Günderrode, Karoline von

Karoline Friederike Louise Maximiliane von Günderrode was born in Karlsruhe on 11 February 1780. At the age of 17, she entered an aristocratic convent in Frankfurt, where she led a secluded life. There she devoted herself to historical and philosophical studies, but also pursued her interests in the natural sciences and mythology. The "Sappho of Romanticism" became famous above all for her poems and letters, in which she denounced the restricted lifestyle of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. The poet suffered from nervous melancholy, had love affairs with Friedrich Carl von Savigny and later with the married Friedrich Creuzer. When the latter decided to leave her, she committed suicide with a dagger in 1806, aged just 26.