University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press
Pages: 346
•
Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-1-61148-472-4 • Hardback • December 2012 • $133.00 • (£102.00)
978-1-61148-636-0 • Paperback • September 2014 • $68.99 • (£53.00)
978-1-61148-473-1 • eBook • December 2012 • $65.50 • (£50.00)
Tili Boon Cuillé is associate professor of French at Washington University in St. Louis and specializes in eighteenth-century French literature, philosophy, and aesthetics. She is the author of Narrative Interludes: Musical Tableaux in Eighteenth-Century French Texts (Toronto University Press, 2006) as well as of several articles on opera, painting, and the novel.
Karyna Szmurlo is professor of French in the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities at Clemson University. Her research on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women writers combines history, feminist theory, and the philosophy of language. Among her several collections of essays on Staël is the recently edited volume Germaine de Staël: Forging a Politics of Mediation (2011).
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Setting the Stage
Tili Boon Cuillé
Part I. The Politics of the Passions
1. The Mother, the Daughter, and the Passions
Catherine Dubeau, translated by Sylvie Romanowski
2. The Virtuous "Passion": The Politics of Pity in Staël's The Influence of the Passions
Nanette Le Coat
3. Passions, Politics, and Literature: The Quest for Happiness
Christine Dunn Henderson
4. Melancholy in the Pursuit of Happiness: Corinne and the Femme Supérieure
Karen de Bruin
Part II. International Aesthetics
5. The Peripheral Heroine Takes Center Stage: From Owenson’s National Tale to Staël’s European Genre
M. Ione Crummy
6. Ethnography and Autoethnography in Corinne ou l’Italie
Jennifer Law-Sullivan
7. Liquid Union: Listening through Tears and the Creation of Community in Corinne
Lauren Fortner Ravalico
8. Aeolian Translation: The Aesthetics of Mediation and the Jouissance of Genre
C.C. Wharram
9. British Legacies of Corinne and the Commercialization of Enthusiasm
Kari Lokke
Part III. Philosophy and the Arts
10. The Power to Corrupt: A Staëlian Perspective on the Fine Arts
Susan Tenenbaum
11. The Many Faces of Germaine de Staël
Mary D. Sheriff
12. Staël, Corinne, and the Women Collectors of Napoleonic Europe
Heather Belnap Jensen
13. Germaine de Staël Defines Romanticism, or the Analogy of the Glass Harmonica
Fabienne Moore
14. Between Ideal and Performance: Corinne in Female-Authored Singer Narratives of the 1830s
Julia Effertz
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors
This volume, edited by Cuillé and Szmurlo, positions Madame Germaine de Staël at the crossroads of emotion and cognition, bridging the Enlightenment's intellectual heritage and Romanticism's passions. Staël lays the groundwork for much of 19th-century literature and opens many fruitful avenues of inquiry, ranging from anthropology and psychology, the philosophical and the political, to nationhood and gender. North American scholars from fields within and beyond the academy contribute chapters that seem particularly coherent, given the remarkable breadth of Staël's thought and works. The sections entitled "The Politics of the Passions," "International Aesthetics," and "Philosophy and the Arts" represent ensembles that fit well together. While each contributor's work is strong, of particular note are chapters by Karen de Bruin on the use of melancholy as seen through the character of Corrinne and the superiority that she represents, and Heather Belnap Jensen's study of Staël's depiction of women art collectors in Napoleonic Europe. For its ability to offer entry into Staël's work from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, this is an extremely valuable resource for understanding the evolution of intellectual thought at the beginning of the 19th century. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty, general readers.
— Choice Reviews
This impressive and useful study examines Germaine de Staël’s views on the passions, “the language of the heart,” and their revolutionary impact. . . On the whole, the chapters offer engaging and intelligent studies, as well as strong argumentation and documentation. The collection includes a valuable bibliography. . . . this collection highlights Staël’s role in the “affective revolution” aimed at the betterment of individuals and society. Through its interdisciplinary nature, the work exemplifies the themes of exchange so dear to Staël in her quest for reform.
— Nineteenth-Century French Studies
Tili Boon Cuille´’s Introduction situates Stae¨l in relation to Enlightenment thinkers and their treatments of sensibility as it pertains to politics, art, and relations between the two. ... The two editors have made crucially important contributions to the advancement of Stae¨l studies, and their generous encouragement of young scholars, who are well represented here, is exemplary.
— French Studies