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Caroline Schelling
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Caroline Schelling (Germ. Karoline), née Michaelis, widowed Böhmer, divorced Schlegel (2 September 1763 Göttingen – 7 September 1809 Maulbronn), was a German intellectual.[1]
She was one of the so-called Universitätsmamsellen, a group of five academically active women during the 18th and 19th centuries, daughters of academics at Göttingen University, alongside Meta Forkel-Liebeskind, Therese Huber, Philippine Engelhard, and Dorothea Schlözer.
Biography
[edit]Schelling was born at Göttingen in 1763, the daughter of orientalist Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791), who taught at the progressive University of Göttingen. She was educated by private tutors and by her father. In 1784, she married a district medical officer and son of lawyer Georg Ludwig Böhmer (1715–1797), Johann Franz Wilhelm Böhmer (1754–1788), and the couple moved to Clausthal in the Harz. After his death in 1788, she tried to live financially independently. Together with their only surviving daughter she moved to Göttingen in 1788, where she entered into close relations to the poet Gottfried August Bürger and the critic of the Romantic school, August Wilhelm Schlegel.[1] She then moved to Marburg, and in 1792 she settled in Mainz.[2]
In Mainz, Schelling joined the intellectual circle around Georg Forster, who had married her childhood friend Therese Huber. Forster was an explorer, journalist, and revolutionary. When Mainz was occupied by the French during the French Revolutionary Wars, she moved into Forster's house. Mainz was declared a republic, aligned with France (see Republic of Mainz). But when Prussian troops recaptured Mainz (22 July 1793),[2] Schelling was imprisoned for her political opinions.[1] Schelling was pregnant and asked friends and family for help. She was released and August Schlegel arranged for her to give birth under an assumed name in Lucka near Leipzig.[2]
Schelling and August Schlegel married in 1796, and she moved to Jena, where he had received a professorship. Their house became a meeting place for the young literary and intellectual elite later associated with German Romanticism. His brother Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich's wife Dorothea Veit moved in. They were at the centre of Jena Romanticism. Schelling was involved in the literary projects of her husband and his brother. She is credited with contributing to many of the 300 reviews her husband published in the Jena Allgemeine Literaturzeitung between 1796 and 1799.[2]
In 1803, she divorced Schlegel and married the young philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. Her new husband was at the center of Romantic natural philosophy. The couple moved to Würzburg, but were maligned by gossip. In 1806, they moved to Munich, where Friedrich Schelling received a professorship and was honored for his work.[2]
Between 1805 and 1807, Schelling published several reviews in her own name and assisted her husband in his reviews, which shaped Romantic literature and literary taste. She also engaged in extensive correspondence with numerous Romantics. Having suffered poor health for some time, she died of dysentery in 1809 in Maulbronn.[2][1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 319.
- ^ a b c d e f Heiner F. Klemme; Manfred Kuehn (2016). The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 674. ISBN 9781474255981.
External links
[edit]
Caroline Schelling
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Caroline Schelling (née Michaelis; 2 October 1763 – 7 June 1809) was a German intellectual, translator, and salonnière whose correspondence and critical writings illuminated the intellectual dynamics of Early Romanticism.[1][2]
Born in Göttingen as the daughter of the scholar Johann David Michaelis, she received an education uncommon for women of her era, fostering her engagement with literature, philosophy, and politics.[2]
In 1784, she married the physician Franz Böhmer, with whom she had three children, including the daughter Auguste; Böhmer died in 1788.[3] Her sympathy for the French Revolution led to her imprisonment in Königstein fortress in 1793 alongside other radicals, an episode reflecting her early political boldness amid the Holy Roman Empire's upheavals.[1] In 1796, she entered a union with August Wilhelm Schlegel, moving to Jena where their home at Leutragasse 5 became a nexus for Romantic thinkers including Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, and later Friedrich Schelling.[2]
There, Caroline collaborated on translations of Shakespeare's plays, contributing to seventeen dramas rendered into German between 1797 and 1810, and penned anonymous reviews for the Athenäum journal, advancing Romantic literary theory through ironic and fragmentary styles.[2][3] Her affair with Schelling precipitated a scandalous divorce from Schlegel in 1803, followed by her marriage to Schelling that year; this union, though intellectually fertile, drew criticism for its perceived disruption of social norms.[1] Caroline's extensive letters, preserved and analyzed in scholarly editions, reveal her as a perceptive commentator on art, nature, and human relations, exerting causal influence on the Jena circle's innovations in selfhood and creativity despite contemporary dismissals of her as merely social rather than substantive.[1] She died in Maulbronn in 1809 from complications following a miscarriage, leaving a legacy underscored by her daughter's earlier death and the philosophical shifts among her associates.[1]
Caroline Michaelis, widowed from her first marriage to Franz Böhmer, wed August Wilhelm Schlegel on 1 July 1796 in the Church of St. Catherine in Braunschweig.[4][13] The union united two intellectuals from Göttingen academic circles, where Schlegel had encountered Caroline during her earlier years.[14] Eight days later, on 8 July 1796, the couple settled in Jena, taking up residence in a garden house near the Löbder Gate; Schlegel had secured a professorship in poetics and aesthetics at the University of Jena.[4] Their household on Leutragasse soon emerged as the epicenter of the early Romantic movement, drawing visitors including Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich Schiller, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who called on Caroline shortly after her arrival on 17 July 1796.[15][4][7] The marriage facilitated a productive intellectual collaboration, particularly in literary translation and criticism. Caroline contributed significantly to Schlegel's project of rendering William Shakespeare's works into German, aiding in the completion of translations for 16 to 17 plays over approximately six years from 1796 onward.[14][16][17] She also authored an article on Romeo and Juliet published in Schiller's Die Horen in 1797 and supplied reviews for the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, including pieces dated 28 January 1796 and 10 February 1797.[4] This partnership elevated Schlegel's scholarly output while establishing Caroline's influence within Jena's Romantic milieu.[14]
Early Life
Family Background and Childhood
Caroline Dorothea Albertine Michaelis was born on September 2, 1763, in Göttingen, in the Electorate of Hanover, to Johann David Michaelis, a prominent orientalist, biblical scholar, and professor at the University of Göttingen, and his wife, Louise Philippine Antoinette Michaelis (née Kulmus).[4][5] The Michaelis family resided in Göttingen, a hub of Enlightenment scholarship due to the university's progressive reputation, and relocated to Prinzenstrasse 21 in 1764.[4] Her father, known for his critical work on the Hebrew Bible and travels to Arabia, provided an intellectually stimulating environment, while her mother managed the household amid a family that included siblings such as Charlotte Wilhelmine (born 1766), Gottfried Philipp (born 1768), Luise Friederike (born 1770), and Christian Friedrich.[4][6] Raised in this academic milieu, Caroline received an early education influenced by her father's scholarly pursuits, gaining fluency in multiple languages including Hebrew, French, and likely Latin and English through family tutoring and exposure to university circles.[7] At around age 11 in 1774, she was sent to a boarding school in Gotha, attending Sarah Schläger’s institution from 1777 to 1778, which marked a shift from the Göttingen home environment.[4] During this period, she experienced a brief courtship with anatomist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1777, which concluded by 1778, and by 1779, literary figure Heinrich Christian Boie described her as "a bit wild" at age 16, hinting at an independent and lively disposition amid her transition between Göttingen's intellectual vibrancy and Gotha's more structured setting.[4] Her early years thus blended familial scholarly rigor with formative social experiences in Enlightenment-era Germany.Education and Intellectual Formation
Born on 2 March 1763 in Göttingen, Caroline Michaelis grew up in the household of her father, Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791), a leading Enlightenment scholar who held the professorship in philosophy and oriental languages at the University of Göttingen from 1746 onward. The Michaelis home served as an intellectual hub, frequented by scholars, explorers, and philologists, providing young Caroline with immersion in academic discourse on theology, linguistics, and classical texts from an early age.[2] Lacking access to formal university education as a woman, she received private tutoring supplemented by her father's guidance, acquiring proficiency in multiple languages including French and Italian, alongside familiarity with Latin and classical literature. This training enabled her to undertake early translations of Italian and French dramas during her youth, demonstrating precocious literary engagement.[2][7] Her intellectual formation was further shaped by correspondence networks initiated in adolescence, including exchanges with the Gotha-based literary family of Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer and the Gotters, where she honed critical skills through discussions of poetry, theater, and moral philosophy. These early interactions reflected the Göttingen Enlightenment's emphasis on empirical inquiry and rational critique, fostering her independent-minded approach to ideas while exposing limitations of conventional gender roles in scholarship.[8][9]Personal Relationships and Marriages
First Marriage to Franz Böhmer and Widowhood
Karoline Michaelis married the physician Johann Franz Wilhelm Böhmer on 15 June 1784 in Göttingen, following their engagement in 1782.[4][10] The couple then relocated to Clausthal, a mining town in the Harz Mountains approximately 60 kilometers from Göttingen, where Böhmer worked as the local town and mining physician.[4][11] The marriage produced two daughters born in Clausthal: Philippine Auguste on 28 April 1785 and Sophie Therese on 23 April 1787.[4] A son, also named Johann Franz Wilhelm, was born posthumously on 20 July 1788 in Göttingen but died shortly after birth.[4] Böhmer died on 4 February 1788 in Clausthal at age 33.[4] In the immediate aftermath, Caroline, then 24, stayed briefly in Clausthal to manage financial settlements and received a widow's pension.[4][10] Her mother and Superintendent Luther escorted her and her daughters back to Göttingen, where she returned to Clausthal in late summer 1788 solely to close the household.[4] As a widowed mother, she contended with relative social isolation and economic hardship in Göttingen, though her health and personal liberty improved compared to her married life in Clausthal.[10] In later reflections, she characterized the marriage as a "confining prison," recalling it with "horror and trembling" yet a "morbid enjoyment" akin to a captive recounting escape.[10]Involvement with Georg Forster and Political Radicalism
Following the death of her first husband, Johann Franz Wilhelm Böhmer, on January 16, 1793, Caroline Böhmer relocated to Mainz in late February 1792 with her daughter Auguste, taking residence near the household of Georg Forster and his wife Therese, a childhood friend of Caroline's.[4] Forster, a naturalist, explorer, and journalist who had participated in James Cook's second voyage, was an outspoken advocate for Enlightenment ideals and the French Revolution; he joined the Mainz Jacobin Club on November 7, 1792, shortly after French forces occupied the city on October 21, 1792.[4] Caroline socialized closely with Forster, who influenced her exposure to radical political thought, and contemporary accounts described her as his "romantic lady friend."[4] The French occupation facilitated the establishment of the Republic of Mainz, declared on March 17, 1793, which aligned with revolutionary France and sought to implement democratic reforms in the Rhineland.[4] Forster played a prominent role, serving as a deputy in the Rhenish-German National Assembly from March 25, 1793, before departing for Paris, where he died on January 10, 1794.[4] Caroline openly endorsed these developments, dining with French General Custine during the autumn of 1792 to early 1793 and expressing sympathy for the republican cause amid the intellectual ferment of Mainz's radical circles.[4] Her support reflected a broader attraction to democratic experimentation, though she was not formally affiliated with the Jacobin Club itself.[8] As Prussian forces advanced and French troops retreated in late March 1793, Caroline fled Mainz on March 30 with Auguste, the republican sympathizer Meta Forkel-Liebeskind, and other associates, attempting to evade recapture of the city.[4] The group was detained in Oppenheim and Frankfurt on suspicion of sedition linked to their ties to the Mainz Republic; Caroline was imprisoned in Königstein Fortress from April 8, 1793, until her release on July 13, 1793, after intervention by family connections.[4] This episode underscored her perceived radicalism, as authorities associated her flight with Jacobin networks, though her brief liaison with French lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Dubois de Crancé during the occupation—resulting in a pregnancy terminated by miscarriage—further complicated her reputation without deepening her political engagement. Her experiences in Mainz marked a pivotal, if transient, alignment with revolutionary fervor, shaped by Forster's influence but tempered by the republic's swift collapse.[12]Marriage to August Wilhelm Schlegel
Caroline Michaelis, widowed from her first marriage to Franz Böhmer, wed August Wilhelm Schlegel on 1 July 1796 in the Church of St. Catherine in Braunschweig.[4][13] The union united two intellectuals from Göttingen academic circles, where Schlegel had encountered Caroline during her earlier years.[14] Eight days later, on 8 July 1796, the couple settled in Jena, taking up residence in a garden house near the Löbder Gate; Schlegel had secured a professorship in poetics and aesthetics at the University of Jena.[4] Their household on Leutragasse soon emerged as the epicenter of the early Romantic movement, drawing visitors including Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich Schiller, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who called on Caroline shortly after her arrival on 17 July 1796.[15][4][7] The marriage facilitated a productive intellectual collaboration, particularly in literary translation and criticism. Caroline contributed significantly to Schlegel's project of rendering William Shakespeare's works into German, aiding in the completion of translations for 16 to 17 plays over approximately six years from 1796 onward.[14][16][17] She also authored an article on Romeo and Juliet published in Schiller's Die Horen in 1797 and supplied reviews for the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, including pieces dated 28 January 1796 and 10 February 1797.[4] This partnership elevated Schlegel's scholarly output while establishing Caroline's influence within Jena's Romantic milieu.[14]