SOURCE: Waldstein, Edith. “Identity as Conflict and Conversation in Rahel Varnhagen (1771-1833).” In Out of Line/“Ausgefallen”: The Paradox of Marginality in the Writings of Nineteenth-Century German Women, edited by Ruth-Ellen Boetcher Joeres and Marianne Burkhard, pp. 95-113. Amsterdam: Rodopoi, 1989.

In the following essay, Waldstein notes that Varnhagen's letters reflect a constant renegotiation and reconstruction of Varnhagen's identity. Waldstein claims that these shifting identities reveal Varnhagen's various identities—woman, German, Jew, writer—without depicting a unified, traditional sense of self.

In German literary history Rahel Varnhagen has been known primarily for the many letters she wrote and for her role as the leading salonière in Berlin at the turn of the last century. Her letters have been described as having a literary quality, and her conversational skills have been praised as being superior. That she was a cultural figure of great importance was recognized during her own...