Alkemade, Mechtildis. Die Leben- und Weltanschauung der
Freifrau Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (Graz: Druckerei- und
Verlagsanstalt Heinrich Stiasny's Soöhne, 1935).
Kubelka, Margarete. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach: Portrait
einer Dichterin (Bonn: Bund der Vertriebenen, 1980).
JGC revised this file
(http://www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/dh/ebner.htm) on October 13, 2004.
Please E-mail comments or suggestions to chastain@www.ohiou.edu
© 1997, 2004 James Chastain.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) Austria's premiere
woman author was born Countess Dubsky at Zdislawitz Castle nea
r
Kremsier in Moravia. Much to the disapproval of her family, she
began writing in her childhood. This was considered an unseemly
activity for a noblewoman. When Ebner-Eschenbach was seventeen
her stepmother sent her verses to the well-known Austrian writer
Franz Grillparzer for an appraisal of her talent, hoping for a
negative assessment. Instead, Grillparzer wrote back
complimenting the girl's "power of expression" and "talent for
precise judgment." Heartened by these words from a literary
figure she admired and respected, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
settled on her career, no longer so hindered by family censure.
The milieu of her best known works, the stories and novels, was
provincial Moravia during the pre-March period and the urban life
of the petit bourgeoisie and noble classes in Vienna. She
carefully examined the daily routine of the "little man and
woman." The plots are often based on the author's memories of
her youth and provide a sharp, but humane insight into castle and
village relationships in the Biedermeier period. As
the descendent of Saxon and Czech ancestors, first learning the
Czech and French languages, then German, she typified the multi-nationality of the Hapsburg Empire in the first half of the
nineteenth century. The story collection, Dorf- und
Schlossgeschichten (1883), included tales of provincial
Moravia. From a Czech nursemaid, she had learned the legends
and folklore of the area. A story from this collection, "Jacob
Szela," sympathetically described the oppressed peasantry of
neighboring Galicia and the revolt of 1846. Ebner-Eschenbach
had studied the background of the uprising for a year before
writing the story. She concluded that her own noble class was
at fault for the unspeakable poverty of the peasant farmers.
Stories like
Maria Wagner
Bibliography