Sexuality in the Literature of the Wilhelminian Empire
Sexuality in the Literature of the Wilhelminian Empire

Summary/Abstract: This paper is based on a Memorandum about Conditions Regarding Prostitution, published by the Federation of German Women’s Associations in 1904. This publication makes it evident that German women had organized into a political force to be reckoned with in the future. The topic is prostitution. Prostitution, obviously, should be fought, brothels (advocated by German physicians and sociologists) should be abolished, but so called “free prostitution” should be tolerated for the time being, because its eradication is a distant goal. the paper then tries to outline the literary treatment of prostitution and women’s cause in general in Wilhelminian/Victorian Europe, discussing such works as Ghosts by the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen, Bahnwärter Thiel by Gerhart Hauptmann, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane, Lieutenant Gustl by the Austrian Arthur Schnitzler, and Nana by Emile Zola. All these works, and, of course, many other could have been considered, explore the fate of women and their social repression in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The paper concludes with a brief outline of how women’s mental, emotional, and physical functions and conditions were viewed. The theories and assumptions by contemporary scientists, viewed 125 years later, are truly amazing.

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