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De L'Allemagne by de Stael 1813
De L'Allemagne by de Stael 1813
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De L'Allemagne, Par Mr La Baronne. De Stael Holstein. Seconde Edition. Paris, chez H. Nicolle, re-imprime par John Murray, London, 1813.
FIRST SURVIVING EDITION OF THIS FAMOUS WORK ON ROMANTICISM, WITH ALL COPIES OF THE FIRST EDITION ORDERED TO BE DESTROYED BY NAPOLEON!
THE WORK WHICH INTRODUCED THE TERM "ROMANTICISM" TO THE WORLD, THE MOST SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATION IN THE HISTORY OF ROMANTICISM!
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De L'Allemagne [On Germany] is a book about German culture and in particular German Romanticism, written by the French writer Germaine de Stael. It promotes Romantic literature, introducing that term to readers in France and other parts of Europe. The book was published in 1813, after the first edition of 10,000 copies, printed in 1810, had been destroyed by order from Napoleon. The book had a major impact on Romanticism in France and elsewhere.
The book is divided into four parts: "On Germany and German Customs", "On Literature and the Arts", "On Philosophy and Morals" and "Religion and Enthusiasm". It surveys modern German literature and philosophy, praising writers like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Jean Paul and Friedrich Schiller. It introduces French readers to the German concept of Romantic literature, a term derived from the chivalric romances of medieval Europe. Like Friedrich Schlegel, Stael views Romantic literature as modern, because its roots are in the chivalric culture of the Middle Ages, and not in the classical models of ancient Greece and Rome.
Staël writes in favour of literature rooted in Christian culture, which is defined by its preference for the internal life, as practised in the confession. She opposes neoclassicism, which focuses more on action and is prone to use external rules, like those in Aristotle's Poetics and Horace's Ars Poetica. She places Christian belief in opposition to the pagan notion of fate, which she rejects. Romantic poetry, she says, is more relatable than classical imitations, because Christian culture is native to the French people, whereas classical culture is not. She also promotes the use of native French subjects to ensure that literature is relatable.
A first edition of 10,000 copies was printed in Paris in 1810. Napoleon, however, ordered the entire edition to be destroyed; the preferences for Christian and medieval culture over the neoclassicism of the Napoleonic era, and for German thinkers like Schlegel over French philosophers like Voltaire, were seen as politically subversive, and a possible threat to the established order. A new edition had to be printed in London and was published there in 1813 which is the edition offered here for sale. A commercial success throughout the 19th century, the book was published in 25 French editions alone. An English translation was published by John Murray in 1813 under the title "Germany".
De L'Allemagne had a greater influence than any of Stael's other works. Along with The Genius of Christianity (1802) by Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, it pointed out the direction that French Romanticism would follow. The recommendation to express the inner life, like in the Christian confession, led the way for a tradition of French confessional literature. The book also had significant impact elsewhere, including the United Kingdom and the United States, where it was the work that introduced the term Romanticism.
The scholar John Claiborne Isbell compares its impact to that of Victor Hugo's Hernani (1830), which was seen as a "triumph of Romantic art", writing: "Romanticism outside Germany dates its conscious existence from De l'Allemagne: recognising its pivotal role will give France back twenty stolen years of literary history, and restore the missing origin of this Europe-wide transformation of art and society. Hugo, Leopardi, Emerson do not come before, they come after: they are a second generation."
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Legacy:
Comte's disciple Frederic Harrison wrote about de Stael that her novels "precede the works of Walter Scott, Byron, Mary Shelley, and partly those of Chateaubriand, their historical importance is great in the development of modern Romanticism, of the romance of the heart, the delight in nature, and in the arts, antiquities, and history of Europe."
Precursor of feminism:
Recent studies by historians, including feminists, have been assessing the specifically feminine dimension in de Staël's contributions both as an activist-theorist and as a writer about the tumultuous events of her time. She has been called a precursor of feminism.
The author has had an enormous influence on culture and literature, here are a few examples to demonstrate just the breadth of her influence:
- De Stael is credited in Leo Tolstoy's epilogue to War and Peace as a factor of the "influential forces" which historians say led to the movement of humanity in that era.
- De Stael is mentioned several times by Alexander Pushkin and is always given a positive portrayal by him which was rare of westerns. When criticised for this, Pushkin responded "de Stael is ours, do not touch her!"
- De Stael is frequently quoted by Ralph Waldo Emerson and she is credited with introducing him to recent German thought.
- Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, considered de Stael among the greatest women of the century.
- Lord Byron, perhaps the most famous Romantic poet, was quoted as saying "[she was] a good woman at heart and the cleverest at bottom, but spoilt by a wish to be - she knew not what. In her own house she was amiable; in any other person's you wished her gone, and in her own again".
- Goethe, the author of Faust, called de Stael "the envisaged human spirit" [translated].
Size: 14 x 21.5 cm (approx., each)
Condition:
Spines show very attractively on the shelf with some light wear and discolouration at the foot of each. Attractive tooled morocco labels present to each spine with exquisite quality tooled gilt names to each with the volume numbers. Each spine is significantly darker in colour than the leather of the boards and as such this may be the first case we've seen where the boards are sunned and the spine isn't! All boards are securely attached without any significant wear to joints. Sunning of boards, particularly near the joints. Some shelf and edge wear as typical. Marbled paper covering the boards in uncommonly excellent condition. Top page edges dulled as typical. Endpaper leaves heavily foxed but with each text block remarkably clean and in excellent condition and collated as complete though bound without the half titles.
