Women writing Romanticism

Uncovered

Sophie Mereau was one of the few nationally known female writers of the 19th century. She is still fascinating today because she wrote poetry like a landscape painter. With words alone, she succeeded in making different regions and atmospheres tangible to the senses. Her landscape poems show that the author wanted to dissolve the boundaries between visual and poetic art. Her sonnet Auf eines Ungenannten Büste von Tiek from 1805, which can be read at this station, is just one of several experiments with forms and materials. After the sonnet about the bust, Mereau had a series of six poems printed in her volume Bunte Reihe kleiner Schriften, which were inspired by paintings and sculptures from the Dresden Picture Gallery. Mereau also includes two landscape poems in this poetic text gallery, which make the painterly nature of her literature particularly clear. They are interested in the relationship between man and his environment as well as the moods created by certain landscapes.