Citation

Gallagher K. Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 2022; 96(3): 313-340.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022)

DOI

10.1007/s41245-022-00146-w

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Starting from the observation that women artists who die by suicide are an object of fascination in Western culture, this article posits the existence of a 'cultural myth of the suicidal authoress', which it examines via an analysis of three fictional representations of historical women writers who died by suicide or were suspected of having done so: Christa Wolf's novella Kein Ort. Nirgends, Werner Schroeter's film Malina - which is interpreted as a portrait of Ingeborg Bachmann - and Karin Struck's Ingeborg B.: Duell mit dem Spiegelbild. Drawing on the concept of the diva as developed by Elisabeth Bronfen and Barbara Straumann, it argues that the key to the cultural appeal of the figure of the suicidal women artist lies in what is perceived to be her unusual authenticity: her life and work are perceived to be one, and her suicide is interpreted as a guarantee of her authenticity as both a person and an artist. The article also explores possible reasons for the gendered nature of this myth and asks whether literary or filmic representations of suicidal women artists do an injustice to their subjects by identifying them so persistently with their deaths. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland, ein Teil von Springer Nature.

Language: en