IN VON GUTEN UND BÖSEN NACHBARN the German author Georg Wickram has two female characters, Cassandra and Lucia, talk about historical and mythological figures, using them as examples of what they — or rather Wickram — consider correct and incorrect female behavior. By referring to past events, age-old thoughts and ideas, and something that can best be described as convention or “traditional behavior,” the manners of women from the growing urban middle class of the sixteenth century are commented upon. By generalizing and by using well-known stories from the past the author is thus able to justify or condemn what he considers typical female behavior.

It was originally my intention to focus on the construction of “woman” in the early modern period by investigating the representation of woman primarily in a number of texts that generally are regarded as fictional as well as in some legal documents from the same period. It has, however, proven impossible without taking “man” into account. The main problem to be dealt with is thus the seemingly various characteristics ascribed to (inscribed in) “woman” and her relationship to “man” as depicted in literary texts of different kinds, texts whose primary function — according to their authors — is to tell a “good story.” I will therefore analyze not only the social and cultural construction of “woman” but also the relationship between characters described as “men” and “women” in the narrative. All texts discussed below are written by male authors, but most of them address men and women alike. What implications does this have for the depiction of male and female characters in the text? The need to look at the position of the male author and narrator as well as the male characters in the text in order to investigate relationships between men and women rather than to simply search for stereotypes necessitates a widening of the concept “women's studies.”