Louise Aston (1814–1871)
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Wissenswertes
- Geburtstag
- 1814-11-26
- Todestag
- 1871-12-21
- Geschlecht
- female
- Nationalität
- Germany
- Geburtsort
- Groningen an der Bode, Germany
- Sterbeort
- Wangen im Allgau, Germany
- Wohnorte
- Berlin, Germany
Magdeburg, Germany
Bremen, Germany - Berufe
- feminist
revolutionary
political activist
writer
novelist
poet - Beziehungen
- Gottschall, Rudolf von (lover)
Corvin, Otto von (friend)
Stirner, Max (friend) - Kurzbiographie
- Louise or Luise Aston was born in Gröningen, Germany, a daughter of Johann Gottfried Hoche, a Protestant theologian and his wife, a disinherited aristocrat. At age 17, she made an arranged marriage to Samuel Aston, a wealthy industrialist of English descent. During their 13-year union, she was radicalized by contact with the workers in her husband's factories, and developed ideas on democracy and free love. She left her husband and moved with her daughter to Berlin to make a career as a writer and work for political and social change. In Berlin, she caused a scandal by smoking cigars and wearing men's clothing in public, and living with poet Rudolf Gottschall. She was watched by the secret police, and expelled from Berlin in 1846. That year, she published Wilde Rosen, her first collection of poetry, and her most overtly political work, Meine Emanzipation: Verweisung und Rechtfertigung, a leaflet printed in Brussels that called for a complete upheaval in the socio-political system. In 1848, she fought on the barricades of the revolution that was sweeping through Germany. She founded and managed to publish seven issues of a weekly newspaper, Der Freischärler, recognized today as the first newspaper of the German women's movement, before it was banned by the government. In 1850, she married Eduard Meier, a physician, and moved with him to Bremen. Harassed by the authorities, she and her husband went into foreign exile, moving among various European cities. She followed her husband when he went to serve as a doctor in the Crimean War. Eventually, they became exhausted from traveling and returned to Germany, where she lived incognito as Louise Meier. Among her other writings were three semi-autobiographical novels that promoted social and sexual equality and a book called Revolution und Contrerevolution (1849), a personal account of the failed revolution of the previous year interwoven with a fictional love story. Louise Aston was alone in her day in equating the role of women in a capitalist society with that of the working class, and calling for the rejection of all institutions of patriarchy. These ideas would later become the focus of radical feminists such as Shulamith Firestone.
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She was born Louise Hoche in 1814 and was married to Samuel Aston, a factory owner from England who lived in Germany (hence the English surname). It was not a happy marriage and they got a divorce. She moved to Berlin in 1844 where she was part of intellectual circles and literary clubs. Moreover, she wore men's clothes, smoked in the streets and did not go to church. The scandal!!!
Because of this behavior and the "bad influence" she was said to have on other women, she was banned from Berlin. After pleading and trying to persuade the authorities and even the King of Prussia to let her stay, she wrote a polemic that contained an explanation of her circumstances, her biography and how she was treated by Berlin's authorities. She shows how women were dealt with at the time and how little her options to lead the life she wished for were.
The book consists of this polemic ("Meine Emancipation") and also of 24 poems. Twelve of them were published in a book the same year she fought for her right to stay in Berlin, the other twelve were published in a magazine she edited during the German revolution of 1848. Both poetry collections contain poems on love (Aston's vision of free love that is not bound by marriage, conventions or force), poems on Germany's political situation (fighting for democracy and free speech) and poems on the situation of women. The one that touched me the most is written from a female weaver's point of view who is very poor, lost her father and her sweetheart, needs to take care of her sick mother and sister and fears for her salvation when her boss wants to give her a piece of gold for a three nights stay in his bed. It reminded me of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel "Ruth" and I can only admire Louise Aston's bravery and strength to publish a poem like that in the 1840s.
The poems are not the most beautiful to read and to me they have a sort of wooden and rigid feeling that many German classics have. But there are a few gems (including one dedicated to George Sand!) and their voice and relevance is so important.… (mehr)