Politics, Literature and National Character
Politics, Literature and National Character

Author: Madame De Stael

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1351498126

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Madame Germaine de Stael is often regarded as the "mistress to an age", or (like England and Russia) one of the three great European "powers" of the 19th century. She was in some sense both, but she was also an important and influential writer whose works, astonishingly, have not, until this volume, been translated into English since the early 19th century. She absorbed the leading ideas of the Enlightenment on literature, politics, science and the social order; turned many of them to her own uses and then bequeathed them to the 19th century, which adopted much of the Enlightenment through her works. She had two related aims: by her writings on politics, to guide Europe as it entered the republican era and to help it maintain its cultural legacy and liberty; and to explain all literature by its relation to social institutions (which has had a profound effect on all subsequent studies of comparative literature). Here, in clear and flowing English prose that conveys both the personality and the style of the original - and that corrects the errors of earlier translations - are selections from Madame Germaine de Stael's major works, including "Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution", "Literature Considered in its Relation to Social Institutions", "Essay on Fiction", "On Germany" and her reflections on Russian and English as well as German national character. They make plain both her amazing modern approach to such subjects as politics, literature, science, education and women, and the tremendous repercussions her work has had.

Madame de Stael
Madame de Stael

Author: Francine du Plessix Gray

Publisher: Atlas and Company

Published: 2009-11-17

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 9781934633212

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A profile of the Revolution and Napoleonic era's celebrated woman of letters discusses her upbringing in political and intellectual circles as the daughter of Louis XVI's minister of finances, her controversial affairs with some of the most influential men of her time, and her progressive ideals that prompted repeated exiles. 20,000 first printing.

Mistress to an Age
Mistress to an Age

Author: J. Christopher Herold

Publisher: Grove Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9780802138378

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J. Christopher Herold vigorously tells the story of the fierce Madame de Stael, revealing her courageous opposition to Napoleon, her whirlwind affairs with the great intellectuals of her day, and her idealistic rebellion against all that was cynical, tyrannical, and passionless. Germaine de Stael's father was Jacques Necker, the finance minister to Louis XVI, and her mother ran an influential literary-political salon in Paris. Always precocious, at nineteen Germaine married the Swedish ambassador to France, Eric Magnus Baron de Stael-Holstein, and in 1785 took over her mother's salon with great success. Germaine and de Stael lived most of their married life apart. She had many brilliant lovers. Talleyrand was the first, Narbonne, the minister of war, another; Benjamin Constant was her most significant and long-lasting one. She published several political and literary essays, including "A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions upon the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations," which became one of the most important documents of European Romanticism. Her bold philosophical ideas, particularly those in "On Literature," caused feverish commotion in France and were quickly noticed by Napoleon, who saw her salon as a rallying point for the opposition. He eventually exiled her from France. This winner of the 1959 National Book Award is "excellent ... detailed, full of color, movement, great names, and lively incident" -- The New York Times "Mr. Herold's full-bodied biography is clear-eyed, intelligent, and written with abundant wit and zest." -- The Atlantic Monthly

National Character and Public Spirit in Britain and France, 1750–1914
National Character and Public Spirit in Britain and France, 1750–1914

Author: Roberto Romani

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-12-20

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1139432818

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In a work of unusual ambition and rigorous comparison, Roberto Romani considers the concept of 'national character' in the intellectual histories of Britain and France. Perceptions of collective mentalities influenced a variety of political and economic debates, ranging from anti-absolutist polemic in eighteenth-century France to appraisals of socialism in Edwardian Britain. Romani argues that the eighteenth-century notion of 'national character', with its stress on climate and government, evolved into a concern with the virtues of 'public spirit' irrespective of national traits, in parallel with the establishment of representative institutions on the Continent. His discussion of contemporary thinkers includes Montesquieu, Voltaire, Hume, Millar, Burke, Constant, de Staël and Tocqueville. After the mid-nineteenth century, the advent of social scientific approaches, including those of Spencer, Hobson and Durkheim, shifted the focus from the qualities required by political liberty to those needed to operate complex social systems, and to bear its psychological pressures.

Women Theorists on Society and Politics
Women Theorists on Society and Politics

Author: Lynn McDonald

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published: 2009-10-22

Total Pages: 751

ISBN-13: 1554587441

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Revolution, abolition of slavery, public health care, welfare, violence against women, war and militarism — such issues have been debated for centuries. But much work done by women theorists on these traditional social and political topics is little known or difficult to obtain. This new anthology contains significant excerpts not normally included in standard collections. Women Theorists on Society and Politics brings together scarce, previously unpublished and newly translated excerpts from works by such women theorists as Emilie du Châtelet, Germaine de Staël, Catharine Macaulay, Mary Wollstonecraft, Flora Tristan, Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale, Beatrice Webb and Jane Addams. It focuses on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers, but also includes some selections from as early as the Renaissance and late seventeenth century. Introductions to the material, biographical background and secondary sources enhance this important collection. Women Theorists on Society and Politics provides essential theory on standard topics and a balance to the anthologies of feminist writing now more commonly available.