Adele Schopenhauer
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Luise Adelaide Lavinia Schopenhauer, known as Adele Schopenhauer (12 July 1797 – 25 August 1849), was a German author. She was the sister of the philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
and daughter of author
Johanna Schopenhauer Johanna Schopenhauer (née Trosiener; 9 July 1766 – 17 April 1838) was mother of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. She was the first German woman to publish books without a pseudonym, an influential literary salon host, and in the 182 ...
. Henriette Sommer and Adrian van der Venne were pseudonyms used by her.


Life and work

Adele Schopenhauer was born in
Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...
to Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer, a businessman, and his wife Johanna. She grew up in
Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
under the influence of a circle of artists and scholars who gathered in the literary
salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...
run by her mother, but she received no formal education. She was highly gifted and engaged in literature and poetry. She not only wrote fairy tales, poems, and novels, but was also a talented papercut artist. Both her papercuts and her literary contributions have been recognized and appreciated, especially in the English-speaking world. She was sociable and likable, but her love interests were unrequited, and she never married.


Loss of assets in 1819

In May 1819, the Danzig banking house Muhl collapsed. Johanna and Adele Schopenhauer had deposited all the money they had inherited upon Heinrich Schopenhauer's death in 1805 in that bank, and thus lost a large part of their assets when the bank collapsed. Arthur Schopenhauer had wisely left only one-third of his assets in Muhl and was not willing to engage in a
settlement Settlement may refer to: *Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building * Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction *Settlement (fin ...
with Muhl. This incident led to a further deterioration of the relationship between the two women and Arthur, because they repeatedly sent him letters, in vain, asking him to approve the settlement. The further development of the lawsuit proved Arthur right. Mother and daughter settled on an agreement with a 70% loss and lost most of their wealth. Arthur, however, waited and refused to cash in his
promissory note A promissory note, sometimes referred to as a note payable, is a legal instrument (more particularly, a financing instrument and a debt instrument), in which one party (the ''maker'' or ''issuer'') promises in writing to pay a determinate sum of ...
s. Muhl, who was considered a shrewd tactician, tried till the end to get Arthur to agree to a settlement with the generous offer of a 70% asset return plus a flock of sheep. But when Muhl recovered financially and again became solvent, Arthur was able to get his entire money back some years later. A close friend of
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
's daughter-in-law
Ottilie Ottilie is a given name for women. The name is a French derivative of the medieval German masculine name Otto, and has the meaning "prosperous in battle", "riches", "prosperous" or "wealth". Popularity The name has increased in popularity in Engla ...
( de), Adele Schopenhauer often visited Goethe's house in Weimar. She was known to have called Goethe "father", and he praised her abilities. This loss of wealth was not without drastic consequences. Although Johanna could make some earnings through her writing career and Adele retained some residual assets because she was protected in part by her immaturity, the lifestyle of the Schopenhauer women in the 1820s was very different from that of earlier years. This is also apparent from a letter Adele wrote 17 years after the loss, in which she speaks of "false prosperity".


Move to Bonn

Due to the change of circumstances in Weimar and their unfavorable financial situation, the standing of the Schopenhauers in Weimar apparently dropped. Adele was able, in 1828, to persuade her mother Johanna to move to
Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
. They could not initially afford to live year-round in Bonn, so they temporarily moved to
Unkel Unkel is a town in the district of Neuwied, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, near Remagen, about 20 km southeast of Bonn. Unkel is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipali ...
, a cheaper city. In Bonn, Adele was a close friend of
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Baroness Anna Elisabeth Franziska Adolphine Wilhelmine Louise Maria von Droste zu Hülshoff, known as Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (; 10 January 179724 May 1848), was a 19th-century German poet, novelist, and composer of Classical music. She was ...
and of Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen. After her mother's death in 1838, Schopenhauer travelled a lot, mostly to Italy, until she finally returned to Bonn, seriously ill, where she died in 1849 and was buried on Goethe's 100th birthday. Her friend Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen made a touching
epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...
in Italian. Four days after Schopenhauer's funeral, Mertens-Schaaffhausen held a private memorial service, following a pattern from
classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
, in her garden on Wilhelmstraße. Adele Schopenhauer's grave is located in the old cemetery in Bonn.


Literary works

* ''Anna. Ein Roman aus der nächsten Vergangenheit'' 'Anna: A novel from the most recent past'' Parts 1–2. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1845. * ''Eine dänische Geschichte'' 'A Danish story'' Braunschweig: Westermann, 1848. * ''Gedichte und Scherenschnitte'' 'Poems and silhouettes'' 2 volumes. Edited by H. H. Houben and Hans Wahl. Leipzig: Klinkhardt, 1920. ** Volume 1: Poetry ** Volume 2: Papercuts * ''Haus-, Wald- und Feenmärchen'' 'Fairy tales of the home, the forest, and of fairies'' Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1844. * ''Tagebuch einer Einsamen'' 'Diary of a lonely one'' Edited, and with an introduction, by H. H. Houben. With silhouettes of the author and an appendix by Rahel E. Feilchenfeldt-Steiner; Munich: Matthes & Seits Verlag, 1985. * ''Florenz. Ein Reiseführer mit Anekdoten und Erzählungen'' 'Florence: A guide with anecdotes and stories'' 1847/48. Edited by Waltraud Maierhofer. Weimar: VDG, 2007. * ''Vom-Niederrhein'' 'From the lower Rhine'' Edited by Ulrich Bornemann. Calendar for the Kleverland for the year 2009. Kleve 2008, pages 99–117.


Papercut art

File:Adele Schopenhauer papercut 2.jpg File:Adele Schopenhauer papercut 5.jpg File:Adele Schopenhauer papercut 6.jpg File:Adele Schopenhauer papercut 7.jpg File:Adele Schopenhauer papercut 4.jpg File:Adele Schopenhauer papercut 3.jpg


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *


External links

* *
Full text of poems by Adele Schopenhauer
* Christa Bürger

("The erotomaniac who doesn't dare: The failed life of Adele Schopenhauer"), Transcript of segment aired on 9 June 2013 as part of the program ''Essay und Diskurs'' ("Essay and discourse") on
Deutschlandfunk Deutschlandfunk (DLF, ''Broadcast Germany'') is a public-broadcasting radio station in Germany, concentrating on news and current affairs. It is one of the four national radio channels produced by Deutschlandradio. History Broadcasting in the ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schopenhauer, Adele 1797 births 1849 deaths 19th-century German poets Arthur Schopenhauer 19th-century German women writers Writers from Hamburg Writers from Weimar Writers from Bonn 19th-century German novelists German women poets German women novelists 19th-century pseudonymous writers Pseudonymous women writers