Franz Grillparzer’s (1791-1872) heroines - Sappho, Medea and Libussa among them - have engaged and intrigued audiences and readers since the nineteenth century. In his study of Grillparzer’s works, Matthew McCarthy-Rechowicz examines these figures in the context of both Grillparzer’s wide-ranging intellectual interests - European and world history, social contract theory, and Kantian philosophy - and the numerous prominent women with whom Grillparzer was acquainted - the authors Caroline Pichler and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, the actor Sophie Schroeder, and the women’s rights activist Auguste von Littrow-Bischoff, to name but a few. In doing so, he illuminates the relationships between Grillparzer’s dramas and the burgeoning women’s rights movement in nineteenth-century Austria, and suggests new interpretations of these complex meditations on the role of women.

Matthew McCarthy-Rechowicz studied German and Polish at University College London, before completing his master’s and doctoral studies in German Literature at the University of Oxford.