Marrone on Cuillé and Szmurlo, eds. (2013)

This impressive and useful study examines Germaine de Staël's views on the passions, "the language of the heart," and their revolutionary impact. For Staël, on the one hand, individuals can be cruelly dependent on their sensibilities, thus leading to disastrous effects. On the other hand, the passions have the potential to transform society for the better. In her "Introduction: Setting the Stage," Tili Boon Cuillé explains that, according to Staël, matters of the mind and those of the heart must work in harmony for all citizens in an ideal republic (9). This collection highlights the convergence of reason and sensibility in Staël's thought and "the interdependence of [the] traditionally gendered domains" therein, such as "politics, international relations, and history (coded masculine)" and "the passions, aesthetics, and the arts (coded feminine)" (9).

The book is divided into three sections: Part I, "The Politics of the Passions;" Part II, "International Aesthetics;" and Part III, "Philosophy and the Arts." The collection assembles a number of established Staël scholars as well as new critical voices. Participants hail from an array of disciplines: language, literature and culture; art history; political science; and the performing arts. Individual chapters explore Staël's complex views on literature, politics and philosophy; her influence and legacy; and the intersection of textual representations with painting and musical performance. Selected essays venture beyond France, including those which study English and Irish literature, and others that treat Staël's travels and cosmopolitan ideals. On the whole, the chapters offer engaging and intelligent studies, as well as strong argumentation and documentation. The collection includes a valuable bibliography.

Among the many insightful essays are those of Catherine Dubeau, Christine Dunn Henderson and Mary D. Sheriff. I shall elaborate on these chapters briefly. In her absorbing study "The Mother, the Daughter, and the Passions," Dubeau compares the views of Suzanne Necker and those of her daughter on the problems of the passions. Dubeau focuses, in particular, on Necker's Réflexions sur le divorce (1794) and Staël's De l'influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations (1796). She insightfully examines the mother's moralistic views and the daughter's efforts to "[slip] for a while into her mother's stoically inspired philosophy" in her own text (29). Dubeau emphasizes the fact that this posture in De l'influence des passions may have been inspired by guilt or fear because the work was composed during the time of the mother's illness and death. She looks to Staël's fictional texts, such as Zulma (1794), for a more accurate portrayal of the author's views on the passions. We read: "The treatise on the passions is therefore an essential, but temporary, stage en route to formulating a personal response to the problem" (30). Dubeau convincingly argues that it is fiction's ability to move the reader that renders it superior as a "teacher" to philosophy regarding the struggles of the heart. She explains: "The transfer of intimate emotions to writing and their discovery by the reader put into play movements of identification and distanciation that allow the reader sometimes to lose herself, sometimes to see herself reflected in the mirror of the work" (32). Citing Rousseau and Goethe, Dubeau concludes that such mechanisms of self-reflection also assisted Staël in her personal dealings with sensibility.

Dunn Henderson's exquisitely developed "Passions, Politics, and Literature: The Quest for Happiness," reads Staël's De l'influence des passions and Essai sur les fictions (1795) in the context of her posthumous Considérations sur la Révolution française. Dunn Henderson outlines Staël's views regarding the fact that the passions are as much a part of human nature as reason. However, excessive passions need to be harnessed, and philosophy can help to achieve this end. By the same token, to dominate the passions completely, as encouraged by Stoicism, would be mistaken. The author notes that the "Essay on Fictions echoes the moderation emphasized in Staël's political works and argues that because the passions are a fundamental part of human nature, attempts to remove them would be unsuccessful and, ultimately, undesirable" (67). In its capacity to depict a range of human emotions and to touch its readers, fiction carries the potential to soften philosophies' dictates. In her conclusion, Dunn Henderson notes that fiction thus "functions as a corrective to the over-rationalism of the age, for it is a reminder that all systems--no matter how beautiful in their abstraction--are peopled with individuals" (68).

Sheriff's powerful "The Many Faces of Germaine de Staël," analyzes various portraits of the author gathered for a 2009 exhibition dedicated to Juliette Récamier. These images depict Staël as daughter, mother, friend, and creator. Sheriff reflects on the conventions followed or shunned in these paintings and the legacies they leave. She focuses, in particular, on Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun's striking 1807 portrayal of Madame de Staël as Corinne and the way in which it engages with the novel Corinne. She explains that Vigée-Lebrun eschews idealization in the painting. In so doing, she depicts a forceful subject, a writer not undone by the sorry fate which overcame Corinne--that of "the deviant woman artist" (233). Vigée-Lebrun paints "less Madame de Staël as Corinne, and more Madame de Staël declaiming Corinne. Or better still, Madame de Staël imagining, imagining a scene in which Corinne gives an inspired performance" (233-234). Sheriff concludes that Vigée-Lebrun blurs the boundaries of the sublime, a typically male category, and the beautiful, a typically female one, in the portrayal. As such, she represents Staël as "a singular genius" ready to take her deserving place among the masters (234).

Additional chapters are also of note. Lauren Fortner Ravalico offers a perceptive analysis of listening in Corinne entitled "Liquid Union: Listening through Tears and the Creation of Community in Corinne." Also, C.C. Wharram's "Aeolian Translation: The Aesthetics of Mediation and the Jouissance of Genre" intelligently explores the "genre" of translation through reflections on the metaphor of the harp. He brings to light exciting ideas on the connections between cognition and sentiment in Staël's work.  

In all, 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.