Anna Louisa Karsch

Anna Louisa Karsch (Anna Luise Karsch) – 1 December, 1722 to 12 October, 1791
· Father was a beer brewer, mother was an inn-keeper; very poor
· She was an autodidact, meaning she taught herself.
· Sent to live with her great-uncle, who taught her to read despite protests of her grandmother
· Mother took her home to hinder to education, convinced it would drive her “insane”
· When she was 10, she met a sheepherder who gave her books to read, but she had to hide them from her family
· Married young but her husband was abusive; separated and married again soon after, to an abusive drunkard
· A poem written for the widow and daughter of a nearby innkeeper got her recognition from a schoolmaster
· Began to write poems for weddings and celebrations
· Wrote many praises of Frederick, the Prussian King
· When her two youngest children died, she wrote “Klagen einer Witwe” (Complaints of a Widow), which gained her the notice of Frederick, who took her and her children to Berlin
· Most known for her correspondences rather than her poems, especially with Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (30 years longs correspondence)
· Gained attention from writers such as Lessing, Mendelssohn, Herder, and eventually Goethe
· Though promised financial security by Frederick, he did not deliver, and it was not until Frederick II that she had a house built for her where she lived till she died

· Known to her contemporaries as “Die Karschin”
· Authored or participated in 14 publications
o Die Sapphischen Lieder (The Sapphic Songs)
o An die Natur (To Nature)
o Gedichte (Poems)
o Neue Gedichte (New Poems)
o Auserlesene Gedichte (Exquisite Poetry)
o Gedichte und Lebenszeugnisse (Poems and Life Testimonies)
o Die Letzten Leiden des Erlösers (The Last Sufferings of the Redeemer)
o O, mir entwischt nicht, was die Menschen fühlen (Oh, I don’t escape what people feel)
o Herzgedanken (Heart Thoughts)
o Die Karschin (The Karschin)
o Die Gedichte der Anna Luise Karschin mit e. Bericht ihres Lebens (The Poems of Anna Louisa Karsch with a report of her life)
o Die Karschin, Friedrichs des Grossen Volksdichterin (The Karschin, Frederick the Great’s People’s Poet)
o Die Spazier-Gänge von Berlin (The Walking Course of Berlin)
o Ausgewählte Gedichte (Selected Poems)


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Women in Germany in the 18th Century

Before the French Revolution women were thought of as "passive" citizens and they had no political influence. They were unable to vote or hold office. Women were thought of as "failed man," and that the fetus was not fully developed while in the womb. They were considered servants to men and their education reflected that. During the French Revolution however, women were not able to be kept out of politics.

The Revolutionary era of women wanted equality of rights within their marriage. They wanted the right to divorce, more rights for widows over their property, and rights for widowed women over their minor children. They wanted publicly guaranteed educational opportunities for women, like what were available for men, training, licensing and support for midwives, rights to employment, and the exclusion of men from certain woman-dominated trades, such as dress-making.

On October 5th, 1789 the Women's March on Versailles occurred. It consisted of around 7,000 angry working class women marching to Versailles to demand lower bread prices. They brought with them weapons and sang songs about killing Queen Marie Antoinette. The women broke in to the palace and killed two guards, and stuck their heads on pikes. The Queen escaped through a secret passage before they ransacked her room. The mob gathered in the courtyard demanding the Queen come to the balcony. Even though there were muskets pointed at her she did appear. Her bravery did a lot to calm the crowd. The women still demanded bread and that the royal family move back to Paris. The King reluctantly agreed and the family made their way back to Paris.

Many reforms before this time were extremely discriminatory toward the working and peasant classes – male suffrage was limited to men who paid at least three days of wages as taxes, and female suffrage of course did not exist. Public aid was restricted even for able-bodied men and women who could not find employment because much of the aristocracy had fled.

There were other non-violent, yet still active, women who expressed their feelings through writing. Although women did not gain the right to vote and little was done to improve equality towards women, this was one of the first times that women were participating and involved in politics. They were protesting and acting out in the same ways as men and this led to the ability of generations to come to advance on what these women accomplished.

Because Germany is a neighbor of France, many of the policies and reforms made in France slowly leaked their way into Germany and German politics, especially when the western states of Germany were occupied by France. The French Revolution was arguably the beginning of the women’s rights movement in Germany.

My 3 Favorite Peer Blogs

I reviewed all the blogs posted by members of this class and found it difficult to pick only three top ones. Most of the ones I looked at were deserving. I graded them all on the overall appearance, completeness, the quality of writing, the images/sources included, and my criteria, which was the effort on or depth given to the assignment - how interested the blogger seemed in the topic. My final choices are:

1. Kevin Andresen - 100/100
This blog was well layed-out, and had an interesting color scheme. It was complete, with every blog posted in a timely fashion, and was definitely an interesting read. There were plenty of sources listed, and everything that I saw had a link to the source. He seemed actually interested in writing the posts and it definitely made his blog a capturing read.

2. Breanna Bigger - 96/100
The purple was very fun, it was easy to read and link around. It was complete as well, and the posts were timely. The writing was spectacular, and the images were appropriate to the topic. She also definitely tried to take every post to the next level, going beyond the basic requirements. She only lost points because there weren't many posts on a page, meaning you had to click "older posts" a lot, though I'm not sure this is her fault.

3. Andrew Gnirk - 94/100
It was mostly easy to read, look at, and follow. It was definitely complete. The writing was engaging, and the pictures were awesome. He seemed genuinely interested in most of the topics and seemed to enjoy writing about them. He lost a few points because some of the posts were black on a dark background, making them impossible to read without first highlighting them.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Summary

The book opens with the narrator, Paul Bäumer, explaining how his company got extra rations after their time at the front because of the heavy loss of men they sustained. Paul goes to visit Kemmerich, a friend of his, in the hospital because he was wounded and lost his leg. Müller, another friend, wants Kemmerich’s boots because he could use them but Kemmerich can’t, but Kemmerich keeps them until he knows he is going to die.

                New recruits arrive to fill the places of the ones who died. One of Paul’s friends says the only way wars should be fought is to throw the nation’s leaders in a ring and have them take it out on each other. They go to put barbed wire on the front line again, but are shot at and take refuge in a cemetery. When they return to camp, they discuss what they will do when the war is over, and Paul reflects on his lack of identity outside of war. Paul and Kat see geese at a house and Paul kills them for a rare feast.

                A heavy fight occurs in which most of the men are killed – now there are only 32 of the original 150 left. They are given a reprieve afterwards, during which they see French girls on the opposite bank of a river, and they swim over at night to bring them food and have some fun. Paul is then given leave to go home and see his family. He cannot connect with them anymore, and cannot talk to them about what he has seen. His mother is probably dying of cancer. His former teacher, Kantorek, has been forced into the Army and is supervised by another former student, who gives him a hard time. He is temporarily assigned to a prison after his leave, and starts to sympathize with the Russians in the prison.

                Paul is sent back to his unit, near the front of the line, but has trouble finding them. During battle at the front, Paul volunteers for a mission to scope out the enemy, but gets lost on his way back and has to hide in a shell-hole, where he subsequently kills a French soldier and goes momentarily insane, talking to his body and promising him to make it up to him. They are given the easy mission of guarding an empty town with a supply depot within. Paul and his friend Kropp are wounded and bribe a doctor to put them on the same train, where they are taken to a Catholic hospital. Kropp’s leg gets amputated, and he keeps trying to kill himself. Paul recovers and eventually returns to his company. Paul’s friends start dying, the last being Kat who was pierced by a splinter as Paul carried him back. He is given a short leave to recover after a gas attack poisons him. In October of 1918, Paul is killed.

In-Class Discussion

In class we talked about why the book was significant to Germans and German culture. With the lack of details as to where and when it took place, it was highly relatable to everyone. It also discussed frequently the question of identity, and what made a man who he was. As Germans were so frequently villainized back then, they (and the rest of the world) had this on their minds. The world wanted insight as to the motivations of both the state of Germany as a whole and the “common” German soldier.

The Germans were forced to pay reparation so atone for their behavior in the First World War, which definitely laid the groundwork for Hitler’s rise to power and the Second World War. This book brings into perspective the way common German soldier felt during the war, and how they might have felt afterward and supported Hitler because of it.