Anna Louisa Karsch (Anna Luise Karsch) – 1 December, 1722 to 12 October, 1791
· Father was a beer brewer, mother was an inn-keeper; very poor
· She was an autodidact, meaning she taught herself.
· Sent to live with her great-uncle, who taught her to read despite protests of her grandmother
· Mother took her home to hinder to education, convinced it would drive her “insane”
· When she was 10, she met a sheepherder who gave her books to read, but she had to hide them from her family
· Married young but her husband was abusive; separated and married again soon after, to an abusive drunkard
· A poem written for the widow and daughter of a nearby innkeeper got her recognition from a schoolmaster
· Began to write poems for weddings and celebrations
· Wrote many praises of Frederick, the Prussian King
· When her two youngest children died, she wrote “Klagen einer Witwe” (Complaints of a Widow), which gained her the notice of Frederick, who took her and her children to Berlin
· Most known for her correspondences rather than her poems, especially with Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (30 years longs correspondence)
· Gained attention from writers such as Lessing, Mendelssohn, Herder, and eventually Goethe
· Though promised financial security by Frederick, he did not deliver, and it was not until Frederick II that she had a house built for her where she lived till she died
· Known to her contemporaries as “Die Karschin”
· Authored or participated in 14 publications
o Die Sapphischen Lieder (The Sapphic Songs)
o An die Natur (To Nature)
o Gedichte (Poems)
o Neue Gedichte (New Poems)
o Auserlesene Gedichte (Exquisite Poetry)
o Gedichte und Lebenszeugnisse (Poems and Life Testimonies)
o Die Letzten Leiden des Erlösers (The Last Sufferings of the Redeemer)
o O, mir entwischt nicht, was die Menschen fühlen (Oh, I don’t escape what people feel)
o Herzgedanken (Heart Thoughts)
o Die Karschin (The Karschin)
o Die Gedichte der Anna Luise Karschin mit e. Bericht ihres Lebens (The Poems of Anna Louisa Karsch with a report of her life)
o Die Karschin, Friedrichs des Grossen Volksdichterin (The Karschin, Frederick the Great’s People’s Poet)
o Die Spazier-Gänge von Berlin (The Walking Course of Berlin)
o Ausgewählte Gedichte (Selected Poems)
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