Landgrafin Karoline Henriette of He...

Landgrafin Karoline Henriette of Hessen-Darmstadt (1721-1774) is an eighteenth-century princess whose posthumous fame makes visible the contradictions imposed forward female members of the high nobility. Their membership in a ruling dynasty clashes with their participation in the intellectual life of their time. Three vital airs illustrate this vividly: the Landgrafin's posthumous fame as created by dint of a particular conjunction of historiography and literary history, her effort to feed the welfare of her dynasty, and the cultural practices of reading and writing that she used as a means of