The Wasting Heroine in German Fiction by Women 1770-1914 [Hardcover]

In this broad-ranging study, Richards examines the representation of women's illness in German fiction by women 1770-1914. In the context of medical history, she focuses particularly on female self-starvation and wasting diseases, illustrating how the wasting heroine both reinforced and challenged popular notions of female fragility.

Introduction
1. 'On peut le comparer [. . .] ? une sorte de maladie': Women and Medicine
2. 'Die zarte Pflanze welkte hin': Wasting Women in German Fiction by Men
3. 'Ich sterbe, weil ich dich liebte': Conventional Wasting in Fiction by Women
4. 'Man stirbt wirklich nicht aus Liebesgram, obschon Ihr M?nner dieses gerne glauben m?chtet': Alternative Wasting Heroines
5. 'Die bleichen, vom Nichtsthun, von Sehnsucht und Entt?uschung verzehrten M?dchen': Repression and Apathy in Gabriele Reuter
6. 'Freiheit will ich! k?rperlose, schrankenlose!': Helene B?hlau, Hedwig Dohm, and the Emancipatory Value of Illness, Food Refusal, and Vegetarianism
Conclusion
Bibliography

The study is impressive in its breadth and depth. Richard elucidates a topic of concern to women today, as the gendered aetiology of depression, for example, indicates.... It systematically traces the trope of illness and health over a century and digests the existing secondary literature in elegant prose.Wasting Heroinecontributes much needed literary and historical research on the gendered nature of health. --German Studies Review