Germaine de Staël

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Standard Name: Staël, Germaine de
Birth Name: Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker
Married Name: Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël
Used Form: Germaine de Stael
GS is remembered primarily for her political activism and the salons she established following the French Revolution; history, politics, and culture were certainly among her frequent literary subjects. The same interests inform her highly successful and influential novels, some short stories and, less significantly, plays. Other writings include literary criticism and personal letters.
Winegarten, Renee. Mme de Staël. Berg.
81
Her anglophilia and her attention to English literature and culture gave her particular importance for British women writers.
Photograph of the painting of Germaine de Staël by Baron Gérard. Godefroid, 1810. She stands leaning against a stone table. She is wearing a red high-waisted dress with short puff sleeves and a small cameo brooch pinned in the centre of the bust, a black shawl folded over her arm, and a striking red and white turban on her curly hair. She holds a small sprig of green in one hand.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Mary Wollstonecraft
It was dedicated to the French statesman Talleyrand , a supporter of the Revolution and the reputed lover of Germaine de Staël . She produced a second, revised edition by the end of the year...
Friends, Associates Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Another uncomfortable experience grew out of Ella Wheeler's early literary success when she was taken up by a woman she calls Mrs Salon, who, since there flourished at the time a Milwaukee School of Poetry...
Friends, Associates Anna Jane Vardill
Robinson recorded that Vardill visited the novelist Germaine de Staël during the latter's second period of exile in London during 1813-14, and offered to become her amanuensis: an offer which was declined.
Snell, Susan. “Enlightenment Females and Freemasonry”. Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol.
4
, No. 1-2.
Friends, Associates Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
On her first visit to Paris, she met Germaine de Staël , and formed lasting friendships with the marquise de Villette (Voltaire 's adopted daughter) and with Elizabeth Patterson (an American heiress, the abandoned...
Textual Features Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
In her preface Owenson, unwisely, covered up the problems she had had with this novel by claiming to have written it in three months and never corrected it. It is mostly set in Athens (as...
Literary responses Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
Two Belgian ministers of state wrote to express their appreciation.
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan,. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Editors Dixon, William Hepworth and Geraldine Jewsbury, AMS Press.
2: 391-2
Maria Edgeworth delighted even in the improbabilities of this book, and called its heroine wonderfully clever and preposterous—a Belgian Corinne.
Campbell, Mary. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora.
222
The parallel...
Textual Features Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
Morgan describes chiefly Paris and its society, ostensibly on the model of Germaine de Staël 's L'Allemagne. She does indeed include French culture centrally among her topics: she criticises the works of Corneille and...
Literary responses Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
De Staël is said to have had France read to her on her deathbed, with approbation.
Campbell, Mary. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora.
149
Her lover Benjamin Constant defended Morgan from attack, and Morgan's own friend Lady Charleville , who had previously...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Strutt
The title marks it as a refutation of Germaine de Staël 's Delphine. But this was not its only influence. ES claims to have founded her story on A Residence in France by a...
Friends, Associates Harriet Beecher Stowe
While visiting Paris, HBS frequented the salon of Germaine de Staël , and in Rome she met Elizabeth Gaskell . In a letter to Grace Schwabe , Gaskell remarked that Stowe was short and...
Material Conditions of Writing Harriet Beecher Stowe
HBS used her earlier travels in Europe as material for a travel guide for Americans. She had met Germaine de Staël and Elizabeth Gaskell while in Europe, and had voraciously read everything by George Sand
Textual Features Edith Sitwell
This book depends on poking fun at its subjects, and invites its readers to join in Sitwell's superior amusement. Some of her subjects deserve better, like Margaret Fuller , who (despite the adjective in the...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Mary Shelley
Most of MS 's subjects are male, but they include Vittoria Colonna , Marie de Sévigné , Manon Roland , and Germaine de Staël .
Literary Setting Caroline Scott
Like CS 's previous novel, this combines satire with moralised sensibility. The heroine, Theresa, is, according to the Athenæum reviewer, one of the thousand imitations or caricatures of [de Staël 's] Corinne, though...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck
MAS adds a new aesthetic category, the contemplative sublime, alongside the Burke an or terrible sublime and other categories related to the Burkean beautiful. She derives her thinking from women as well as men. In...

Timeline

1804: The publisher George, George, and John Robinson,...

Writing climate item

1804

The publisher George, George, and John Robinson , whose list of women writers had been distinguished, went bankrupt.

1864: Famous Girls who have become Illustrious...

Writing climate item

1864

Famous Girls who have become Illustrious Women: Forming Models for Imitation by the Young Women of England, a very popular book of biographical sketches by John M. Darton , was published.

By Christmas 1869: Francis Galton, mathematician, scientist,...

Writing climate item

By Christmas 1869

Francis Galton , mathematician, scientist, and eugenicist, published Hereditary Genius: An Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences,

Texts

Staël, Germaine de. Considérations sur les principaux événemens de la révolution françoise. Delaunay, 1818.
Staël, Germaine de. Corinne. Imprimerie des Annales des arts et manufactures, 1807.
Staël, Germaine de. Corinne; or, Italy. Translators Hill, Isabel and L. E. L., R. Bentley, 1833.
Staël, Germaine de. Corinne; or, Italy. Translators Hill, Isabel and L. E. L., A. L. Burt, 1857.
Staël, Germaine de. De l’Allemagne. H. Nicolle, 1810.
Staël, Germaine de. De l’influence des passions. Jean Mourer, 1796.
Staël, Germaine de. De la littérature. 1800.
Staël, Germaine de. Delphine. J. J. Paschoud, 1802.
Staël, Germaine de. Dix années d’exil. Treuttel and Würtz, 1821.
Staël, Germaine de, and Germaine de Staël. “Essai sur les fictions”. Recueil de morceaux détachés, Durand, Ravenel, 1795, pp. 61-4.
Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and Germaine de Staël. Le plus beau de toutes les fêtes. Editor Pange, Victor de, Klincksieck, 1980.
Staël, Germaine de. Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractère de J.-J. Rousseau. 1788.
Staël, Germaine de. Réflexions sur la paix. 1794.
Staël, Germaine de. Réflexions sur le procès de la reine. 1793.
Staël, Germaine de. Réflexions sur le suicide. Charles Delén, 1813.
Hill, Isabel et al. “Translator’s Preface; Madame de Staël”. Corinne; or, Italy, translated by. Isabel Hill and L. E. L., A. L. Burt, 1857, p. iii - iv; v-xxi.
Staël, Germaine de. Zulma. 1794.
Staël, Germaine de. Œuvres complètes. Treuttel and Würtz, 1821.