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Conversation in the Writings of Mme de Staël

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Margaret Bloom*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois

Extract

A study of the writings of Mme de Staël shows an interrelation between their strength and weakness. The source of both the good and the bad is largely to be found in the influence of conversation, although the author's inborn characteristics and considerable knowledge derived from books should be sufficiently emphasized. There was a feeling on the part of both the enemies and the friends of Mme de Staël that she was the epitome of the age. This belief indicates that her writings were close to the large circle from which she drew inspiration and the ideas which influenced her own and succeeding periods.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , September 1933 , pp. 861 - 866
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1933

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References

1 P. Kohler, Madame de Staël et la Suisse (Lausanne, 1916), p. 687.

2 Blennerhassett, Madame de Staël et son Temps (Paris, 1890), iii, 223.

3 Necker de Saussure, Notice sur le Caractère et les Écrits de Madame de Staël (Paris, 1820), p. 291.

4 Kohler, op. cit., p. 683.

5 Necker de Saussure, op. cit., p. 347.

6 Dix Années d'Exil (Paris, 1904), p. 395 (appendice).

7 Necker de Saussure, op. cit., p. 319.

8 E. G. Jaeck, Mme de Staël and the Spread of German Literature (Oxford Univ. Press, 1915), p. 72.

9 E. de Nolde, Mme de Staël and Benjamin Constant (N. Y., 1907), p. 156.

10 Necker de Saussure, op. cit., p. 29.

11 Sainte-Beuve, Portraits de Femmes, Madame de Staël (Paris, 1845), p. 148.

12 P. Gautier, Madame de Staël et Napoléon (Paris, 1903), p. 100.

13 de Nolde, op. cit., p. 293.

14 De la Littérature Considerée dans ses Rapports avec les Institutions Sociales (Paris, 1820), p. 503.

15 Necker de Saussure, op. cit., p. 87.

16 Neckerde Saussure, op. cit., p. 195.

17 Necker de Saussure, op. cit., p. 340.