[In the following essay, John examines the role of cross-dressing in Egmont, asserting that it is “not always a matter of gender crossing, but can be a political transfer even within one sex.”]

In her stimulating collection of essays, Outing Goethe and His Age, Alice A. Kuzniar includes a contribution by W. Daniel Wilson, “Amazon, Agitator, Allegory: Political and Gender Cross(-Dress)ing in Goethe's Egmont.” This provocative treatment of the play reinterprets all of its major figures and concludes generally that the two principal females, Margarete and Klärchen, have been undervalued and misunderstood by critics, and that some of the males have received undeservedly positive interpretations. Wilson's discovery of so many fascinating instances of cross-dressing and gender-bending among the main characters provides convincing evidence for his argument that “all the cross-dressers in the play hope to partake in the power represented by the opposite pole” (144), that is, the social and political power held by the other national group or sex, especially the political power traditionally held by males. For example, Wilson sees the famous scene in which Egmont dresses “in Spanish garb” for Klärchen as a masquerade, a signal of Egmont's divided loyalties between his own people and their oppressors (143).¹ Cross-dressing is thus not always a matter of gender crossing, but can be a political transfer even within one sex. Still, the pattern of gender crossing is mostly related by Wilson to sexuality, including Goethe's own inclination to homoeroticism and cross-dressing itself, both in his life and writings.² Wilson demonstrates Klärchen's femininity in her relationship to Egmont, but her masculinity in the final act as she attempts to take control of the political situation. Egmont's essential passivity, by contrast, is feminine in nature, despite his role as folk hero and political leader (141), and this passivity is combined with homoerotic suggestions in his relationship with Ferdinand (137f.). In terms of gender roles, Wilson concludes that Egmont's “performance [of gender] is unconvincing; he merely reveals the performativity of this masculinity” (145). This insightful comment leads me to explore the very notion of performance with a focus on Margarete von Parma.

One of Wilson's provocative contributions is his discussion of Margarete's apparently ambivalent sexuality, as evidenced by her “manly dress” (130), though she is “only partly cross-dressed” (131). He recalls Goethe's principal historical source, Famianus Strada's De Bello Belgico (1578) and the essentially negative characterization of her there (130 and 260, n. 9), which left her for Goethe and others as some sort of “Mannweib or virago, not androgynous but simply an abomination of nature” (128), taking this further to demonstrate that “Goethe reverses Strada's poles by presenting Margarete as a cross-dressed woman, not a cross-dressed man, and by marking her Mannweib characteristics as Egmont's invention” (130). Wilson argues that this results from Egmont's sexual ambivalence toward her, his dismissal of her as masculine, yet his suppressed subconscious erotic attraction to her at the same time, part of which is an attraction to her masculinity (132f.). Thereby, Wilson rescues Margarete from her freakish role in Strada, winning her a position of dignity, while at the same time lowering the title figure from his masculine pedestal.

To some extent, Wilson links his arguments about Egmont to the sociological fabric of Goethe's age (127), but his study is based primarily on Goethe's text, so much so that it is important to him as a conscientious philologist to determine “the authentic text” of the play (259, n. 5). This he sees as the manuscript version which has been reproduced among modern editions only in the Akademie- and Münchner-Ausgaben. The Weimar edition includes Herder's emendations which, Wilson points out, were not in fact authorized by Goethe (though it might be argued that a tacit authorization took place). Although Wilson's attention to the detail of critical textual history is admirable, it does raise a distinction of crucial importance for what follows now. It would amount to petty scholarly squabbling to dispute his choice of the Akademie- or Münchner-Ausgabe versions, for the manuscript and publication history of the text of Goethe's Egmont are so unusually clear and straightforward that there are very few differences among the printed texts of the major editions anyway. However, focusing our attention on Wilson's idea of authentic text raises two questions which must be answered. First, should modern scholars be interested foremost in interpreting a dramatic text, or rather a dramatic work? And what are the consequences if the text upon which we base our observations is a single “authentic” one, as Wilson defines it?

Wilson refers to Friedrich Schiller's version of Egmont, first performed on the Weimar stage with August Wilhelm Iffland in the lead role in 1796, noting that it “entirely deleted Margarete!” (260, n. 15), but commenting no further. We might question the importance of Margarete at all if in fact she was absent from the premiere on Goethe's own stage, after he himself had invited Schiller to rewrite the play?³ We need not stop here, for it is well known that in his version Schiller allowed extensive further manipulation of Goethe's authentic text and even added a few new scenes.⁴ Some would claim that Schiller's version should be considered only as an adaptation, but we could make a similar argument about Egmont productions that claimed loyalty to Goethe's text as well.

Since the object of discussion in this case is a sexually ambivalent character, we are involved in far more than an academic debate about the authority of texts. The adaptation and performance of Egmont and Parma occupy a classically Foucauldian queer space. In his History of Sexuality Foucault points out that sexuality is inevitably linked to power and politics (6), and that the relationship between sex and power is characterized by repression (8), especially in ages and societies with a strong bourgeosie. Foucault's “repressive hypothesis” well suits late eighteenth-century Germany when sex became a police matter and the policing and regulation of sex part of the public discourse (24f.). Foucault's discussion includes so-called perversions and their definition, and, within these, hermaphrodites who were categorized as criminals “since their very anatomical disposition, their very being, confounded the law that distinguished the sexes and prescribed their union” (38). Julia Epstein's study of sexual ambiguity shows the intensity of medical research on the anatomical nature of hermaphrodites throughout Europe from as early as the sixteenth century, and among the many treatises she cites are some from German presses, such as Casparus Bauhinus's De Hermaphroditorum monstrosorumque and Georg Arnaud's Anatomisch-Chirurgische Abhandlung über die Hermaphroditen, both with striking illustrations (110-11).

Foucault's theories have laid the groundwork for many scholarly investigations of sex and gender since, for example Judith Butler's discussion from a feminist point of view of the hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin, whose journals Foucault edited and published (Gender Trouble 95-106); and the contributions of Steven Seidman, Lauren Berlant, and Elizabeth Freeman to Michael Warner's Fear of a Queer Planet, both relevant for our contemporary debate about gay culture. Seidman considers it a fundamental problem that “Much of current lesbian and gay studies remains wedded to a standard Enlightenment scientific self-understanding that … is inconsistent with its social constructionist premises. Gay identity politics moves back and forth between a narrow single-interest-group politic and a view of coalition politics as the sum of separate identity communities, each locked into its own sexual, gender, class, or racial politic” (105). In contrast, he advocates escape from this unproductive compartmentalization and the social empowerment of gender categories. He frames his argument still, in part, in Foucauldian terms, but goes further to recommend the viewing of “identity as a site of ongoing social regulation and contestation rather than a quasi-natural substance or an accomplished social fact,” and argues that such identities “are not only self-limiting and productive of hierarchies but are enabling or productive of social collectivities, moral bonds, and political agency” (134). Berlant and Freeman discuss the concept of nationality in queer terms, taking as their starting point a scene at the end of Sandra Bernhard's Without You I'm Nothing in which the diva wraps herself in the U.S. flag (193). There follow many examples in which activists have used the American flag to cover or expose their bodies, creating images that explore gender and queerness within the framework of nationalism and patriotism. They make explicit “how thoroughly the local experience of the body is framed by laws, policies, and social customs regulating sexuality” (195).

Although it is a long way in time and place from modern America to the Netherlands of the sixteenth-century, or eighteenth-century Weimar, the issues of nationalism and patriotism are fundamental to the action of Egmont, except that the overt connection to gender was then repressed. Was Parma's sexual ambivalence intended by Goethe to contribute to the contemporary discussion of sexuality? Foucault cites as one of the many fora for public discourse of sex at the end of the eighteenth century a festival organized in 1776 (when Goethe was writing Egmont) by the philanthropist Johann Bernhard Basedow (1723-90). Foucault claims that Goethe was one of the many dignitaries invited, and one of the few to decline (29).⁵ As we proceed now to discuss adaptations of Egmont, both the authority of the text and the consequences within the context of the history of sexuality should be kept in mind.

Before the Weimar production of 1796, Goethe's Egmont played briefly in the Nationaltheater in Mainz, in Frankfurt, and in Weimar (before Goethe's directorship). This review was among the first following the Mainz premiere of January 9, 1789: “Recently there was a production of Goethe's Egmont with some changes. Naturally, the vision scene with Klärchen had to be deleted. The play has been reprinted here at a good price and consequently was in the hands of everyone in the audience. They read along, but were dissatisfied that much had been changed, especially that the scene just mentioned had been omitted.”⁶ Obviously, Goethe's authentic text (the critic must have been referring to the Göschen edition of 1788, or a pirated copy, which is the same as the manuscript printed in the Akademie- and Münchner-Ausgaben) was not respected closely even for the play's premiere. Audience dismay, in fact, seems to have resulted, as if their lexical umbilical cords had been severed. Clearly the actors and their director, Siegfried Gotthelf Eckhardt (1754-1831; pseud. Koch), were unwilling to depend entirely on Goethe's text for artistic sustenance. A second reviewer commented:

At today's performance so much was lost because of the mutilation of the original play. Many a play may be too long or have superfluous scenes or characters, which could be deleted without disturbing the whole. Other plays have perhaps moments of genius, isolated portions that may offend, which must be omitted for the sake of the general public … But one cannot ascribe either of these to Goethe's Egmont … so I don't comprehend why one could adapt Egmont so mercilessly here, so that most of the parts that speak of pangs of conscience and the new way of thinking, which are so closely connected to the depiction of Egmont's character, and which direct the action and motivate the catastrophe could be deleted, and the wonderful monologues mangled as well.

(Dramaturgische Blätter 2.1, 8. St., 123-25)

The changes to Goethe's text were extensive, a general slashing, including what the critic considered key monologues for character depiction and development. Such mutilation was in fact perfectly common at that time, and things have not changed much since. From the beginning, producers, directors, and actors never respected the sanctity of Goethe's authentic text, and indeed were simply following the pattern of their age. The director and actors in Mainz were using as a basis for their production what should rightly be called a performance text, that is, an adaptation, and this is always the case to some degree for performed dramatic works. Many such manuscripts of performance texts from Goethe's age and beyond are extant today and can provide us with insights into their production, reception and significance. An outstanding example of such a performance text in the present context is that of Schiller's 1796 adaptation of Egmont in the theater collection of the Reiss-Museum, Mannheim.

At times, Wilson provides the lead for critics to go in a direction other than his own text-based argument. We saw above his remarks on Egmont's unconvincing “performance” of his own gender. He also alludes to gestures and pantomime (129), an acknowledgement of the actor's role in character depiction. A comment like “the Margarete whom we see on the stage” (129-30) recognizes the split between stage character and actor persona. We may go further to enquire about her costume, make-up, and bearing, for in matters of performance, these visual elements are obviously important. Strada characterizes Margarete as “a man in women's clothing” (Wagener 47), but the only reference to her costume in Goethe's text itself is at the beginning of the first of two scenes in which she appears in conversation with Machiavell: “Margaret of Parma in hunting costume” (act 1; Passage 299). Her second appearance likely involved a change of costume, but there is no indication in the text (act 3). Wilson refers to a contemporary description of an “Amazon dress” when discussing Parma, claiming that such fashion was suppressed after about 1789: “A prerevolutionary encyclopedia defines women's ‘Amazon dress’ (Amazonenkleid) as ‘women's clothing, which is half masculine, namely on the upper half of the body. A kind of men's vest with sleeves, worn over a customary women's skirt, usually buttoned up, but sometimes open and flowing’; it is green and is worn not with a bonnet, but with a man's hat, gallooned with feathers” (264, n. 35). The encyclopedia Wilson cites includes no picture of the dress, but includes this additional information: “The name has its origin in the Amazons, just described, who in fact wore an entirely different costume. They left the right side of their upper body naked to below the breast, covering the rest with a short garment reaching down to the knee.” (Deutsche Encyclopädie I: 416).⁷

This additional information leads to an entirely different dimension: the mythological, classical figure, which cannot be separated from the eighteenth-century version. Their juxtaposition demonstrates first that the eighteenth-century notion of such clothing was far removed from its source; it was a contemporary fashion, a costume. Two of its distinctively ‘manly’ parts, the vest and hat, had nothing to do with the original Amazon dress of classical mythology, but the green color, which alluded to hunting, can be seen as connected, the original Amazons being associated with the hunt. Other encyclopedias of Goethe's age describe this fashion as a broad European phenomenon with only a slight connection to the original. Having largely traced the classical model, they conclude their entries with a note on “Amazonian habit … a dress formed in imitation of the Amazons … Some also apply Amazonian habit to the hunting dress worn by ladies among us.”⁸ In contrast, the Amazons of Greek mythology wore the type of tunic described above, with left breast exposed (most accounts claim that the right breast had been sliced or seared off to facilitate shooting arrows with a bow and increase strength). They were known for their bellicosity and depicted usually with weapons (bow and arrows, axe, sword), often in a hunting or battle stance and on horseback. Many detailed studies of their origin and nature exist, and most modern encyclopaedias contain a picture along with an overview of their heritage.⁹

Did Margarete von Parma actually wear a costume alluding to either the original Amazons or the eighteenth-century Amazon dress on stage? As far as individual productions are concerned, we must look for hints of costuming in reviews and contemporary accounts. The over one hundred and fifty reviews of Egmont I have consulted contain extremely few references to costume at all, scarcely any in detail.¹⁰ Moreover, in the vast majority of these productions, Margarete von Parma had usually been deleted from the script, until about 1825 when she reemerged with some regularity. In these instances, however, there is no reference to her appearance, and the descriptions of her character are uniformly positive: “a clever duchess” (Frankfurt performance of November 20, 1825); “The duchess is portrayed masterfully, strictly religious, even ecclesiastically minded, with good intentions and politically experienced, but nevertheless a woman” (Frankfurt performance of April 7, 1827); “Miss Thum, a powerful figure, played Margarethe with considerable dignity” (Kassel performance of June 1, 1830).¹¹ If indeed she appeared in a costume alluding to Amazons in any of these productions, it did not attract the attention of reviewers, unless perhaps they felt such observations indiscrete and veiled them with double-edged compliments like “politically experienced, but nevertheless a woman”!

We might speculate whether Margarete's reemergence was in fact a queer strategy of contemporary producers and directors, or whether she is better contained by hegemonic perspectives on and off the stage. After all, she was not the only Amazon figure on stage at the time. Inge Stephan has analyzed Schiller's Maid of Orléans and Kleist's Penthesilea as Amazon figures within the context of German philosophy of sexuality in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She demonstrates that Gottsched's, Schiller's, Wilhelm von Humboldt's, Fichte's, and Hegel's positions on women were essentially all variants supporting the patriarchal structure (23-32), in contrast to the argument for equal rights championed by Olympe de Gouges in France and the legion of feminist activists she inspired (27-28), those women whom Parma resembled in attire. Stephan argues that Schiller's treatment flies in the face of his expressed support of the French Revolution and attraction to the Maid of Orléans as a revolutionary figure (34-36). However, she interprets Kleist's Penthesilea differently, emphasizing the contemporary impact of this character's sexual ambivalence and its meaning for the author:

Fascination and terror are the dominant reactions to this text—in a letter Kleist reported the dismay and emotion released when the play was first read to his friends. Kleist himself was fascinated by the figure of Penthesilea. In her he worked through his ambivalent feelings toward his sister Ulrike and his vacillation between dominance and surrender, which typified his relationship to men and women. Penthesilea is an ideal, but also a figure of terror, a self-image, as is Achilles, who in his submissive behavior gives rein to feelings forbidden to men at the time.

(40)

Goethe's Parma was perhaps another figure to elicit such feelings and provide an opportunity to explore queerness in a climate of repression.

Beyond the reviews, contemporary pictures are a further source for determining how characters looked on stage. Drawings, etchings, and paintings of stage characters were common, with the literary and dramatic fame of Egmont resulting in at least two substantial series of prints. The first series appeared in Urania. Taschenbuch für Damen auf das Jahr 1815, which included prints from three of Goethe's plays, Faust, Egmont, and Tasso. The three Egmont scenes are “Egmont and Klärchen” from act 3 (Egmont revealing his Spanish attire), “Egmont and Klärchen” again in act 3 (Klärchen at Egmont's knee), and from act 5 “Egmont in prison” (the vision scene with Klärchen hovering above the sleeping protagonist). The Urania pictures of 1815 contained none of Margarete, perhaps a reflection of the fact that her role was almost always omitted from Egmont productions until the mid 1820s or the fact that Urania was specifically designated as a Taschenbuch für Damen—enough reason to ban her presence there. The second series appeared in Minerva. Taschenbuch für das Jahr 1825, the seventeenth annual of this well-established journal of politics and social intercourse.¹² Included are eight prints: from 1,1 Bürgerszene; 1,2 Margarete von Parma; 2,2 Egmont/Oranien; 3,2 Egmont; 4,1 Vansen; 4,2 Alba; 5,1 Klärchen; and the last scene of act 5, the vision. Of primary interest to us is the picture of Margarete reproduced in figure 1; its caption reads: “O what are we great ones on the wave of humanity?” (WA I, 8: 184; Passage 300). It is clear that Margarete's attire approximates the “Amazon dress” cited by Wilson and described in the Deutsche Encyclopädie, including the flowing skirts, the tight bodice or vest, and the plumed hat. Margarete also holds a stick, perhaps a riding crop, and we note the hunting dog at her knee, being dragged reluctantly from her presence. Wilson's claim that the Amazon dress was suppressed from about the time of the French Revolution would have to make room for this 1825 exception.

When looking at Margarete here with hunting dog at her knee, one cannot avoid thinking of its compositional similarity to the famous, frequently depicted scene of Egmont with Klärchen at his knee, which appeared as the frontispiece to the first edition in 1788 and is so distinctively associated with this play that ubiquitous modern Reclam reprints since 1993 carry a reproduction of it on their cover (Reclams Universal-Bibliothek 75). The contrast jars between the intimate scene of a lover and his lady, pressing herself to Egmont's heart in a suitably feminine dress with curves and ample bosom, and the stateswoman in “Amazonenkleid” whose hunting dog is dragged off by servants, with soldiers on guard. The ‘normality’ of one relationship stands in stark contrast to the bizarre partnership depicted in the other, so that Margarete is isolated further from the mainstream of society.

How have modern actors, directors, and producers of Egmont depicted Margarete von Parma? Egmont has been produced on German-speaking stages in the Federal and former Democratic Republic, in Austria, and in Switzerland at least twenty-four times since 1970.¹³ It is impossible to discuss all of these within terms of the present essay, but three examples—two productions from the former GDR (Potsdam, 1971; Weimar, 1979) and one from the FRG before the fall of the wall (Karlsruhe, 1980)—are of particular interest. Among the twenty-one others, a number excluded the character of Parma altogether, one of these was the 1990 production on Salzburg's Elisabethbühne, the only one of the twenty-four directed by a woman (Renate Rustler-Ourth). Others depicted Parma in visual terms simply as a regal female, with no Amazon or masculine suggestions, and none of them portrayed Parma along the lines of her mythological ancestors, that is, with one breast displayed—surely a unique opportunity lost by modern directors inclined to show semi-nudity.

The 1971 Potsdam production in the Hans-Otto Theater (director Peter Kupke) claimed in its program to be the “stage adaptation by Friedrich Schiller, arranged for the Potsdam theater by Karl Mickel … dramaturge Irmgard Mickisch.”¹⁴ Yet contrary to Schiller's version, the Parma scenes were included, rewritten by Karl Mickel. Evidently, despite his affinity to Schiller's version, the director felt them necessary. As they were performed in Potsdam, the two scenes were similar to Goethe's originals, but in the first, Goethe's text begins: “Margaret von Parma in hunting costume. Members of the court. Pages, Servants. Parma. You are not hunting today, nor shall I hunt …” (WA I, 8: 183). Clearly, a hunting costume is called for at this point; the Potsdam version begins the same way: “Margarete von Parma, in hunting costume.” But soon after his entrance, Machiavell is joined by Egmont's servant Richard, a diversion from the source, and then comes this exchange:

Parma. Today we shall go hunting, it's always worthwhile.

(Richard gives Parma a letter)

Richard. (to Machiavell) An urgent message. It informs our most gracious regent that the Prince of Orange has departed to his German territories, without leave or farewell, by night, with a small entourage. How will she react?

Machiavell. She has given herself over to a man's passion, hunting, and Nature has avenged herself of this transgression through a male affliction, gout. People will delay, and avoid confronting her with difficult questions about matters of state, explaining that pleasure must be sacrificed in the state's interest. At the same time they will make it clear that she is sick, and feign that they are protecting state interests by having us believe that the sickness is genuine and of no concern (Parma doubles up in pain).

(Potsdam performance text 26)

The mixed scene including Richard is new, as are Machiavell's words, “She has given herself over to a man's passion, hunting, and Nature has avenged herself of this transgression through a male affliction, gout.” In Goethe, a similar passage occurs in the final scene of act 2 between Klärchen and Egmont, when he says of Parma: “She also has whiskers on her upper lip, and sometimes she gets a twinge of the gout. A regular amazon!” (WA I, 8: 242; Passage 337). This, of course, is cited and commented on by Wilson (128), but the Potsdam version changes the emphasis of the original considerably. Parma's inclination to the ‘manly’ art of hunting, in both versions cited as the direct cause of her gout, is labeled in the Potsdam production as nature's revenge for her ‘transgression’, and its consequences are severe: “Parma doubles up in pain.” I understand this to indicate genuine physical pain, for exactly the same gesture of agony is repeated at the end of the scene, after Machiavell has left (29), when Parma is alone on stage. Parma is made to pay for her ‘transgression’ of nature, so much so that her second scene is played in a sickbed with the introductory stage direction “Parma in bed. Lady in waiting. Medical attendants. Machiavell.” This new scene consists mainly of an interview between Parma and Alba, another change to Goethe's original. Here, Parma surrenders all authority to him, and immediately thereafter, “Doubles up in pain, rings for attendant” and is assisted by the “Lady in waiting. Medical attendants. Machiavell” (58).

Photographs of the Potsdam production show Parma in the first scene in a unisexual suit suggestive of the late Dutch Renaissance with its black hat and large white collar, trousers, tunic, long black boots identical to the leading male's in the play, and short hair which further de-emphasizes her femininity. The second Parma scene in her sickbed shows her in a white nightdress, appropriate for either a woman or a man in that age. Parma is desexed in this production. She has moved from femininity to neutrality, and by crossing the line toward masculinity is punished by the loss of her health and power. The physical penalty imposed for her Grenzüberschreitung (crossing the boundary) of nature then has a direct impact on the dramatic development as she surrenders her authority to Alba.

Similar elements can be seen in the 1979 Weimar Nationaltheater production directed by Fritz Bennewitz.¹⁵ Although based on Goethe's version, including every scene and the two Parma appearances, the dialogue was severely cut throughout, so what remained gains in importance. Egmont's description to Klärchen of Parma's masculine features, quoted above (“She also has whiskers on her upper lip”) is not deleted here, and the inclusion reinforces the nature of Parma's appearance: “de Reese [actor playing Parma] moves with two mastiffs left rear. (Pause) slow advance forward right” (Weimar performance text 13). The photographs of this scene make the image even clearer. Parma holds two powerful mastiffs on short leather leashes at her side (similar to the servant in the Minerva picture). Props, sets, and costumes were minimal, so these creatures are far more than trivial accessories. They are usually associated with men and aggression, they are stage-front signifiers of masculine strength. Parma is dressed in a long green velvet coat with gloves, wears a cap with protruding feather, her hair covered, all feminine features concealed. These elements recall the Amazon's dress in Minerva and along with Egmont's description to Klärchen demonstrate this production's desire to typify Parma once again as a masculine being. The Weimar production also included a live horse on stage, ridden by Egmont, so the two animal scenes were particularly forceful.¹⁶

The Karlsruhe Egmont of 1980 in the Badisches Staatstheater was the creation of guest director Hanns Zischler and dramaturge Peter Krumme. The program for this production contained the full text of Goethe's play, complete with all director's markings, showing deletions, insertions, instructions to actors, and production notes; in other words, it was the performance text.¹⁷ Despite the many deletions, the Karlsruhe production remained quite faithful to Goethe's original. Egmont's description of Parma's masculine features is even enhanced: “She also has whiskers on her upper lip, and sometimes she gets a twinge of the gout. A regular amazon!” (Karlsruhe performance text 31). By underscoring the exclamation, Zischler and Krumme signal particular significance for this dimension of Parma's character, and their treatment of it goes beyond what we have seen so far. As in Goethe, her first scene begins with “Margarete von Parma in hunting costume,” but the motif is developed to link more closely with details of Parma as an Amazon. Near the end of her interchange with Machiavell, and again in words from Goethe, Parma says with specific reference to Egmont: “No let me speak! What I have in my heart shall, with this opportunity, be disburdened. And I do not want to use up my arrows for nothing. I know where his weak spot is—and he does have a weak spot, too” (9; WA I, 8: 192; Passage 305). Of course, the emphasis on “I do not want to use up my arrows for nothing” is not in Goethe's original, but was added by Zischler and Krumme. Beside this underlining are found the marginalia “Diana (hunting costume) … (and Actaeon?).” How are we to understand these underscored references?

Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt (the Greek Artemis), is of course an allusion consistent with “Margarete von Parma in hunting costume.” Actaeon is a male figure in Greek mythology who was changed by Artemis to a stag for surprising her in the act of bathing and was subsequently devoured by his own hounds. Zischler and Krumme are playing intriguingly here with sexuality, gender crossing, and vulnerability. The stage character Parma was already sexually ambivalent as an Amazon figure. The link with Actaeon underscores her masculinity and also suggests a cruel penalty for this transgression: transformation to the animal status of stag, representative of aggressive male sexuality and even lust; and in keeping with Actaeon's ultimate fate a life-threatening vulnerability to the very creatures she seemingly masters. The allusion to arrows on the one hand is also in keeping with the reference to Diana and the hunt, yet beyond this is a return to the original classical mythological concept of the Amazon. Ancient pictures and sculptures show these figures repeatedly with sword, bow, and arrow, and it is indeed the bow and arrow that is this hunter's chief weapon. The Amazon's arrows thus become metaphors for Parma's words “I do not want to use up my arrows for nothing.”¹⁸ In their production, Zischler and Krumme reinforce Parma's timeless connection to her classical heritage, and by combining it with the myths of Diana and Actaeon draw attention to the problematic nature of her sexuality and the danger for her that results.

Certainly, the figure of Parma, as Wilson emphasized, should be connected to the Amazon tradition, but the textual and reception history of Goethe's play demonstrate that the nature of her sexuality remains enigmatic. The many examples of textual manipulation perhaps result not merely from the efficacies of dramatic production, but also from a discomfort caused by the nature of this character. Productions in Goethe's time often avoided the problem by eliminating her entirely, and later, when she was reintroduced regularly, emphasized the noble aspects of her personality within terms of the conventional social and sexual mores. Still, we are aware of the lively public and medical discourse on the subject of sexuality at the time, even if it was conducted within a climate of sexual repression. It is reasonable to suspect that directors and audiences, if not Goethe himself, were making a contribution to that discourse when representing Parma on stage. In modern productions she can be the object of aversion or fascination as well, as demonstrated by the many productions that still eliminate her; others that ennoble her and disregard her queer sexuality; still others that explore her masculinity and femininity both. Is she to be understood essentially as a masculine entity who chooses, or who is trapped in a female costume and role? Or should she be seen as representing the type of femininity that transgresses its social markers and calls into question the exclusivity of male characteristics? Whatever the interpretation chosen by reader, director or audience, it is clear that by going beyond Goethe's original version to explore the full range of texts, visual representations, and productions we discover connections beyond his verbal legacy alone.

Notes

1. The scene is located in the Weimar edition of Goethe's Werke (I, 8: 239). Future references to Egmont are from the same edition and will be cited with part, volume, and page number in parenthesis. Quotations from Goethe's text cited in English are taken from the translation by Charles E. Passage; other translations from German are my own.

2. Wilson summarizes this inclination in Goethe, which has also been discussed by critics before (130-31, 258-59). Kurt R. Eissler's classic work is still the touchstone, but current scholars such as Kaus, Kuzniar (3 and 14) and Tobin (1996, 97 and 107-108) continue to add fresh insights.

3. In 1794 Goethe invited Schiller, “to correct [korrigieren] Egmont for the Weimar theater,” as reported by Schiller to his wife Charlotte (Goethe über seine Dichtungen II, 1: 226).

4. A precise comparison of Goethe's and Schiller's texts is available in Schiller's Werke (NA 13) or in his Bühnenbearbeitungen.

5. Foucault does not document this claim. There are in fact many references to Basedow in Goethe's works and private papers, all of which could be called positive. A lengthy section of his Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) is devoted in large part to this man who counted among his friends (Werke I, 28: 271-95). For the period in question, Goethe's diary indicates that he visited Basedow on December 15, 1776, and again on May 26, 1778 (III, 1: 28, 67). However, Foucault's failure to document the claim does not mean that it is entirely without validity.

6. Theater-Zeitung für Deutschland 10, March 3, 1789, 77.

7. Reference to the right breast here is in error. Many reliable sources indicate that the left breast of Amazons was exposed, the right covered, and for good reason—see below.

8. Here quoted from Chambers (1787, I: unpag.), but almost identical in Encyclopaedia Britannica (1797, A: 523) and Rees (1819, II: unpag.).

9. As for example the eighteenth-century encyclopaedias cited above and the modern Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie and Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon. The lore of Amazons is extensive and fascinating, but most of it beyond the scope of this article. Many monographs have been written on the subject, the most elaborate and influential early European version being Pierre Petit's dissertation of 1687 which included numerous illustrations. Guy Rothery's more recent study (1910) traces Amazons from antiquity to “modern times” and includes a chapter on the “Amazons of Europe” up to the later eighteenth century (95-108). When establishing his “modern” examples, Rothery uses the term Amazon very generally as a bellicose woman, and his celebrated eighteenth-century example is the female French revolutionary who also had a distinctive dress, something like that described in the German encyclopaedia above. It was originated by Théroigne de Méricourt, commander of the third corps of the army of the Faubourg: a red riding habit, huge hat, plume of feathers, and sword. Another famous revolutionary, la Maillard, and her female followers wore male attire (106).

10. In this regard I have made use of the rich repository of theater materials in the Fambach archive of the Germanistisches Seminar, University of Bonn. The private theater scholar Oscar Fambach collected thousands of photocopied reviews, but I also consulted the originals.

11. Respectively in Didiskalia 327, Nov. 23, 1825; Didiskalia 104, Apr. 14, 1827; and Abend-Zeitung 177, July 26, 1830.

12. See extensive bibliographical documentation in Estermann, vol. 1, item 1.22. The journal Urania is not listed in Estermann, although a different publication with the same title appeared in 1838.

13. Sources for assembling this information include individual issues of Theater der Zeit, Theater heute, Die Bühne, and annual issues of Was spielten die Theater? (1981-1990) and Wer spielte was? (1990-1993). Performance venues include (in chronological order 1970-1995): Potsdam, Zürich, Vienna, Dessau, Cologne, Bern, Innsbruck, Weimar, Karlsruhe, Munich, Vienna, Düsseldorf, Brandenburg, Eisenach, Greifswald, Bregenz, Vienna, Leipzig, Berlin, Frankfurt/M., Salzburg, Aachen, Bonn, and Berlin. Through the generosity of theater archivists I have been been able to inspect original production materials of twenty of these, including programs, photos, collected reviews, performance texts (for almost half), and a few videotapes of entire performances.

14. I wish to express my gratitude to Frau Mickisch, still dramaturge in Potsdam, for supplying me with the materials for my research, including an original program, photographs, a copy of the performance text, and reviews.

15. I am grateful to Karin Scheider, librarian and archivist of the Weimar National-theater, for her advice and access to the original program, photos, collected reviews, and the performance text.

16. One can hardly resist mentioning the irony of this parade of animals in the Weimar Nationaltheater in view of Goethe's paranoia of them, especially dogs, on stage and the production of Der Hund von Aubry (The Dog of Aubry) in 1817 which effectively ended his career as theater-manager (Intendant).

17. I am grateful to Ulrich Ried, librarian and archivist of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, for generously furnishing me with an original program and reviews. Unfortunately pictures were not available.

18. We should remember as well that the final vision scene includes Klärchen as freedom goddess who leans over the sleeping Egmont and “shows him the sheave of arrows” (WA I, 8: 303; Passage 375), a symbol of his people's struggle for liberation. The arrow metaphor could thus be understood to arch from the classical Amazons, to Parma, to Klärchen, and to the Dutch people.