Staël, Romanticism and Revolution
Staël, Romanticism and Revolution
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Two centuries of sexism have hidden Staël's place in international history. Straddling the divides of the French Revolution, Napoleonic Europe, emergent nationalism, and European Romanticism, and playing pivotal roles in those movements, she was also a friend of Byron, Jefferson, and Tsar Alexander. Extensive archival research, and a complete contextual overview of Staël's writings, here restore Staël's canonical status as political philosopher, historian, European Romantic theorist, and Revolutionary. While the term stateswoman is not commonly used, it describes Staël aptly, acting as she necessarily did through men around her. The brilliant game of masks and proxies imposed on her by patriarchy is detailed here, alongside her unending fight for the oppressed, from the nations of Napoleon's subjugated Europe to the victims of the Atlantic slave trade. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
- Guides the reader through extensive archival research in both the USA and Europe, providing brand-new contexts for otherwise familiar texts
- Mounts a radical overhaul of received ideas, inviting readers to reassess a major historical figure and her time
- Comprehensive in scope, presenting Staël with the completeness she demands and combating the common tendency towards fragmentary and incomplete accounts
Reviews & endorsements
‘Beautifully written and impeccably researched, [this book] is a satisfyingly thorough examination of a popular author’s work, and it becomes an indispensable addition to the understanding of Staël’s literary career in the panorama of nineteenth-century Europe by confidently demonstrating the long-lasting repercussions of her oeuvre.’ Carmen Casaliggi, European Romantic Review
Product details
August 2023Hardback
9781009362726
299 pages
235 × 158 × 23 mm
0.58kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. The Painful Birth of the Romantic Heroine: Staël as Political Animal, 1786–1821
- 2. Revolution and the Private Sphere: Lettres sur Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Zulma, Recueil de morceaux détachés, 1786–1795
- 3. Mme de Staël, Minister for War? Narbonne's 'English' Program under the Assemblée législative
- 4. The Social Contract for Staël and Constant, or Does Liberty Have a Sex?
- 5. When the Light of Reason Fails: De l'influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations, 1796
- 6. Imaginary Europe: De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales
- 7. Suicide, Meaning, and Power in the 'Querelle de Delphine'
- 8. My Father, Myself: Staël and the Manuscrits de M. Necker
- 9. Italy, or Corinne
- 10. Interlude: In Search of Romantic Theater
- 11. Napoleon Pulps His Enemies: Censors, Police, and De l'Allemagne's Lost 1810 Edition
- 12. The Napoleon Apocalypse
- 13. Romantic Spain and National Resistance: Staël, Rocca, and the Mémoires sur la guerre des Français en Espagne
- 14. A. W. Schlegel, Staël, and Sismondi in 1814: The Groupe de Coppet and the Confédération romantique
- 15. The Italian Romantics and Mme de Staël: Art, Society, and Nationhood
- 16. Inventing the French Revolution: Staël Considers National Credit, 1789–1818
- 17. Voices Lost? Staël and Slavery, 1786–1830
- La Vie dans l'Å“uvre.
