@article {Heilmann23, author = {Lena Heilmann}, title = {Literature and the Fear of a Suicide Epidemic after Fanny von Ickstatt{\textquoteright}s Fatal Fall in 1785}, volume = {108}, number = {1}, pages = {23--41}, year = {2016}, doi = {10.3368/m.108.1.23}, publisher = {University of Wisconsin Press}, abstract = {On January 14, 1785, witnesses watched in horror as seventeen-year-old Fanny von Ickstatt tumbled off the Frauenkirche in Munich and fell to her gruesome death. Ickstatt{\textquoteright}s sudden and highly visible suicide perplexed the public, captivated the attention of newspaper presses, and led to a short-lived media sensation, all of which exacerbated pre-existing fearful attitudes concerning suicide{\textquoteright}s increased presence in texts. News of Ickstatt{\textquoteright}s death dovetailed with a cultural anxiety about how printed descriptions of suicide might glamorize the act and contribute to a suicide epidemic. Narratives and reports of Ickstatt{\textquoteright}s suicide offered a new moment in eighteenth-century Germany as authors, philosophers, and historians now re-considered the purported {\textquotedblleft}suicide epidemic{\textquotedblright} along gendered lines. This article traces competing discourses pertaining to Ickstatt{\textquoteright}s suicide in order to offer a broader understanding of the multi-faceted conversations regarding suicide and gender roles in eighteenth-century Germany.}, issn = {0026-9271}, URL = {https://mon.uwpress.org/content/108/1/23}, eprint = {https://mon.uwpress.org/content/108/1/23.full.pdf}, journal = {Monatshefte} }