Caroline von Wolzogen

Caroline von Wolzogen, born Caroline von Lengefeld (February 3, 1763, Rudolstadt – January 11, 1847, Jena), was a German writer in the Weimar Classicism circle. Her best-known works are a novel, Agnes von Lilien, and a biography of Friedrich Schiller, her brother-in-law.

Caroline von Lengefeld was the oldest child of an aristocratic family in Rudolstadt; she was raised and educated with a younger sister, Charlotte. Though her family belonged to the lower nobility, after her father died the financial situation was somewhat troubled. At 16, Caroline became engaged to Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig von Beulwitz (1755-1829), a prominent local courtier, through the arrangement of both families. Much of her long engagement was spent with her family in Switzerland, a trip paid for by von Beulwitz; they married shortly after Caroline's return in 1784. Lacking shared interests, the marriage was unhappy from the start.

Caroline's closest confidante in the early years of her marriage was her cousin Wilhelm von Wolzogen, who, in 1785, introduced her and her sister to his friend Schiller, then a young and rather poor Weimar poet. In 1788, Schiller moved to a nearby town to be closer to the Lengefelds, and both Caroline and her sister became closer to him. Caroline felt a strong attraction toward him, though how far she considered taking it has been disputed by scholars. Schiller became engaged to Charlotte in August, 1789, and credited Caroline for bringing them together. In the early 1790s, inspired by her friendship with Schiller and other literary figures in Weimar, Caroline began writing herself; her first substantial work was a dramatic fragment in classical form, Der leukadische Fels, in 1792.

Caroline von Beulwitz began writing her first novel, Agnes von Lilien, in 1793. The novel describes a young woman raised by a stepfather and growing up in isolation in the countryside, poor but educated in both classical and modern learning. A meeting with a much older and wealthier man, with whom she falls in love, begins a process of discovery of the world at large, including the politics and scandals of court life. Agnes eventually discovers that her own background, previously unknown to her, ties her closely to that world, which she eventually embraces. As one critic has said, despite its interest in female subjectivity, "Agnes von Lilien is less about the establishment of a new society than it is about the restoration of the old to new legitimacy."

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