The purpose of this thesis is to examine the roles of female characters in Dorothea Schlegels Florentin. Dorothea Schlegel, who exhibited feminist behavior in her own life, created a strongly feminist work. The critical responses for Florentin explore the novel from many different approaches, including biographical, intertextual, genre, historical, and feminist. None of the previous literature examines the female characters in Florentin topically or determines the amount of power female characters hold as this thesis does. First, there is a review of Friedrich Schlegels novel, Lucinde, because Dorothea Schlegel wrote Florentin as a response to Lucinde. A chronological report of the critical response to Florentin follows. Finally, the thesis analyses the text of Florentin, concentrating on the female characters and their authority.