Chapter 6 - Imaginary Europe

Summary

Chapter 6 reviews De la littérature. When Staël published this work, she had spent the previous decade growing older alongside the French Revolution, but the coup of 18 Brumaire had just ushered in the Consulat: Napoleon’s star was on the rise. This was not the most obvious time for an ex-minister for war to become a literary historian. Why then did Staël choose this juncture to write and publish her 400-page tractatus? Though we could descend into the weeds of Staël’s many literary details, we would there risk succumbing to a range of propagandist forces. Genevan, liberal, female, and Protestant, Staël has faced two centuries of critics eager to sideline or indeed privatize her achievements, presenting them as tangential to the public shaping of what it means to be French. This chapter argues that Staël’s 1800 work is engagé and focused on saving the Revolution if not the Republic.