Charlotte Sophia Juliana von Kalb (25 July 1761 – 12 May 1843) was a German writer who associated with poets

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

Friedrich Hölderlin Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (, ; ; 20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a Germans, German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of German Romanticis ...

and

Jean Paul Jean Paul (; born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, 21 March 1763 – 14 November 1825) was a German Romanticism, German Romantic writer, best known for his humorous novels and stories. Life and work Jean Paul was born at Wunsiedel, in the Ficht ...

Life

Charlotte Sophia Juliana, Baroness Marshal of Ostheim, was born in

Saal an der Saale Saal an der Saale is a municipality in the district of Rhön-Grabfeld in Bavaria in Germany. It is situated on the river Franconian Saale The Franconian Saale (, ) is a 140 km long river in Bavaria, Germany. It is a right-bank tributary ...

in 1761. She was characterized as neurotic in her youth.

Personal life

She married Major Heinrich Julius Alexander von Kalb on 25 October 1783. He was a veteran of France's involvement with the

American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

.Heinrich Julius Alexander von Kalb
waltershausen-grabfeld.de (in German), retrieved 17 March 2014 CharlotteVonKalbS127

Her marriage was an unhappy one as her husband was devoted to his career and they only spent their winters together. She employed

, then a young poet, as a tutor for her son. She was also associated with

. Kalb was more than just a socialite and was said to have been asked to pass on Goethe's ideas about the development of animals' skulls to Professor Johann Herder. The idea was that skulls developed from vertebrae, an idea that is now discredited. Friedrich Schiller had an affair with Kalb in the 1780s after they met in Mannheim in 1784. Schiller was two years older than she and they were together for a number of years; there was talk of Kalb divorcing and remarrying. Schiller is said to have based a number of his female characters on her. Eventually, Schiller convinced himself that they needed to separate, but he needed help from his family and friends to extricate himself. Schiller married in 1790."Friedrich Schiller"
''Encyclopædia Britannica'', retrieved 17 March 2014 In 1796, Charlotte von Kalb began a correspondence with another

German Romantic German Romanticism () was the dominant intellectual movement of German-speaking countries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, influencing philosophy, aesthetics, literature, and criticism. Compared to English Romanticism, the German var ...

writer,

. The primary interest was intellectual, but Jean Paul was flattered and arranged to travel to Weimar to meet her in person. Even then, their letters were initially cool, although Jean Paul was said to be "magnetic", and he admired not only Kalb's eyes but also "her soul". Her letters to Jean Paul were later published, containing their entreaties of love. Jean Paul was in two minds but he decided that she was "too titanic, too heroic". They did not marry, as Jean Paul might have indicated he hoped. In 1800, Kalb informally separated from her husband. His military career had ended, and his financial position was poor. In April 1806 he shot himself in Munich and died. Kalb died in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

in 1843, having published no books in her lifetime. In 1851, some years after her death, her book ''Cornelia'' was published, and in 1879, over thirty years after her death, an incomplete autobiography appeared titled ''Charlotte''.Charlotte von Kalb
retrieved 16 March 2014 During her lifetime, Kalb was judged unfavourably by other women, but she "fascinated nearly all the men she ever knew".

References

Bibliography

*Ursula Naumann: ''Charlotte von Kalb. Eine Lebensgeschichte (1761–1843)''. Metzler, Stuttgart 1985 *Klaus Herrmann: ''Der Abschied. Eine Erzählung um Schiller und Charlotte von Kalb''. Weimar 1955 *

Ida Boy-Ed Ida Boy-Ed (17 April 1852 – 13 May 1928) was a German writer. A supporter of women's issues, she wrote widely-read books and newspaper articles. Early years Ida Cornelia Ernestina Ed was born in Bergedorf in 1852 to a supportive family who ...

: ''Charlotte von Kalb. Eine psychologische Studie''. Jena 1912, Stuttgart 1920 *Johann Ludwig Klarmann: ''Geschichte der Familie von Kalb, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Charlotte von Kalb''. Erlangen 1902 *Ernst Köpke: ''Charlotte von Kalb und ihre Beziehungen zu Schiller und Göthe''. 1852 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kalb, Charlotte von 19th-century German women writers People from Rhön-Grabfeld 1761 births 1843 deaths 19th-century German writers German autobiographers German women autobiographers 18th-century German writers