Germanic Nationalism and Domesticity in Caroline Pichler’s Pastoral Poetry

This paper explores how Caroline Pichler’s (1769–1843) 1803 pastoral poem, “Der Sommerabend,” aligned with German cultural nationalism and the rise of domesticity in Biedermeier Vienna. In this idyll, Picher glorifies the peacefulness of shaded groves, silvery springs, and beds of clover in the Austrian countryside against the noise and tumult of city life. Such comparisons—of idealized, natural places against urban life—dated back to the idylls of Virgil and served to critique contemporary political and social contexts, making idylls self-reflexive texts. Inspired by Johann Gottfried Herder’s writings on the natural world and natural communities, Pichler embedded her idyll with the German-language literary tropes of the linden tree and bumblebee, symbols used to celebrate rural German landscapes and the shared culture associated with them. Published during the Napoleonic Wars, Pichler’s text contributed to the promotion of pan-Germanic sentiments by celebrating Germanic history and culture.

Two decades after the publication of “Der Sommerabend,” Franz Schubert was in Pichler’s Viennese salon performing his lieder, which likely included his 1816 setting of “Der Sommerabend” (“Lied” D. 483). Contextualizing Schubert’s song within Pichler’s Biedermeier salon highlights the parallels she drew in her text between the sheltered quality of the natural world with that of the home. By this time, the Viennese home provided necessary refuge from the censorship and policing of public life imposed by Habsburg leaders as they aimed to unify a multicultural empire and prevent the rise of potentially political nationalist sentiments. Thus, for Pichler and other guests listening to Schubert’s performance of this lied, the work’s critique of contemporary urban life and idealization of the home and natural world would have resonated with pervasive perceptions of life in Biedermeier Vienna. Tracing the afterlife of Pichler’s poem reveals how women employed domestic themes and spaces to contribute to Austrian political and cultural identity formation.