A Novel for Young Ladies

By : Pil Dahlerup

The Spinster Scribe
Mette Winge began her creative writing career with biography. However, Skriverjomfruen. En Guvernanteroman (1988) (The Spinster Scribe. A Novel for Young Ladies) is no ordinary biographical novel. Apart from a few basic facts, the book is pure invention. Mette Winge´s unsentimental view off life is evident in her very selection of the circumstances. She has chosen to describe the last years in the life of the 18th-century Danish writer Charlotte Dorothea Biehl, and portrays her as suffering from a painful disease which she compares to a "painfish" dwelling inside her and biting her. It is during this period of suffering that Mette Winge makes Charlotte Dorothea Biehl take stock of her life, which has included the triumph of having been the first female Danish writer who managed to make a livelihood out of writing, as well as the misfortune of being badly treated at every level of society, both official and private. Mette Winge´s interest in the detective genre is demonstrated in this novel; she lets her Charlotte Dorothea Biehl work on a roman a clef, lifting the lid off contemporary royalty and politicians. Mette Winge´s intrigue emerges as some of the implicated parties attempt to steal the manuscript. But she has also woven a love story into the novel. She uses Charlotte Dorothea Biehl´s authentic friendship with the somewhat younger Johan Bülow, turning it into an infatuation on her part.

Victorian Romance
Skriverjomfruen is thus akin to Victorian Romance using the technique of suspense, but totally lacking the romance and happy ending so characteristic of this genre. On the other hand it bears dear signs of Mette Winge´s social awareness, for instance in the invented housemaid, who participates in the plot by attempting to rescue the manuscript, but who is also an independent character, following her own ideas, arguing with her mistress and adopting a child. The relationship between the maid and this boy is the most beautiful one in the book and provides the basis for its positive perspective.
Mette Winge has given her book an 18th-century feel by including historically authentic scenarios and activities. She has also adopted a slightly antiquated style, including outmoded words and grammatical constructions.

Skrivejomfruen - the play
Mette Winge continues in the same vein in her play about Charlotte Dorothea Biehl, but it has been tightened up quite ruthlessly. It has become a harsh monologue, dominated by disappointment in love. The speeches contain many a successful image, and have proved an amazingly successful platform for the actress Elin Reimer, who delivered a splendid performance. However, the monologue was quite obviously written at a time when Winge´s lack of sentimentality was verging on pessimism. There is little trace of Biehl´s writings, of her vast intellectual range and none whatsoever of her witty translation of Don Quixote.
Mette Winge´s writings on Charlotte Dorothea Biehl can be accommodated within the genre of biography, but they more obviously belong to another currently popular genre, fictive biography. One could ask why so many authors choose to write this way; in books, films and plays. There is no straight answer. Maybe it is a sign of the current break-up of ideas about fact and fiction. As a consequence, future students of literature will have difficulty in discerning what we know about writers, and what we have invented about them.


This article first appeared in Danish Literary Magazine nr 8, 1995

Translated by Vivien Andersen