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Artist for Art's Sake or Artist for Sale: Lulu's and Else's Failed Attempts at Aesthetic Self-Fashioning

Artist for Art's Sake or Artist for Sale: Lulu's and Else's Failed Attempts at Aesthetic... Abstract: Frank Wedekind's Lulu, of his plays Earth-Spirit (1895) and Pandora's Box (1904), and Arthur Schnitzler's Else, from the novella Fräulein Else (1924), are both examples of female performance artists given their construction of stylized and aestheticized selves. By comparing Lulu and Else, this essay reveals how women's performativity can either constitute a form of empowerment and self-affirmation or serve as a path toward commodification and consumability. Despite Lulu's and Else's initial attempts to achieve agency by fashioning themselves as artists or aesthetes, socioeconomic forces and the men who control them turn both women into aesthetic objects and salable commodities. (KC) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture University of Nebraska Press

Artist for Art's Sake or Artist for Sale: Lulu's and Else's Failed Attempts at Aesthetic Self-Fashioning

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Publisher
University of Nebraska Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 the Board of Regents.
ISSN
1940-512X
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract: Frank Wedekind's Lulu, of his plays Earth-Spirit (1895) and Pandora's Box (1904), and Arthur Schnitzler's Else, from the novella Fräulein Else (1924), are both examples of female performance artists given their construction of stylized and aestheticized selves. By comparing Lulu and Else, this essay reveals how women's performativity can either constitute a form of empowerment and self-affirmation or serve as a path toward commodification and consumability. Despite Lulu's and Else's initial attempts to achieve agency by fashioning themselves as artists or aesthetes, socioeconomic forces and the men who control them turn both women into aesthetic objects and salable commodities. (KC)

Journal

Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature & CultureUniversity of Nebraska Press

Published: Oct 13, 2006

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