“Alive with wit” – “enlightened by her knowledge” – “goodness”

Kästner’s appreciative descriptions must be situated within eighteenth-century discourse and the Enlightenment’s pantheon of values. In the Enlightenment, “wit” corresponded to the French word “ésprit” (Grimm and Grimm 1984: 880). Thus, “enlightened by her knowledge” describes the comprehensive learning that the deceased had acquired. The intensification – “but goodness was her greater virtue still; devoted to her duty, not laboring to shine;” – is more problematic today. It speaks to the idea of “woman’s destiny” and her duties to her husband and children, which did not permit intellectual endeavors since the latter were identified with the specter of the “bookish spinster” (Heuser 1994: 246 – 247).

In fact, Sophie von La Roche, in her 1791 preface to Baldinger’s Essay, related this passage to “the heart of the best mother and most cherishable friend” [das Herz der besten Mutter und schätzbarsten Freundin] (Essay: 10). It is likely, however, that the Enlightenment philosopher Kästner alluded to a comprehensive concept of goodness as a characteristic of the enlightened human being, which formed part of the “message of virtue.” (Martens 1968) Kästner’s characterization must be based on close acquaintance with Friderika Baldinger, for she did not appear in the public literary sphere until late in her life – 1782/83 – and with only two contributions in the “Magazin für Frauenzimmer” [Journal for Ladies] (Baldinger 1783: 179 – 186, 99 – 103).

Kästner had known Friderika Baldinger since 1773, when she had followed her husband, a well-known scholar, from Jena to Göttingen, a center of the Enlightenment, where the university’s professors cooperated on various publishing projects (Hassenstein 2002). These include the critical journal, “Göttingische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen” [Göttingen Papers on Academic Matters] (published by Vandenhoeck since 1739), which reviewed books on the sciences and “belles lettres,” and offered a forum for intense scholarly controversies (Joost 1968). The Deutsche Gesellschaft, founded in 1738, had been reinvigorated and reformed by Kästner in 1762. From now on, not only students, but a select circle of prominent professors convened with the goal of cultivating the German language and using it to popularize research results. The literary journal “Göttinger Musenalmanach” (published by Dieterich), established by Heinrich Christian Boie and Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter in 1769 and continued in 1779 by Gottfried August Bürger, became the official publication of the “Hainbund” as early as 1774. The Baldingers, with their wide range of interests,79 quickly established connections to these circles of literary scholars. Their home was always open to friends and acquaintances, but especially to their colleagues, primarily on Saturdays.

Friderika Baldinger wrote on the subject of professors’ wives, “I have met most of my women colleagues, but I also have already seen enough of some of them during their first visit, so that I do not long for closer acquaintance with them” (Panke-Kochinnke 1993: 67). She knew Therese Heyne (nee Weiß), the first wife of the professor Christian Gottlob Heyne,80 and corresponded with Dorothea Spangenberg who published poems in the Musenalmanach under the name of “Emilie” (Gehren 1809: 32). The famous “young university ladies” [Universitätsmamsellen] of Göttingen (Hassenstein 2002: 968 – 971), such as the daughters of the professors Heyne, Michaelis, Gatterer, Wedekind, and Schlözer, were still young children, as were her own daughters. Baldinger’s remarks from their time in Kassel suggest a rather critical perception. Thus, she reported to Kästner about the Forsters’ first visit on September 8, 1785, “She [Therese Heyne] was dressed like a vagabond, in an ugly blue traveling costume with a bare bosom, which we are not accustomed to here, her hair was cut into her face.” (Huber 1999: 578, 103) Georg Forster reported about this meeting to his father-in-law Heyne:

Baldinger looks healthier than ever and his wife showed herself to be quite agreeable towards Therese, approximately in the manner of a fierce animal that retracts its claws and, contrary to its normal habits, is affectionate with those who gently stroke it. Therese, of course, did not fail to administer a large number of gentle strokes. (Forster 1970: 369)

The literary works of Philippine Gatterer, married in Kassel to Johann Philipp Nikolaus Engelhard, the Secretary of War, did not meet Baldinger’s undivided applause. Very likely, her thoughts were similar to those of her Göttingen friend Dorothea Spangenberg, who wrote to her on May 26, 1782:

Ph(illipine’s) new poems prove again how thoroughly she spurns the obligations of modesty. I read them – and I was angry. Some of them are excellent, but only interesting to a wife and mother, and not to a young audience. Reading one of them, entitled The Marriage Ceremony, I was glad that my name was not listed among the subscribers – and a girl had written this. (…) My husband was astonished when he read it, and he said, “No man would write of such things with so little delicacy.” (Dawson 1986: 26)

Kästner visited regularly with the Baldingers in their home and they saw each other at parties held by colleagues and publishers (Lichtenberg 1983 – 2004: 629, 695 – 701, 753 – 778). The Baldinger children felt at home in Kästner’s garden (Heuser 1994: 193), Kästner corresponded with the daughters, especially with “Malchen” (Amalie) (Gehren 1809). He taught her geometry (Gehren 1809: 49),81 and provided her, as well as her mother, with books from his large library (Kästner 1971: 126).82 As a matter of fact, Kästner, who had been widowed since 1758, was conspicuously solicitous of Friderika Baldinger, causing Lichtenberg to comment in 1983, “If it were any other two persons, without a doubt the chronique scandaleuse would already be telling any number of things”83 (Lichtenberg 1983 – 2004).

Treated as a member of the family, Kästner was given sufficient opportunities to witness Baldinger’s “wit,” which blossomed in conversation and during social occasions, (Grimm and Grimm 1984: 876 – 877) and her “knowledge.” She impressed not only him but also the younger philosopher and satirist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1743 – 1799) who, in letters to Friderike Baldinger, devised two treatises, “Gedanken über das Verlieben und Macht des Frauenzimmers” [Thoughts about Falling in Love and Woman’s Power] and “Fragment von Schwänzen” [Fragment about Tails]. (Lichtenberg 1986 – 2004: 395 – 701, 753 – 760)

The letters give us an idea of the subject matter and tone of Baldinger’s and Kästner’s conversations. Kästner preferred letters because in this manner he could be certain of his conversation partner’s undivided attention.84 The intensity of the exchange of ideas is documented in numerous letters Friderika Baldinger had written to Kästner through January of 1783 (Heuser 1994: 195), and in May of 1783 she owned “a whole drawer full of letters by Kästner in a chest, many epigrams […].” (Heuser 1996: 166) Even though only fragments of the correspondence have been handed down, especially with regard to Baldinger’s own letters (Heuser 1994: 195), they convey an impression of the tone of the conversations and of the range of topics they discussed with each other.

“Education of Intellect” and “Character”

The Essay about the Education of My Intellect has mainly been read as an autobiography93 and, at the same time, as evidence of the discrimination against women in terms of education, and as radical criticism of the institution of marriage (Goodman 1986, Meise 1996, Heuser 1996, Ramm 1998, Niethammer 2000). Baldinger states in her Essay, “I so wished to become very learned” (Essay: 16), and notes that the “Biographies of Physicians and Natural Scientists now Living in Germany and Abroad” [Biographien jeztlebender Aerzte und Naturforscher in und ausser Deutschland], published since 1768 by her husband, E. G. Baldinger, might have provided models seems obvious as well (Heuser 1996: 157). Friderika Baldinger herself, in a letter to Kästner of February 26, 1782, only spoke of “a fragment from the laborious, miserable life of my youth.” (Heuser 1994: 189)

Without a doubt, Baldinger’s Essay is autobiographical writing. It allows us to parse Friderika Baldinger’s intentions (Epple 2003: 154). It is telling that she titles her text “Essay,” which, in the eighteenth century, meant academic treatise,94 and thus signals, possibly ironically, that Baldinger is not simply telling “her story.” She rejects her friend’s wish that she should write a “history of my intellect” for him, and she sets the following task for herself: “I present it [the history of my intellect, HW] not as such a one, but rather as a contribution to my education, to the extent that it has a bearing on the whole of my [!] character.”95 Her intention, then, was to record and reflect on the process of her self-formation, the “education of intellect” representing a component of her “character” formation in the sense of personality development. This interrelation between “intellect” and “character” explains why Baldinger placed self-critical statements about her moral development alongside an analysis of the “education of her intellect.”

In writing this critical self-analysis, she could not have been guided by Rousseau’s Confessions, which informed later autobiographies, since a German translation of this work did not exist until 1782, when she had already finished the Essay (Heuser 1994: 255 – 256). Unsparing “admissions” and “confessions,” however, published in print as revival narratives, already played an important part in pietist writing. It is conceivable that Baldinger, who was brought up in a strict pietist household, was familiar with such narratives (Kormann 2004, Gleixner 2005). Even though she expressly denied that her mother had in any way influenced her intellectual education, she stressed the importance of her religious upbringing on “all of her happiness.” (Essay: 15) Therefore, it is unlikely that this statement is a “concession” to models of femininity (Holdenried 1995: 117).

Stages in the Formation of Intellect and Character

Friderika Baldinger probably wrote the Essay at a friend’s request around 1780. In February of 1782, while organizing her desk, she found it and sent it to Kästner (Heuser 1994: 186, 189). In it, she explained that the “education of her intellect” “gradually” (Essay: 24) gained influence on “the whole of her character.” It is possible to define four stages, although intellectual education and character formation are not always presented as parallel processes.

The first stage is informed by the early death of her father, Johann Christian Gutbier (1705 – 1744), pastor in Langensalza. Her pietist mother was destitute and did not have the means to pay for her daughter Friderika’s education in spite of her giftedness, noticeable early on – by the age of three she was already able to read. The girl found reading material in the home of an aunt who was married to a doctor and who did possess wit and intellect but had remained without instruction. Just like her aunt, the “merry” and bright girl read anything she could obtain and made sense of it for herself. While reading the “Göttingische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen,” she noted that “these learned men were accorded as much respect as the potentates of the world” with whom she was familiar from reading the “Hinkenden Boten” [Limping Messenger]. At that time she “first developed respect for learning” and “so wished to become very learned, and [I] was angry that my sex excluded me from it. Well, you may become clever at least, I thought, and you become such from books, so you will read diligently.” (16) The only book available to her was the Bible, which she read to the family at home, thus developing a virtuosity in reading out loud that was admired by all. Baldinger’s self-criticism should not be missed: She wanted to become “learned” in order to become famous but the admiration accorded to her was unfounded, for her intelligence was as uneducated as her moral education was neglected.

The next phase of her education is marked by the return of her older brother, Johann Christian (1734 – 1761) from the University of Wittenberg, where he had studied theology, and with whom she had already exchanged letters before. “From his letters the first ray of intellect pierced my head, or rather, I sensed what many a learned man has never perceived, that is, that I did not know anything.” (17) However, her mother not only kept her from reading, she also did not permit Johann Christian to teach his sister French, to play the piano “and such,” since “after all, she would never be able to marry a professor.” Baldinger commented defiantly, “but I did not want a man anyway.” (18) “I began finding a great many persons intolerable, and especially men who were not scholars.” “This made me antagonistic to a whole gender, which the unreflecting girl that I was only judged in accordance with the sphere, in which I was living.” The girl was not only unreflecting but she also delighted in mockery and insisted stubbornly on misguided ideas and on her “wish to always be free and independent of the whole world.” (18) As a result, she was “lonely.”

Eventually, Baldinger was rescued from this isolation by the pastor Johann Wilhelm Kranichfeld who was connected in a “musical friendship” (18) with her brother.96 He became Friderika’s “spiritual father” (19) who carried on unrestricted conversations with her and corresponded with her until the time of her death (Heuser 1994: 202). “One of the first books my friend lent me was the “Zuschauer” [Spectator] (Heuser 1994: 202 – 203). I gazed at the book in wonder, for never in my life had I read anything more beautiful” (Essay: 19). The Zuschauer clearly contributed to the “refinement of her intellect,” but in retrospect she commented, “Last year I tried reading this book again and I was not able to do it. That’s how I relate to that period nowadays.” Kranichfeld also helped her overcome the depression she had slipped into after her brother’s death in 1761:

The fiery willful spirit of my youth turned into a quiet earnestness, beyond the habits of my age … and intelligent persons spoke with me as though I were their equal in age and experience. I … now endeavored to truly earn their esteem, which previously I had received by happenstance only. (21)

Her intellectual education started to affect the “whole of her character,” she was not quite so “lonely” anymore. Even so, her enmity towards all men had led to the refusal of a marriage proposal that her family, wanting to see her provided for, had urged her to accept. She felt “revulsion to all physical love,” had a “predisposition to sainthood, was pious and a vestal virgin, had raptures as well, except that I was not able to perform miracles, for – according to all rules – I would have had to die first,97 so that people would have been able to recount things about me.” (21) In this last sentence, Baldinger treats her youthful “predisposition to sainthood” with irony – in line with with Enlightenment criticism of religion.

In the physician Ernst Gottlieb Baldinger, Friderika (1761/62) found the “learned, intelligent, and likewise honest man” (22) whom she was able to love and for whom she changed her previous attitude towards marriage. She owed “all development of my mental faculties” to her husband. “He built my intelligence, improved my will and my heart” (22). Thus, intelligence, will, and heart are presented as essential components in “the whole of her character.” In Baldinger’s company, Friderika read copiously,98 he himself reviewed for her more than 1,000 titles, including medical textbooks, presumably books in Latin, French, and English, since she did not master these languages. Her unreflecting “I so wished to become very learned” was replaced by a

[…] love for the sciences […], the more I became familiar with them. I think I would have become a scholar if providence had not assigned me to the cooking pot, and I still believe that even in womanly pursuits we have use for the intelligence of men that we find in their books. 99 (Habermas 1998: 250)

Not without irony, Baldinger reports that after the most womanly of all “womanly business” – the birth of her six children – she used the six postpartum confinements, intended for the recuperation of her body, as periods of intensive reading for “the recuperation of my soul” by strengthening her intellectual powers. “Since I had acquired the habit of thinking at all times, I also remained present to myself even during the most intense pain – and even the Bible calls it that.” (Essay: 24) Once more, Baldinger links intellectual education to “the whole of her character,” “I have always tried to live in such a way, that I will not have to fear any evil even when I die, and some day I will have to do just that, after all” (25). Praying out of fear, therefore, is offensive to her. To Baldinger, the friendships with Kästner and Lichtenberg furthered the education of her intellect and provided access to the society of Enlightenment thinkers.

How does Friderika Baldinger assess the contribution of her intellectual education “to the whole of her character?” The unfolding of her “natural intellect” was restricted early on: material hardship, her mother’s Pietist notions about education and her social circle. Initially, Baldinger was self-taught and lacked guidance. The obstacles she faced made her disobedient, obstinate, and misanthropic. Only the sympathy and support she received, initially from her academically educated brother and then from his clerical friend Kranichfeld, created conditions that allowed her intellectual education to progress and influence the “improvement” of “the whole of her character.” Baldinger notes that she was vitally influenced by enlightened theologians. After the early death of her father, her older brother, educated at Schulpforta (1746 – 1752) (Bittcher 1843) and a theologian as well, took his place, and after his premature death in 1761, it was primarily Kranichfeld who cared for her as a pastor and made the world of fine literature accessible to her. He established a bookstore and founded a “Journalgesellschaft” [journal society] in Langensalza, as well as a musical circle. In the small town of Langensalza, he was a central authority for education and promulgated an enlightened Christianity, especially to young people.100

Baldinger entered into marriage with a man who was not inferior to her. Their relationship was grounded in mutual deep respect and allowed her to continue developing “the whole of her character” to such a point that Kästner and Lichtenberg sought her out as a critical and discriminating conversational partner. Through this, she was able to participate in enlightenment discourse. She did not, however, define herself through her husband and scholarly friends, but rather through her independence of mind.

The last sentence of the Essay – a traditional gesture of modesty – calls such a construction of identity into question. “As a woman, I have become passable, but how small would I be as a man” (24). In his review, Kästner corrected Baldinger’s statement of self-depreciation by relating “intellect” to the respective “destiny” of a woman/a man. However, Baldinger might have referred to something else here. She stated herself that her body was “extremely excitable” (24), and it may have been the cause of a passing downheartedness that she expressed in that last sentence. But her depression might also be fundamental and connected to the limits imposed on a “woman’s destiny.” We cannot know if the last sentence of the printed edition was already contained in the version of the Essay that had gone to Kästner on February 26, 1782 or if Baldinger inserted it later.

When she wrote the essay, Baldinger already knew about her husband’s infidelity that had wounded the core of her being. Initially, she did not give up hope that she might win him back. She sent Kästner the letter of homage that her husband had written after reading the Essay, stating that it “was so flattering that I could not keep such an [attachment, HW] only to myself and not have a friend such as you share it with me.”101 (Heuser 1994: 192) Nevertheless, she was overcome by despondency, and so, as early as October of 1782, in a letter to Kästner, she no longer argued that the education of intellect and character are interrelated. “Out of love for him, she now did voluntarily what she would not have done on any king’s orders. She became obedient and flexible, for she felt very happy when she pleased him, and extremely unhappy when she displeased him.” (Heuser 1996: 168 – 169) Here Friderika Baldinger presents herself as a slave to her love, which made her a “foolish woman” who sacrificed her autonomy. Baldinger did not want to share her husband, who was of such vital importance for her, with another woman. Her despair about having only Baldinger’s respect but no longer his love robbed her of “all her happiness” and darkened her perspective on life. Her “woman’s destiny,” she wrote, steered her intellectual faculties into the wrong direction, “[…] I often had to intentionally shroud my intellect in a fog, so as not to think, not to feel.” (Heuser 1996: 173)

Friderika Baldinger – A Woman Intellectual in the Age of Enlightenment?

The analysis of the Essay provides a partial answer to my initial question. Friderika Baldinger was enlightened by her knowledge and knew how to use her intellect, in Kant’s sense, as a guideline for correct behavior. Through the process of her intellectual education, she had attained the capacity for critical assessment of authorities as well as an independence of spirit. Like Kästner, she reconciled these with “moral virtue and Christian piety based on understanding.” Baldinger’s intellectuality aligns her with the enlightened Republic of Letters in the second half of the eighteenth century before the French Revolution and before Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” (1781). “The bright ray of understanding in my head” [Enlightenment] constituted a crucial intellectual experience for her, lifted her beyond pedantic book learning, and enabled her to participate in the enlightened discourse. Only her steps into the public literary sphere were wary; maybe she feared that she would not be able to do justice to her own high standards, by which she also judged others. We can only speculate what sort of influence the French Revolution might have had on Friderika Baldinger, whether she would have dared to foray into the public literary sphere, be it in approval or repudiation of the revolutionary events.

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