Sophie Albrecht

Life

Sophie Albrecht was born to the Baumer family. Her father was a Professor of Medicine at University of Erfurt until he died when Sophie was 14. At age 15 she married Dr. Johann Friedrich Ernest Albrecht, who was one of her father's students. In 1776, Friedrich and Sophie traveled to Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia) where Friedrich was the personal physician of Count Manteuffel. There Friedrich edited a literary anthology which included Sophie's first published poems. The Albrechts returned to Erfurt in 1781 due to Sophie's mother's failing health. Her mother died the next year. In Erfurt at age 25, Sophie published her first book of poetry and started acting.

Actress

Albrecht's first performance as an actress was in an amateur production of Weisse's Romeo and Juliet with great success in her hometown of Erfurt. Her debut as a professional actress happened in 1782 with the Grossmann troupe. The troupe did performances in Frankfurt and Mainz. A year later she met Friedrich Schiller and played Luise Miller in his first performance of Kabale und Liebe. Sophie Albrecht and Friedrich Schiller had similar interests and became close friends.

In 1786 Albrecht joined the Bondini troupe at Dresden Court Theater but traveled to Leipzig in 1787 to act in Schiller's Liepzig premier of Don Carlos. Albrecht played Princess Eboli. The following year Albrecht traveled to a small court theater in Schwerin. Albrecht's performance in Schwerin often consisted of acting like a naive girl. Later she traveled to Prague and Mannheim and eventually Hamburg to be a guest performer at the Theater am Gänsemarkt (Theater of the Goose Market).

In 1796, Albrecht and her husband, now a popular playwright, managed the national theater in Altona. Sophie commemorated the event with her Antrittsrede bei Eröffnunng des Nationaltheaters (Welcoming Address at the Opening of the National) on the 1st of September, 1796. A year later Albrecht quit national theater and was divorced from Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht.

Poetry

In Reval, Albrecht's poems were first published in a literary anthology edited by her husband. Although Sophie never did find popularity with the opposite gender and their literary establishments, she did have a strong network of women which she relied on to write about female relations. Her works drew attention to the importance of female friends in her life. Sophie dedicated her first two volumes of poetry (1781; 1785) to women friends. She wrote a love poem for fellow actress, Catharina Felicitas Abt, whom Albrecht never met and who had recently died. The poem was entitled An dem Grabe der Madame Abt in Göttingen den 19ten August 1784 (At the grave of the Madame Abbot in Göttingen the 19th of August 1784).

Sophie Albrecht wrote about love but not in its tranquility. Ruth P. Dawson describes Sophie saying, "Sophie Albrecht glorified love but could find no way to embed it in positive social narratives, connecting it instead directly and indirectly with death, and particularly, suicide". Her work is often described as melancholy with sorrow or regret as underlying themes. Another analysis of Sophie Albrecht's works by Mary Helen Dupree explains: "she channels her experience of loss and death into opportunities for self-exploration, resistance to social norms, and artistic productivity." However, by 1792 Sophie Albrecht had stopped writing poetry.

Prose

Later in life Sophie a wrote Gothic horror novel about ghosts and mystery. Albrecht's novel, Das höfliche Gespenst (The polite ghost), was published on three separate occasions under three different names — Legenden (Legends) (1797), Das höfliche Gespenst (The Polite Ghost), and Ida von Duba, das Mädchen im Walde; eine romantische Geschichte aus den grauenvollen Tagen der Vorwelt (Ida von Duba, the Girl in the Forest; a Romantic Story from the Dreadful Days of the Past) (1805). The Polite Ghost told a story about what happens after the war ends and the hero is dead, leaving behind a widow, who is haunted by a ghost. The nature of the relationship between the two characters — Ida and Katharine — has led many to believe the text is in part about same-sex attraction.

In 1808, Albrecht published Romantische Dichtungen aus der ältern christ lichen Kirche (Romantic Literature from the Early Christian Church) unlike The Polite Ghost it did not display Gothic themes.

Later Life

Albrecht used writing as a source of income after her divorce, although her ex-husband did help sustain her until his death from typhus in 1814. She spent the next quarter century in poverty and at the age of 80 had begun writing cookbooks to earn money. Sophie Albrecht died at the age of 82. In 1841 a friend published a collection of Albrecht's poems to pay for a gravestone.

Sophie Albrecht was the first eighteenth century German women poet to have her works published during her lifetime.

Selected works

From An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers