Karoline von Günderrode

Karoline Friederike Louise Maximiliane von Günderrode (11 February 1780 – 26 July 1806) was a German Romantic poet.

In Frankfurt, Günderrode became acquainted with Kunigunde [de] and Bettina Brentano, as well as their brother Clemens and Carl von Savigny.

After reading Creuzer's letter, Günderrode committed suicide by stabbing herself in the chest on the bank of the Rhine at Oestrich-Winkel.

In letters to Kunigunde Brentano, Günderrode describes her difficulties in making friends and feeling close to people.

In her relationships with men she found herself similarly unfulfilled, being first rejected by Carl von Savigny and later by Georg Friedrich Creuzer.

Günderrode felt restricted by her role as a woman,[5] remarking in a letter to Kunigunde Brentano: "why was I not born a man!

[1] In 1840, Bettina von Arnim published Die Günderode, a partially fictionalised epistolary novel documenting Karoline's life.

After the publication of von Arnim's book, interest in Günderrode increased - in 1857 a collection of her poetry was published.

Nirgends, which recounts a fictional meeting between Günderrode and Heinrich von Kleist,[15] another German author who committed suicide.