Childhood Sexual Fluidity: First Loves in Anton Reiser, Das Marmorbild and Manor

Childhood Sexual Fluidity: First Loves in Anton Reiser, Das Marmorbild and Manor Public Deposited

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Creator

Humphrey, Christina Rosemeier
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures

Abstract

There is a surprising lack of analysis of sexual fluidity in children and pre-pubescent youth. It is my goal to focus on three Sonderfölle and provide a detailed analysis of the particular way in which three German authors dealt with the issue of sexual variance in youth and gender indeterminacy in teenage love. By employing current feminist and gender theories to adolescence, I will contrast the blossoming of adolescent sexuality in Anton Reiser written by Karl Philipp Moritz in the years of 1785 to 1790, with Florio's sexual fluidity in Das Marmorbild written by Joseph von Eichendorff in 1818. I will also examine the presentation of Har's sexual awakening in Karl Heinrich Ulrichs' Manor published in 1884. All three texts exhibit a fascinating array of sexual densities as the protagonists follow their innere Stimme, a natural, innate and unique voice within them, which easily transcends taboos and presents a realm of love which is sexually variable, open and undefined.

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