Reading Order
CorinneCorinne, or Italy Reading Order
Corinne, or Italy (1807) by Germaine de Staël is the most important novel written by a woman in the Napoleonic period — a book about female genius and the social structures that cannot accommodate it, dressed as a love story between the improvising poet Corinne and the Scottish Lord Nelvil. Corinne is a half-English, half-Italian woman of extraordinary artistic and intellectual gifts who has created for herself in Rome a life of independence, celebrity, and creative freedom that has no equivalent for a woman in her home country (England) or in the France of Napoleon's increasingly restrictive social codes. When Nelvil falls in love with her, their relationship is destroyed by the same social conservatism that Corinne fled: Nelvil ultimately chooses his duty to his father's memory and to conventional English domesticity over Corinne, marrying her half-sister Lucile (the perfect conventional English woman) instead. Corinne returns to Italy and dies of grief. The novel is also a cultural essay: each chapter set in Rome, Naples, Florence, and Venice is a meditation on Italian art, music, theatre, and landscape, making the novel simultaneously a love story, a feminist argument about creative genius, and the most influential travel narrative of the Romantic period. Mme de Staël's influence on French Romanticism was enormous: she introduced German Romantic philosophy to France, coined the distinction between 'Classic' and 'Romantic' literature, and made the case for a literature of the North (melancholy, Protestant, individualist) against a literature of the South (sensuous, Catholic, social).
Where to start
Corinne, or Italy (1807) — the Oxford World's Classics edition translated by Sylvia Raphael (1998) is the standard English translation; the Rutgers University Press edition translated by Avriel Goldberger is also important. Long (about 430 pages) and requires sustained attention; best approached knowing something about Romantic Italy and Mme de Staël's biography.
Complete Corinne Book List
- 1Buy
Corinne, or Italy (Oxford World's Classics)
Germaine de Staël (trans. Sylvia Raphael)·1998·The standard English translation — Raphael's introduction is the best account of Corinne's place in European Romanticism and Mme de Staël's own biography (Napoleon exiled her from Paris, and the novel was partly written in Italy during that exile); the notes identify the art, music, and sites described in each chapter. - 2Buy
On Germany (De l'Allemagne)
Germaine de Staël·1813·Mme de Staël's critical masterpiece — the work that introduced German Romantic philosophy (Kant, Schiller, Goethe) to French readers and coined the Classic/Romantic distinction; Napoleon banned it and had the first print run destroyed; reading it alongside Corinne gives the intellectual framework for everything de Staël believed about culture and creative genius. - 3Buy
René
François-René de Chateaubriand·1802·The companion French Romantic text — René and Corinne define the two poles of early French Romanticism: René is the male hero destroyed by excess of sensitivity and want of social purpose; Corinne is the female genius destroyed by social convention; reading both gives the fullest picture of French Romantic feeling. - 4Buy
Adolphe
Benjamin Constant·1816·The novel written by Mme de Staël's longtime companion — Constant's Adolphe (partly based on their relationship) tells the same story from the lover's perspective; reading Adolphe alongside Corinne gives the full picture of the real relationship that underlies both texts. - 5Buy
Daniel Deronda
George Eliot·1876·The Victorian novel that most directly inherits Corinne's theme of female genius thwarted by social convention — Eliot's Alcharisi (the opera singer who abandoned her child to pursue her art) is in direct dialogue with Corinne's argument about the impossibility of female creative freedom within conventional social structures.
Corinne — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Corinne by Madame de Staël about?
Corinne, or Italy (1807) by Germaine de Staël follows Corinne, a half-English, half-Italian woman of extraordinary artistic and intellectual gifts who has created for herself in Rome a life of independence, celebrity, and creative freedom. When the Scottish Lord Nelvil falls in love with her, their relationship is destroyed by social conservatism: Nelvil ultimately chooses conventional English domesticity over Corinne, marrying her half-sister instead. Corinne returns to Italy and dies of grief. The novel is simultaneously a love story, a feminist argument about female creative genius, and the most influential Romantic travel narrative about Italy — each chapter is a meditation on Italian art, music, theatre, and landscape.
Who was Madame de Staël?
Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) was a Swiss-French writer, critic, and political figure who was one of the most intellectually influential people in Europe during the Napoleonic period. The daughter of Jacques Necker (Louis XVI's Finance Minister), she ran a famous Parisian salon, was exiled from Paris three times by Napoleon (who feared her influence), introduced German Romantic philosophy to France in De l'Allemagne (1813), coined the distinction between 'Classic' and 'Romantic' literature that shaped European literary history, and wrote Corinne (1807) and Delphine (1802). She was the companion of Benjamin Constant for many years.
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