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Sand at Nohant by Françoise Gilot. Copyright
1986 |
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“A TRIBUTE TO GISELA SPIES SCHLIENTZ”
The trajectory that led Gisela Schlientz (Gisa to her many friends) to become a Sandiste was more
circuitous than that of many. Like George Sand herself, Gisa followed her own passions, led by a
generous mind and a lively spirit to delve into rich and complex ideas, especially those of women writers.
Her intellectual journey began with her study of German and Romance languages and literature at the
universities of Tübingen, Heidelberg, Berlin, and Vienna; she completed her doctorate at the latter.
Her dissertation on “Das Wiener Theater wahrend der Napoleonischen Besetzung im Jahre 1809” (The
Viennese Theater during the Napoleonic Occupation in 1809) gave a glimpse into her future interests by
exploring the relationship between French and German culture.
This interest was further developed during her years as an editor in French literature for the influential
German publishing firm, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, where she chose works of French literature to be
translated into German. She, herself, translated several works of Gide, as well as Germaine de Stael’s Dix
Années d’Exil. She also became well known in Germany during this time as a critic and lecturer on
literature by, about, and for women.
But her real love - and the center of her work - was soon to become George Sand, and it was Sand who
brought Gisa into my sphere. Newly arrived in southern Germany, where I was to begin teaching at the
University of Tübingen in a few months, I received one of my lifelines from the States, "The Friends of
George Sand Newsletter." There I found Gisa’s name as a new subscriber; her immediate inclusion of me
in her rich cultural milieu in Stuttgart was typical of her warm embrace of others. She was the best dinner
partner and hostess I have ever met, and she and her family - wonderful husband, Felix, and daughter,
Cornelia – soon became a big part of our life in Germany. In 1982 I asked her, in an interview for the
newsletter (published in vol. 5, no. 1, spring/summer), what brought her to George Sand. The answer was
Francine Mallet’s biography of Sand, to which Gisa had purchased the German rights; from there it was a
direct leap into the primary works and the correspondence, all of which astonished her.
Gisa has most likely introduced more members of the German public to Sand and her work than any other
single individual. Her monograph George Sand: Leben und Werk in Texten und Bildern (George Sand:
Life and Work in Texts and Pictures), which immersed readers in Sand’s life story primarily by
juxtaposing her letters and her autobiography, was extremely well received by the public, as was lch
Liebe, Also Bin lch: Leben und Werk von George Sand (I Love, Thus I Am: Life and Work of George
Sand), a beautiful volume filled with deep insight into Sand’s themes and creatures, via chapters such as“Masks and Masquerades” and “Nature’s Voice.” She wrote penetrating afterwords to German
translations of Lélia, Flavie, and Pauline, as well as the preface to the third part of Histoire de ma vie
published by Christian Pirot in 1997. She also published scholarly articles on Sand in American and
German journals, and many readers of this journal will recall that she organized an international Sand
conference with Gislinde Seybert at the University of Hannover in 1997; the proceedings, entitled George
Sand - jenseits des Identischen: au-delà de l’identique, were published in 2000.
During the last period of her life, Gisa threw herself, with her typical energy, into the study of literature
by Swabian women writers, undertaking a massive project covering four centuries. The fall of 2003 found
her in a flurry of activity, giving talks on the radio, in community centers, and on university campuses
about Isolde Kurz, born in 1853, the daughter of Swabian writer Hermann Kurz. A writer of stories,
essays, poems, and novels, Isolde Kurz lived in Tuscany at the turn of the twentieth century, part of a
lively group of artists and writers, and became well known in her time. Gisa’s afterword to this, her last
book, Isolde Kurz: Ein Splitter vom Paradies (Isolde Kurz: A Little Piece of Paradise), analyzed Kurz’s
accomplishments and challenges. It was published in December 2003, shortly after Gisa was struck by the
cruel illness that took her life in March of this year. She is buried in Kirchheim unter Teck, where Isolde
Kurz spent part of her childhood.
It is sometimes difficult for Americans to imagine the vast impact that a public intellectual can have on a
particular culture. Gisela Schlientz was such an intellectual, a person who truly made a difference by
illuminating the work of women writers - and relating the themes in their writings to our times - for the
public good.
Nancy E. Rogers, National Endowment for the Humanities |
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