Women from the Parsonage:Pastors’ Daughters as Writers, Translators, Salonnières, and Educators

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“I. Dem durchleuchtigsten Großmächtigsten Fürsten und Herrn Herrn Friedrich Wilhelm/ Marggrafen zu Brandenburg/ des Heil. Römischen Reichs Ertz–Cämmern und Churfürsten/ Unserm Gnädigsten Churfürsten und Herrn bey der Solennen Erb–Huldigung des Hertzogsthumbs Magdeburg am 4. Junii Anno 1681. Zu Ehren übergeben” JZ: 1 – 8, esp. 1. “You muses who until now have raised your doleful voices in sad songs and funereal poetry, while the swift poison of the plague destroyed so many beautiful towns and decimated and weakened the human race! Stop your wailing because everything has rejuvenated! Commence your songs of joy, so that the heavens will reverberate with their sweet sound! Raise your voices unto the thrones of the Gods, sound your instruments to sing a song of high praise to our dear King and Elector!”

“XXXV. Klage über die tyrannischen Ziegenböcke” JZ: 89 – 92. Same meter as Ronsard’s “Mon Age et mon sang,” cited by Martin Opitz in his Deutsche Poeterey (1624) as an example of a Sapphic ode. The meter reflects the trampling of the goats. My translation here is with apologies to Susanna Zeidler. It does not do her poem justice. “It’s really a pity, the beautiful garden, From which we expected to harvest a bundle; Planted with trees and most precious herbs And well protected by hedges and walls. This earthly paradise’s wonderful joy Was totally destroyed by the billy goats. The doors and the locks could not have prevented The billy-goat risking its life and its limbs, Climbing the wall going up, jumping down, Attacking the trees. A branch is cut off. And in a few hours it ruined completely My labors and efforts of many years.”

Kästner to Friderika Baldinger on 8/17/1779, “So this is what I wrote that evening when you were at the observatory. You must have thought to yourself: If anything could be done about this stubbornness, you would ask him to come eat [with us] in the evening. But then I would not have been able to converse with you alone as undisturbed as here in this letter. So you will understand that I am stubborn out of self-interest. [Das habe ich nun den Abend da Sie auf dem Observatorio waren geschrieben. Sie haben gewiß bey sich gedacht: Wenn mit dem Eigensinne was anzufangen wäre, so bätest Du ihn auf den Abend mit zu essen. Aber da hätte ich mich doch nicht mit Ihnen so ungestört allein unterhalten können, als hie in diesem Brief. Also sehen Sie wohl, dass ich aus Eigennutze eigensinnig bin.]” (Kästner 1971: 129) Kästner to Friderika Baldinger on 11/8/1781 “The ending of your letter was the best part I hope to talk to you on Saturday. I had already been resigned to the fact that you would have to cook on Saturday, just as I have already been resigned to being away from my home country and to knowing that most of my good male and female friends are in heaven. [Das Ende Ihres Briefes was das beste: Ich hoffe Sie Sonnabends zu sprechen. Ich hatte mich schon darein ergeben dass Sie auf den Sonnabend würden wieder zu kochen haben wie ich mich schon darein ergeben habe, von meinem Vaterlande entfernt zu seyn und fast alle meine guten Freunde und Freundinnen im Himmel zu wissen.]” (Kästner 1912: 136) “I cannot hear Mara when she is singing in the choir with others; but when she sings only for me, I am all ears. [Die Mara hör‘ ich nicht, macht sie mit Andern Chor; doch singt sie mir allein, nur dann bin ich ganz Ohr.]” (Gehren 1809: 125)

In his “Selbstbiographie” [autobiography] of 1764 Kästner wrote about her, “In September of 1856, I entered into matrimony with a woman from Leipzig, the maiden Johanne Rosina Baumann. The long period of social interaction I had enjoyed with her promised me that her constant companionship would make me completely happy. In addition to her moral virtue, based on judiciousness, and Christian piety, she was possessed of a skillful intellect, a desire for more serious and lofty knowledge than what otherwise incites the curiosity even of women who accept the flattering title of scholar, and a wit that knew how to skillfully make a point with these manifold insights. Thus, in conversations with her, I was not allowed always to condescend to the kind of subject matter to which one often has to stoop in conversations with scholars. In December of 1756, she fell ill with a disease that almost constantly, until her passing on March 4, 1758, inflicted on her the harshest ordeals that may be imposed on the human person and that she overcame through patient endurance and divine succor. [Ich habe mich 1756 im September mit einem Frauenzimmer aus Leipzig, Jungfer Johanne Rosina Baumann, verheiratet. Ein langer Umgang, den ich mit ihr gehabt hatte, versprach mir, dass ihre beständige Gesellschaft mich vollkommen glücklich machen würde. Bei einer auf Einsichten gegründeten moralischen Tugend und christlichen Frömmigkeit besaß sie einen geübten Verstand, eine Begierde nach ernsthafteren und erhabeneren Kenntnissen, als sonst die Neugier auch der Frauenzimmer reizen, die sich mit dem Namen Gelehrter schmeicheln lassen, und einen Witz, der selbst diese mannigfaltigen Kenntnisse geschickt anzubringen wußte. Ich durfte mich also bei den Unterredungen mit ihr nicht immer zu den Gegenständen herunterlassen, zu denen man sich oft bei den Unterredungen mit Gelehrten herablassen muß. Sie verfiel im Dezember 1756 in eine Krankheit, wo sie fast unablässig bis an ihr Ende, den 4. März 1758, die härtesten Prüfungen, welche der menschlichen Natur auferlegt werden können, durch Geduld und göttlichen Beistand überwand.].”

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Table of Contents for Women from the Parsonage:Pastors’ Daughters as Writers, Translators, Salonnières, and Educators

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Table of Contents for
Women from the Parsonage:Pastors’ Daughters as Writers, Translators, Salonnières, and Educators