
es, sich mit Gewalt von sich selbst zu enfernen!" (300) At the climax
of her frenzy, Aurelie seizes her phallic dagger, her "teurer Freund"
(275) and viciously slashes Wilhelm's hand (301). An important link
may be made between Aurelie's aggressive act, prefigured in her
violent tussle with Serlo in an earlier episode, and Tasso's Amazo-
nian Chlorinde, who wounds Tancred in the fatal duel.40 Neverthe-
less, Aurelie, like the other "MiBgeburten der Natur," fades physi-
cally from the novel, finally carried off by a sudden fever. Yet she too
appears to be softened in the hours before her death, and this by a
written communication from the Turmgesellschaft, the "Bekenntnisse
einer schonen Seele." She is no longer the virago of old: "Das heftige
und trotzige Wesen unsrer armen Freundin ward auf einmal ge-
linder" (380). But ultimately, says Lothario, her former lover, the
mannish Aurelie has no place within the Turmgesellschaft because:
"... sie war nicht liebenswiirdig, wenn sie liebte, und das ist das
groBte Ungliick, das einem Weibe begegnen kann" (503). Aurelie
can only approach the Turmgesellschaft as a peripheral figure; she can
never enter it. One more virago is excluded from the happy denoue-
ment of the novel.
The world of the Turmgesellschaft is itself occupied by a powerful
Amazonian clan, but this is a tribe whose members differ radically
from the breastless female warriors of myth. The ancestor of all of
these women is the "schone Seele" herself. As a child, Natalie's
analytically-minded aunt is drawn to books and natural science,
rather than to the domestic arts encouraged by her mother:
Meiner Mutter und dieser WiBbegierde hatte ich es zu danken, daB ich
bei dem heftigen Hang zu Buchern doch kochen lernte; aber dabei war
etwas zu sehen. Ein Huhn, ein Ferkel aufzuschneiden, war fur mich ein
Fest. Dem Vater brachte ich die Eingeweide, und er redete mit mir dari-

40 Cf. Schings, p. 168. This is not the only occasion when Wilhelm is physically
attacked by a female character-Mignon also inflicts bite wounds on him (351).

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416 CATRIONA MACLEOD

ber, wie mit einem jungen Studenten,

Freude seinen miBratenen Sohn zu ne

Her deep-rooted affinity for the

crushed by her engagement to Narc
who despises intellectual women, ye
his own vision of Bildung: ". . . er mac
uiber gelehrte Frauen und bildete u
image of theatrical masquerade, so f
tion with Mariane, Mignon, the Bar
in the writing of the "Schone Seele
play a role that is not hers, to dres
(407). "Ich erkannte auf einmal, daB
mich in den luftleeren Raum sperr
entzwei zu schlagen, und du bist ge
die Maske ab...." (408). She proclai
lichem Trotz," that from this point on
independence (408). The chosen path
gion, and, as a "Stiftsdame," she is
tions of gender or sexuality: "Es
Gesellschaft des Korpers dachte; sie
fremdes Wesen an, wie man etwa e
wird wie ein Kleid zerreiBen, aber
bin" (447). The "schone Seele" begin
but by the end of her career she is
scendent, saintly being, radically di
the Turmgesellschaft.
The parallels with Mignon's paths
theticising of this female character
cantly, the "sch6ne Seele" is never
novel, but, rather, a disembodied vo
the human trappings of a name. Fu
voice. As one critic has put it, "Wom
opment is a death warrant."41 The o

41 Marianne Hirsch, "Spiritual Bildung: Th

Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development,
Elizabeth Langland (Hanover: U P of New E
argues that in the "sch6ne Seele's" life we c
development that questions the valorisation
tral to the Bildungsroman. Cf. also Barbar
einer schonen Seele:' Zur Ausgrenzung und V

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 M L N 417

her as a physical
familial resemblance between the "schone Seele" and the other Am-
azons of the Turmgesellschaft. (Significantly, we once more find a fe-
male character captured in the fixity of a work of art.) But since she
had actively been barred from playing any role in the education of
her sister's children, the Stiftsdame's influence is reduced to that of
educational tool in the hands of the Turmgesellschaft. It is no accident
that the Turmgesellschaft places a story of failed androgynous devel-
opment in the hands of the mannish Aurelie, as a catalyst for "cor-
rect" female Bildung. Power, in this novel, derives from the strategic
(dis)placement of female narratives: Mariane's, Mignon's, the
"sch6ne Seele's."
The Stiftsdame, then, does not come to the end of her career as a
defiant female warrior-rather, she points to a world in which all
physicality yields to spirituality. Significant in this discussion of th
Stiftsdame, as well as of her nieces, Natalie and the Grafin, is a
review written by Goethe, in 1806, of Friederike Unger's novel Be-
kenntnisse einer schinen Seele von ihr selbst erzdhlt. While conceding that
this novel might justifiably lay claim to such a title, Goethe con-
cludes: "Wir hatten aber doch dieses Werk lieber 'Bekenntnisse
einer Amazone' iiberschrieben." The two terms, it would seem, are
mutually exclusive:
Denn es zeigt sich uns wirklich eine Mannin.... Und wiejene aus dem
Haupt des Zeus entsprungene Athene eine strenge Erzjungfrau war un
blieb, so zeigt sich auch in dieser Hirngeburt eines verstandigen Mann
ein strenges, obgleich nicht ungefalliges Wesen, eine Jungfrau, eine V
rago im besten Sinne, die wir schatzen und ehren, ohne eben von ihr
angezogen zu sein.42

So what of the perplexing array of epithets presented by Goethe

own novel: the "schone Seele," the "wahre Amazone" and the

patriarchalen Utopie von Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahren," in Verantwortung und Utopie, ed.
Wolfgang Wittkowski (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1988): 70-86. Becker-Cantarino
points to the repeated "Bildungsversuche" by the men in the "schone Seele's" life,
culminating in that of her uncle, which stresses social engagement. Indeed, he ex-
cludes the spiritual "sch6ne Seele" from any role in the education of her four neph-
ews and nieces. Becker-Cantarino regards the "schone Seele" as profoundly "bil-
dungsunfahig." "Das Statische, Zustandliche, Fertige aber auch Leere paBt nicht zu
der formativen Bildungskonzeption vom organisch sich entwickelnden, sozialen tati-
gen Menschen des Oheims. . ." (77).
42 Cited by Larrett, pp. 35-36.

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418 CATRIONA MACLEOD

"sch6ne Amazone?" Book VI of Wilhe

one to bear a title, and that is "Be
Yet both Goethe and Schiller se
"sch6ne Seele" as it first appears.
comments: "Ich wiinschte, daB die
dicat einer sch6nen Seele nicht
Natalie ist eigentlich eine rein asth
225). Goethe responds that it is ind
justly be applied-Schiller should w
(244). The Stiftsdame does not q
then. And Therese, despite bein
zonin," seems, as I will show, mor
uncharismatic "Minnin" of Goethe
acerbically: "Theresen verspreche i
vol. I, 221].)
Jarno, one of the most outspoke
archal Turmgesellschaft, is the perso
zone:" ". .. sie beschamt hundert M
wahre Amazone nennen, wenn and
diten in dieser zweideutigen Kle
helm, at this point, has not yet e
words, another manipulative narr
schaft, encourage him to believe th
woman of his dreams. This is not t
Lydien an der Kutsche empfange
nicht, es war ein anderes, ein him
Wesen" (475). Therese is not Wilhe
because she is, according to stereo
is actively engaged in fields of end
exclusive domain of men. And lik
novel, she dresses as a man, in "zwe
encounter with Mignon, Wilhelm
sexual identity of the person he m
to excuse what she explicitly calls a
sorry her costume is no more tha
Cross-dressing here has little to do
sion and artifice, and indeed There
ment at actors who dressed up as p
male dress is not a form of theatr
expression of her true personality
that she undertakes on the estate

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 M L N 419

This transvestite
of love objects-b
Indeed, Therese h
tice of this proce
sei so was Leichte
zutauschen?" (577
ness, summed up
unsuitable partne
Natalie and her s
are explicitly link
remarkable fami
portrait of the "s
Grafin and Natali
he describes them
kinship (257). Thi
facial appearanc
about sisters wh
offers more miraculous evidence-that of the sisters is almost inter-
changeable.
The Grifin, the delicate, graceful, and thoroughly mundane, pre-
cursor of her sister in the novel, curiously enough also brings to
Wilhelm's mind both Amazonian and androgynous images. An alle-
gorical play is to be performed in honour of her husband, and at the
Baron's suggestion that Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and war,
play a central role, Wilhelm feels himself "auf eine sehr angenehme
Weise gezwungen" to comply with the artistic scheme (181). A
lengthy debate and an extensive library search ensue, over the vexed
question of the appropriate costume for the actress who is to play
Minerva. Finally, it occurs to the Graf to ask which goddess Wilhelm
has in mind, Minerva, the Roman goddess of war, or Pallas Athena,
her Greek counterpart, the goddess of art. Wilhelm responds by
pointing to the dual nature of the deity-she appears in the guise of
a powerful warrior, but her ultimate accomplishment is peace and
harmony, or what Schiller might term the aesthetic state:
Sollte es nicht am Schicklichsten sein, ... wenn man hieriber sich nicht
bestimmt ausdriickte, und sie, eben weil sie in der Mythologie eine dop-
pelte Person spielt, auch hier in doppelter Qualitat erscheinen lieBe. Sie
meldet einen Krieger an, aber nur um das Volk zu beruhigen, sie preist
einen Helden, indem sie seine Menschlichkeit erhebt, sie uberwindet die
Gewalttatigkeit und stellt die Freude und Ruhe unter dem Volke wieder
her. (183)

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420 CATRIONA MACLEOD

There are obvious parallels betwee

its strong suggestions of an andr
description of the "sch6ne Amazon
a harbinger of humanity, peace a
female elements are united. Dazzl
Natalie's sister, Wilhelm almost in
tween this living woman and Mine
and warfare, who was born, alread
Jupiter-again, the botanical ima
the figure: "Wenn Minerva ganz
ter entsprang, so scheinet diese G
irgendeiner Blume mit leichtem F
As I have already suggested, t
weiblichkeit" is an aestheticised i
cited above, he describes an Ath
admire, "... ohne eben von ihr
where any resemblance to a bellic
stracted, in the analogy between t
and the allegorical representation
can be both "manly" and seductiv
The character who exemplifies m
towards the aestheticising and my
female characters is, of course, th
Schiller as "eine rein isthetische N
the final pages of the novel, Lothari
merits the title "sch6ne Seele," m
(651). The indeterminacy of Natal
tions in her viewer, suggesting an
indeterminacy, of endless fluidity
te Gegenstande wechselten in sein
Verlangen" (258). The "sch6ne Am
able with other androgynous fem

Die Erinnerung an die liebenswiirdig

rief sich ihr Bild nur allzugern wied
Gestalt der edlen Amazone gleich daz
delte sich in die andere, ohne daB er
jene fest zu halten. (257)

. . nur die Bilder Mignons und Nat

seiner Einbildungskraft. (584)

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 M L N 421

Natalie in fact sc
repeatedly evok
"Bild," or, like M
VIII, Wilhelm eve
even than a "Bild
dir darstellen; of
hinschweben, wie
zuriick laBt" (609
apart from rath
"heilig," "sanft,"
in Wilhelm's visio
solve away before

In diesem Augenb
Dankes stammeln w
so sonderbar auf s
vorkam, als sei ih
Bild verbreite sich
verschwand vor d
Das Kleid fiel von
glanzen und sie ve

Natalie's is not, ho
other female char
as a "Dame" (243)
her uncle, slips f
moved. Once Nata
ilised space, we f
female sex is unam
In the transition
transvestite wom
self-enclosed, bis
of androgynous c

43 Cf. Aristophanes
having rendered the h
at the back of their
reproduction: "Befor
their faces, and they
ground, like cicadas. S
he invented interior
source of our desire t

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422 CATRIONA MACLEOD

Natalie retains only the vestigial m

developmental model helps to cl
throughout, as an Amazon, while re
ered by the Turmgesellschaft a mod
drogyne, in the domesticated form
the oedipal structures of Wilhelm's B
that a heterosexual model of andro
the time of Wilhelm's betrothal, wi
marks to his sister Natalie containi
"Ich glaube du heiratest nicht eher
Braut fehlt, und du gibst dich alsda
herzigkeit, auch als Supplement i
Friedrich Schlegel takes this statem
Natalie as the "Supplement des Rom
riage to Wilhelm his seemingly end
love objects is finally over, apparen
union of the sexes. But this model o
icated on sexual difference, on the
the denial of polymorphousness an
and Natalie, their situation at the end
might expect of Amazons. The "wa
trayed as the perfect housekeeper. P
an Amazon, Therese is most powerfu
his excursus on the proper place for
versation in which several of the ne
the roles assigned to women-"Tan
nen,"-Lothario's speech unwittingly
inherent in the "supplemental" an
cording to his ideal, should remain c
and excluded from progress, while
promise of wholeness (486-87).

back the halves of our original nature together

the wound of human nature." Plato, Sympos
44 Friedrich Schlegel, "Uber Goethes Meister
ed. Ernst Behler (Munich: Ferdinand Schon
45 Diane Long Hoeveler, in her work on and
stresses the ideological implications of thi
drogyny. "The androgynous fantasy demand
from man and therefore a complementary
tionalised as gender roles have always been
justify inequality." See her book Romantic An
Park: Pennsylvania State U P, 1990), 5-6.

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 M L N 423

The situation fo
meets Wilhelm's
art, and by the c
icised and oedipal
Konigssohn." Yet
aesthetic sphere;
are concentrated
Die Reize der leblo
fanglich sind, hatt
Reize der Kunst; m
wenn sich mir ein
im Geiste einen Er

Natalie submits f
schaft-from her
to her acceptance
betrothal is not ev
continues a chast
the Amazon, in h
in order to make
mgesellschaft. (Te
the moment whe
his masquerade a
also Natalie who
mgesellschaft by
her vocation is in
Seele" and the "Gr
ality. Nor is ther
woman of dubiou
sive vitality,46 or
al Mignon.
One other impor
of pedagogy and
Natalie, Lothario
male in Wilhelm M
cies, the only ma

46 In a sense the nov

ference towards child
Bild! Man sieht doch
femininity, is as une
Turmgesellschaft.

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424 CATRIONA MACLEOD

introduced, in vocabulary reminisc

hermaphrodite sculptures, as an ete
zwischen Kind and Jingling" (my e
him as "los" and "locker," and he pa
novel in mercurial fashion, ever lik
a bush (559). Later, Friedrich and
deutige[s] Paar" (365), stage an ela
helm to believe he is in the presenc
Beide [Serlo und Wilhelm] waren im H
sie Philinen in dem zweiten Zimmer in
sahen, der eine rote Uniform and weiB
abgewendetes Gesicht sie aber nicht s

Philine replies, tantalisingly:

. . . daB es nur eine gute Freundin ist,
mir aufhalten will. Sie sollen ihre Sch
leicht das interessante Madchen selbst kennen lernen.... Wilhelm stand
versteinert da; denn gleich beim ersten Anblick hatte ihn die rote Uni-
form an den so sehr geliebten Rock Marianens erinnert; es war ihre
Gestalt, es waren ihre blonden Haare, nur schien ihm der gegenwartige
Offizier etwas groBer zu sein. Um des Himmels willen! rief er aus, lassen
Sie uns mehr von Ihrer Freundin wissen, lassen Sie uns das verkleidete
Madchen sehen. (363)

The twist in this curious tableau is that while Friedrich is not

actually cross-dressing, he bears the signature of transvestism, plays
with its subversive potential. Wilhelm, for one, is fully persuaded
that the person embracing Philine is none other than his beloved
female transvestite, Mariane.
Friedrich is the despair of his family. Natalie expresses her fears to
Wilhelm that her capricious brother will, unlike his more educable
siblings, fall victim to the pedagogical experiments of the Turmgesell-
schaft: "Was aus Bruder Friedrich werden soll, laiBt sich gar nicht
denken; ich fiirchte, er wird das Opfer dieser padagogischen Ver-
suche werden" (559). Certainly, if we consider the fate of the androg-
ynous women in this novel, Natalie has good reason to fear for
Friedrich's future. These female androgynes fail to survive the proj-
ect of Bildung, lingering on in the text only as idealised images;
garments without occupants; disembodied voices; vanishing bodies.
But Friedrich's playfulness not only permits him to subvert Wil-
helm's amorous expectations, it enables him to survive Bildung, in-
deed to deconstruct its totalising claims. His is a parodistical notion

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 M L N 425

of Bildung, one t
sonality with the
Turmgesellschaft
gether from rand
Bildung of the Tur
ceeds in similarly
Endlich hatte Phili
einem groBen Tisc
lasen gegeneinand
aus dem andern....
vielerlei Weise. Manchmal lesen wir nach einer alten verdorbenen Sand-
uhr, die in einigen Minuten ausgelaufen ist. Schnell dreht sie das andere
herum, und fangt aus einem Buche zu lesen an, und kaum ist wieder der
Sand im untern Glase, so beginnt das andere schon wieder seinen
Spruch, und so studieren wir wirklich auf wahrhaft akademische Weise,
nur daB wir kirzere Stunden haben, und unsere Studien auBerst man-
nigfaltig sind. (598-99)

Not only does Friedrich subvert the serious pedagogical enter-

prise that propels the novel, it is he who theatrically brings together
the threads of this complex narrative of Bildung. To transpose the
motif of theatrical transvestism to the level of narrative structure,
the novel as a whole may be described as a work of disguise and
uncovering, with the final chapters, orchestrated by Friedrich, func-
tioning as an ironically grandiloquent unmasking, both of plot and
of pedagogy.
Friedrich's manipulation of his sexual polymorphousness is not
within the powers of the androgynous women in this novel, as I have
shown. In Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre the androgyne suffers one of
two fates. It may, like Mariane and Mignon, simply fade physically
from the text, as a transfigured and nebulous being, leaving the male
hero with his experience of enlightenment. Or, as with Natalie and
her sister, the trappings of androgyny may become so abstracted
that the female characters can continue to lead the lives expected of
them in the patriarchal Turmgesellschaft without any apparent con-
tradiction. Wilhelm's path of maturation is strewn with these female
victims, all of whom remain excluded from Bildung. Female an-
drogynes, in this world of Bildung, ultimately only serve male com-
pletion: whether they are refashioned as suitably feminine marriage
material, or whether their narratives of self are appropriated for
pedagogical use. It is to this end that the novel makes the shift to a
heterosexual model of androgyny in which Natalie functions as a

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426 CATRIONA MACLEOD

complement to Wilhelm, displacin

like Mignon who can find no pla
family.47 William Larrett, in the
Amazons of Wilhelm Meisters Lehr
problem of the female androgyne:
ing out of Natalie, the beautiful A
wholeness."48

St Hugh's College, Oxford

47 John H. Smith argues that Bildung serves primarily to propagate a triangular

codification of Self-Other, male-female relations. Differentiating Entwicklungsromane
from Bildungsromane, Smith maintains that ". .. the latter display as a motor of their
narration specific forces of desire, control, and representation that propel the hero
from Imaginary oscillation to Symbolic grounding and repression" (217). Note that
he assumes the subject to be male, positing Bildung as a gender-coded concept. See his
article "Cultivating Gender: Sexual Difference, Bildung, and the Bildungsroman," in
Michigan Germanic Studies 13 (1987): 206-25.
48 Larrett, 56.

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