A woman becomes poeta laureata

A disruptive event in the literary discourse of the early German Enlightenment; Christiana Mariana von Ziegler and Sidonia Hedwig Zäuneman

Abstract

The female poets Christiana Mariana von Ziegler and Sidonia Hedwig Zäunemann were crowned (in 1733 and 1738) with the laurel wreath for their famous poetic works. These honours were given by the universities of Wittenberg and Göttingen even though women were not admitted to universities at the time. Ziegler and Zäunemann wrote poetry of very high quality in the German language of the period. Both women tried to motivate other women to write poetry. In this paper we would like to present the literary discourse around the laureation of the two female poets and consider the disruptive potentials these events and the women themselves evoked.