It has been shown that the total number of women who published in German in the 18th and 19th
centuries was approximately 3 500 but even by 1918 only a few of them were known. The reason
for this lies in the selection processes to which the authors have been subjected and it is
this selection process that is the focus of the research here presented. The selection criteria
have not simply been gender-based but have had much to do with the urgent quest for
establishing a German Nation State in 1848 and beyond. Prutz Gottschall Kreyßig and others
found it necessary to use literary historiography which had been established by 1835 in order
to construct an ideal of Germanness at a time when a political unity remained absent and they
wove women writers into this plot. After unification in 1872 this kind of weaving seemed to
have become less pressing and other discourses came to the fore especially those revolving
round femininity vs. masculinity and races. The study of the processes at work here will
enhance current debates about the literary canon by tracing its evolution and identifying the
factors which came to determine the visibility or obscurity of particular authors and texts.
The focus will be on a number of case studies but instead of isolating questions of gender
Gender Canon and Literary History will discuss the broader cultural context.
