Roses, Figs, and Gardens in Gertrud Kolmar’s and Ilse Langner’s Writings

Abstract

This chapter explores how some of Gertrud Kolmar’s and Ilse Langner’s writings could be treated as German nature writing. First, reading Kolmar’s cycle of sonnets on roses, the chapter focuses on the knowledge and experience of roses expressed in the poems and thus drives existing research on the poems’ metaphoricity. Langner’s unpublished diaries and notebooks have until now been a largely unexplored treasure. Second, the chapter then analyzes how Langner’s writings meticulously capture the development of her garden on the island of Ibiza. Looking at two distinct genres of writing, the chapter argues for an expansion of the canon of nature writing. Furthermore, it advances the argument that a reading of aspects of nature writing in a body of texts need not contradict different readings of the same body of texts. As the example of Kolmar’s poetry shows, such interpretative approaches may, when placed side by side, complement each other.

Translated by Annette Bühler-Dietrich, copy editing by Stefanie Ohnesorg.