Katharina Kippenberg Lecture 2026/II: Delf Lützen: Amalie von Imhoff. Weiblicher Klassizismus in Weimar um 1800

For a long time, Amalie von Imhoff (1776–1831) was dismissed as merely a “dilettante,” as she is described in the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller, and was either largely ignored by scholars or mentioned in a similarly derogatory manner. Despite this one-sided judgment, Imhoff was a highly respected author in her own time, known in particular for her classical works. Helmina von Chézy even referred to her as “the Greek muse herself,” and numerous other contemporaries described the author—who had studied Ancient Greek herself—as thoroughly “Greek.” This lecture aims to demonstrate how closely this contemporary perception was linked to the fact that Imhoff engaged deeply with antiquity in her writing. The focus will be on the complexity of her works, her sophisticated sense of form and composition, and the multifaceted interweaving of ancient and contemporary intertexts that define her works. In this way, Imhoff’s work—which has thus far been insufficiently researched—will be assigned a place in the literary history of Weimar Classicism around 1800.