Caroline von Günderrode was born in Karlsruhe on 11 February 1780. The oldest of the six children of Hector and Louise von Drachstädt von Günderrode, she spent her early years in Hanau. After her father's death she was sent in 1797 to Frankfurt am Main, to the Cronstetter-Hynspergische Stift for unmarried gentlewomen, where the house rules were altered to permit her entry as a woman younger than thirty years of age. Although the institution was not restrictive, Günderrode felt isolated and suffered under the limitations imposed on women at that time: she yearned for more education, more freedom of movement, more opportunity to associate with individuals who had interests similar to hers. On 11 August 1801 she wrote to her friend Gunda Brentano that she perceived her ignorance as the most intolerable contradiction in her life: possessing an inquisitive mind without the opportunity to satisfy...