The marginalization of women writers in the Goethezeit has received considerable attention; yet feminist scholarship has also emphasized the degree of integration into the public sphere which some women achieved. This article considers the lyric poetry of Sophie Mereau in the context of that critical debate, pointing up parallels (and contrasts) with the work of other writers, female and male. Reciprocity is examined here both as a contextual issue and a motif in Mereau’s work, and the article highlights the intellectual independence with which she treats themes which were ‘in the air’ around 1800.