Summary Jo Marries Goethe (Alcott's love for the German Writer)
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English Literature
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Little Women
Louisa May Alcott´s favourite writer was the German poet Goethe and not only did Louisa use Goethe´s plot devices in her novels such as Little Women, but Goethe also seemed to have been one of the main models for professor Bhaer´s character.
There was a real-life Friedrich Bhaer. In fact, Lou...
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Jo Marries Goethe (Alcott's love for the German Writer)
Niina Niskanen/ Little Women Podcast
Summary:
Louisa May Alcott´s favourite writer was the German poet Goethe and not only did
Louisa use Goethe´s plot devices in her novels such as Little Women, but Goethe
also seemed to have been one of the main models for professor Bhaer´s character.
There was a real-life Friedrich Bhaer. In fact, Louisa May Alcott wanted to marry him
and even start a school with him. This man appears in literal disguises in all of her
novels. He is Friedrich in Little Women, Mac in Rose in Bloom, David in Work, and
many more. Henry and Louisa shared a deep friendship, was it more than friendship?
In Little Women Jo's and Friedrich's age gap is 16 years. It is the same age difference
as between Henry and Louisa.
You can Listen the Podcast here https://tinyurl.com/3vzyb4uz
Hello, Global community of Little Women fans.
Today´s comment shout-out goes to @notafraidof-virginiawoolf who says the
following:
Friedrich Bhaer is the only convincingly sexy man in literature I have decided.
That is some legitimate Fritz Bhaer appreciation. Friedrich is based on many men
who Louisa May Alcott personally found attractive and one of them was Goethe.
From all the episodes I´ve done on this channel, the one about Louisa May Alcott´s
love for Germany is probably the one I´v gotten the most feedback on. People have
contacted me and wanted to discuss it with me Little Women and a lot of people
mentioned that that particular episode or the articles I wrote about it, has helped
them to understand Little Women and Friedrich´s and Jo´s relationship. It´s nice
because I went through the same feelings when I was doing the research. Ever since
I posted that episode and I mentioned the Goethe connections, I´v got people asking
me if I could speak more about it and here we are.
Sources I have used to gather all this information have mostly come from Meghan
Armknecht´s excellent essay called "Jo marries Goethe, Professor Bhaer as the
Goethean ideal in Louisa May Alcott´s Little Women" and Christine Doyle's amazing
essay "Singing Mignon´s song, German culture and literature in Little Women". I
have read lots of books and essays about Louisa May Alcott. Sometimes I feel that
, when the writer is talking about"Little Women" they are actually not speaking about
the novel, but some of the movies. It can be very frustrating, and I think some of
them don´t even realize they are doing that, but Christine Doyle, has read the books
and knows them very well. I can recommend her Louisa May Alcott studies.
I have also used Goethe as one of my sources. I read Sorrows of Young Werther,
whose story is very similar to Laurie and his over-compelling emotionally turbulent
and Wilhelm Meister, the book that has love stories that Louisa reprises in Little
Women. These were Louisa´s favourite novels that she read multiple times during
her life. She had the framework for the love stories built up years before she was
asked to write Little Women. In her essay, Megan Armknecht said that there has
been not a lot of research done between Little Women and Goethe´s novels. This is
really unknown territory and it can completely change the way we think about Louisa
May Alcott. Maybe after you have listened to this episode you come to the same
conclusion and start to do your own research on this topic.
This is Little Women Podcast - Jo Marries Goethe, Louisa May Alcott´s fascination
with the German Poet.
(intro tune)
Louisa May Alcott, a great American writer was born in 1832. The same year great
German writer and poet Goethe passed away.
Was that a sign?
Louisa became familiar with Goethe as a child. Thanks to her father Bronson, who
had Goethe´s biography, in his small but selective library. By the end of her life,
Louisa had managed to collect all American editions and some German editions of
Goethe´s works and often send notes to her friends to let her know when new
editions were available, so she could complete her Goethe collection.
This is what Alcott scholar Christine Doyle writes:
By the time Alcott wrote Jo´s Boys (which is the last Little Women book) in the
1880s. She had spent a lifetime reading Goethe, and he was still clearly and
consciously important to her. In 1876 and again in 1883, se had made attempts to
collect as much of his work as possible. She wrote to her publisher Thomas Niles
"Thanks for the Goethe book. I want everything that comes out about him" (Signing
Mignon´s song, Doyle).
Louisa was actually born into the first American town that was settled by German
immigrants in 1683. This was Germantown in Pennsylvania. Louisa was born at a
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