Abena (Wallace) Taylor, M.B.A.

She/her

Education: Bachelor of Arts in modern languages and international studies (May 2019)

Master of Business Administration from Kansas State University

McNair Project: Nature, Passion, Desire: Sophie Albrecht, a Rebel (2018)

Mentor: Sara Luly, Ph.D.

This article is about eighteenth century actress and poet Sophie Albrecht. There is little written about Albrecht, but she was a rebellious writer that didn’t conform to the expectations of a middle-class female at that time. In the eighteenth century, women wrote about innocence and virtue and were restricted to openly experience passion. According to Ruth P. Dawson, passion itself was an uncommon topic and when it was written about, it was by men. In this presentation, the poems “Im Junius” (In July) and “Sehnsucht” (Desire) are analyzed and Albrecht defies social norms and writes about passion in both poems. The common themes throughout each of the poems are also discussed as well as their meanings. Passion and desire, gender neutrality, nature, and emotion are the themes identified in both poems. Historical context was referenced from Mary Helen Dupree and Ruth P. Dawson. The word choice within individual quotes that have been taken from the poems are read closely to explain in more detail their relevance to a given theme.