Geselligkeit ed emancipazione femminile. Carl Wilhelm Frölich, Henriette Frölich e un esempio di Briefroman utopico: Virginia oder die Kolonie von Kentucky

This contribution presents some pivotal aspects of the late-Enlightenment debate on women’s education and their intellectual formation. It focuses, in particular, on the intellectual laboratory of Jena’s Early Romanticism pointing out the direct and indirect collaboration between men and women, as highlighted through the dialogical structure of their works, the technique of the open letter which Friedrich Schlegel addresses to his wife, as well as other forms of participation in the joint project of the literary journal Athenaeum. A quick flash-back concentrates on a model of successful cultural interaction as exemplified by the couple formed by Carl Wilhelm and Henriette Frölich. The ideological cornerstones of Carl Wilhelm’s treaty Über den Menschen und seine Verhältnisse (1792), which insists on human rights and is informed by utopian socialism, thus promoting the emancipation of the weakest, such as women, provide the ground for a fascinating epistolary novel that was published by Henriette Frölich with the date 1820 and title Virginia oder die Kolonie von Kentucky. In this novel, the woman has a central role and, above all, becomes the economic and cultural promoter of a model of society that integrates anyone who wishes to be part of it.