This is an essay in an interdisciplinary anthology on the subject of violence and language from the (German) middle ages to the early modern age. As opposed to a great many of the documents we'read, it's primarily a literary analysis and argumentation, though the historical perspective comes into it as well, of course. But what this isn't, for example, is a compare and contrast between Wilhelmine's memoirs and various other descriptions of the same events, let alone an attempt to figure out what "really" happened. It is an astute analysis of how violence of different types is presented in the text, how the different kinds of violence are tied to emotion, and the cathartic experience of the writing act. Jarzebowski doesn't argue with other interpretations, though she is a bit sarcastic in the footnotes, as in: Older historians aren't free of prejudice twoards the memoirs of the sister of their victorious King. (She lists Droysen and von Ranke.) Carlyle judges the memoirs specifically in regards to their female authorship: "A human book, however, not a pedant one; there is a most shrill female soul busy with intense earnestness there. (...) It is full of istakes, indeed, and exaggarates dreadfully, in its shrill female way."
The text excerpts Jarzebowski analyses - using Annette Kolb's translation into German, which is the one currently available in paperback and in print still and based on the longest version of the Memoirs -you're all already familiar with: physical abuse by Leti, humiliation by third parties (such as having repeatedly to strip for visiting ladies from Hannover to prove she doesn't have a hunchback), verbal abuse by FW and SD, food withdrawal or bad food, drinking enforcement (I had forgotten this happens to Wilhelmine as well at one point!), isolation as punishment, and, in tandem with 18th century beliefs, various physical illnessses as the result of verbal abuse. J. points out the structure and repeated cycles typical for the Memoirs:
Verbal abuse (insults like "English canaille" or "villain of a Fritz") => physical trespasses and encroachment (i.e. for example being forced to eat or drink) => humiliationg situations (being forced to vomit, being forced to show your naked back to visitors) => threats of physical violence => attempted physical violence, which if unsuccessful (beause, say, Wilhelmine is able to avoid the stick) of which triggers more verbal abuse => physical breakdown and illness on Wilhelmine's part.
J. points out while Wilhelmine describes these cycles for both herself and Fritz, she differentiates in one key regard. For Fritz, FW actually beating him (and in front of witnesses) is crossing a line that triggers, though the underlying causes are already multiple, the escape plans becoming serious. Fritz (in Wilhelmine's memoirs; remember, this is a textual analysis) thus sees physical violence by Dad against himself as different in quality from the previous forms of violence. Whereas, J. argues, Wilhelmine does not make this differentiation. When FW succesfully hits her (i.e. in the big August return scene), this isn't presented as worse than his previous verbal abuse or the various humiliations. It's all part of the same and she responds the same. Conversely, SD not becoming physically abusive isn't presented as better, once Wilhelmine has accepted the Bayreuth marriage and SD starts with the insults in earnest.
J. also positions that while Wilhelmine as narrator has no problem describing the physical violence of Leti the governess towards herself as wrong in as many words, even there there are mixed feelings (child!Wilhelmine asks FW not to send Leti to Spandau), and of course there are in a hopeless mess re: her parents, with narrator!Wilhelmine insisting they loved her, and she loved them, and sometimes they even loved her best (yet she never provides examples for those times). Of particular interest to me was J. pointing towards two particular scenes featuring Wilhelmine's sisters. When Friederike gets married first, she gives FW attitude for the bad food etc. (remember, this triggers FW throwing plates but not at Friederike but at Fritz and Wilhemine.) And during Wilhelmine's 32/33 visit, she has this dialogue with Charlotte, after stating Charlotte badmouthed her to SD: One day, when (SD) had maltreated me again and I cried in a corner of my room, (Charlotte) adressed me: "What's the matter with you?" "I'm desperate", I said, "because the Queen can't stand me anymore; and if this continues, I'll die of grief." Charlotte then replies: "How silly you are! (...) I only laugh when she scolds, and that's the best way to handle it." "Then you don't love her," I said, "for if one loves someone, one can't be indifferent to their opinion."
J. deduces mixed feelings from narrator Wilhelmine - on the one hand, there's (barely concealed) envy for the more distant relationship the younger sibs have towards their parents, on the other, there's the need to believe that this is solely possible because they love (and are loved) less, that the sisters have given up the ability to love in order to achieve this immunity.
Quote from the end of the essay: Thus it is possible to talk of a context of emotional violence in which Wilhelmine places her experiences for the most part, and which she submits her perception of her experiences to. The atmosphere of emotional violence becomes the dominating horizon of experience in the Memoirs. Thus, Wilhelmine's Memoirs become a perspective speficially tied to her status and critical of it at the same time. Her experiences of violence happen at different places and are transformed in various stages of remembrance until finding their final form in the Memoirs, the reliving, the alteration, the reordering, and thus don't render a final result but the process of reliving the past itself. Her text shows that she's conscious of the changeability of memories and experiences while writing them. To insist on analysing it for a definite singular statment or to read the text for finate statements would mean to ignore a key quality of the partly contradictory, heterogenous and argumentative text. Her Memoirs can be understood as an attempt to render an atmosphere of emotional violence which she perceived as inescapable, with experiences and memories becoming condensed. The text of the Memoirs thus can be understood as another arena in which said violence is (re)experienced.
Claudia Jarzebowski: Violence and Experience. Thoughts about the Memoirs of Wilhelmine of Bayreuth.
The text excerpts Jarzebowski analyses - using Annette Kolb's translation into German, which is the one currently available in paperback and in print still and based on the longest version of the Memoirs -you're all already familiar with: physical abuse by Leti, humiliation by third parties (such as having repeatedly to strip for visiting ladies from Hannover to prove she doesn't have a hunchback), verbal abuse by FW and SD, food withdrawal or bad food, drinking enforcement (I had forgotten this happens to Wilhelmine as well at one point!), isolation as punishment, and, in tandem with 18th century beliefs, various physical illnessses as the result of verbal abuse. J. points out the structure and repeated cycles typical for the Memoirs:
Verbal abuse (insults like "English canaille" or "villain of a Fritz") => physical trespasses and encroachment (i.e. for example being forced to eat or drink) => humiliationg situations (being forced to vomit, being forced to show your naked back to visitors) => threats of physical violence => attempted physical violence, which if unsuccessful (beause, say, Wilhelmine is able to avoid the stick) of which triggers more verbal abuse => physical breakdown and illness on Wilhelmine's part.
J. points out while Wilhelmine describes these cycles for both herself and Fritz, she differentiates in one key regard. For Fritz, FW actually beating him (and in front of witnesses) is crossing a line that triggers, though the underlying causes are already multiple, the escape plans becoming serious. Fritz (in Wilhelmine's memoirs; remember, this is a textual analysis) thus sees physical violence by Dad against himself as different in quality from the previous forms of violence. Whereas, J. argues, Wilhelmine does not make this differentiation. When FW succesfully hits her (i.e. in the big August return scene), this isn't presented as worse than his previous verbal abuse or the various humiliations. It's all part of the same and she responds the same. Conversely, SD not becoming physically abusive isn't presented as better, once Wilhelmine has accepted the Bayreuth marriage and SD starts with the insults in earnest.
J. also positions that while Wilhelmine as narrator has no problem describing the physical violence of Leti the governess towards herself as wrong in as many words, even there there are mixed feelings (child!Wilhelmine asks FW not to send Leti to Spandau), and of course there are in a hopeless mess re: her parents, with narrator!Wilhelmine insisting they loved her, and she loved them, and sometimes they even loved her best (yet she never provides examples for those times). Of particular interest to me was J. pointing towards two particular scenes featuring Wilhelmine's sisters. When Friederike gets married first, she gives FW attitude for the bad food etc. (remember, this triggers FW throwing plates but not at Friederike but at Fritz and Wilhemine.) And during Wilhelmine's 32/33 visit, she has this dialogue with Charlotte, after stating Charlotte badmouthed her to SD: One day, when (SD) had maltreated me again and I cried in a corner of my room, (Charlotte) adressed me: "What's the matter with you?" "I'm desperate", I said, "because the Queen can't stand me anymore; and if this continues, I'll die of grief." Charlotte then replies: "How silly you are! (...) I only laugh when she scolds, and that's the best way to handle it." "Then you don't love her," I said, "for if one loves someone, one can't be indifferent to their opinion."
J. deduces mixed feelings from narrator Wilhelmine - on the one hand, there's (barely concealed) envy for the more distant relationship the younger sibs have towards their parents, on the other, there's the need to believe that this is solely possible because they love (and are loved) less, that the sisters have given up the ability to love in order to achieve this immunity.
Quote from the end of the essay: Thus it is possible to talk of a context of emotional violence in which Wilhelmine places her experiences for the most part, and which she submits her perception of her experiences to. The atmosphere of emotional violence becomes the dominating horizon of experience in the Memoirs. Thus, Wilhelmine's Memoirs become a perspective speficially tied to her status and critical of it at the same time. Her experiences of violence happen at different places and are transformed in various stages of remembrance until finding their final form in the Memoirs, the reliving, the alteration, the reordering, and thus don't render a final result but the process of reliving the past itself. Her text shows that she's conscious of the changeability of memories and experiences while writing them. To insist on analysing it for a definite singular statment or to read the text for finate statements would mean to ignore a key quality of the partly contradictory, heterogenous and argumentative text. Her Memoirs can be understood as an attempt to render an atmosphere of emotional violence which she perceived as inescapable, with experiences and memories becoming condensed. The text of the Memoirs thus can be understood as another arena in which said violence is (re)experienced.