Beauty or Beast? The Woman Warrior in the German Imagination from the Renaissance to the Present

A regiment of women warriors strides across the battlefield of German culture - on the stage, in the opera house, on the page, and in paintings and prints. These warriors are re-imaginings by men of figures such as the Amazons, the Valkyries, and the biblical killer Judith. They are transgressive and therefore frightening figures who leave their proper female sphere and have to be made safe by being killed, deflowered, or both. This has produced some compelling works of Western culture: Cranach's and Klimt's paintings of Judith, Schiller's Joan of Arc, Hebbel's Judith, Wagner's Brunnhilde, Fritz Lang's Brunhild. This volume analyzes these German representations of warrior women, and argues that they convey male desires and male fears.