Reading Order
De l'AllemagneDe l'Allemagne Reading Order
De l'Allemagne (On Germany, completed 1810, published in France 1813 after Napoleon had the first print run destroyed) by Germaine de Staël is the most consequential work of literary criticism in the French Romantic tradition — a vast survey of German culture, philosophy, literature, and religion that introduced Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and German Romanticism to French readers and established the contrast between Northern and Southern literary cultures (organic vs. classical) that structured European literary debate for generations. De Staël wrote De l'Allemagne after spending years in the German-speaking world, meeting Goethe and Schiller at Weimar, and attending the lectures of the Schlegel brothers; the book is part travelogue, part literary history, part philosophical argument, and it was suppressed by Napoleon because it implicitly praised a rival culture and criticized Napoleonic France by implication. Its publication in London in 1813, followed by its French publication after Napoleon's fall, made it immediately influential — not just in France but throughout Europe, where it transmitted the Romantic aesthetic that was reshaping German and English literature into a French critical framework.
Where to start
Start with Part II (Literature and the Arts) for the literary argument that made the book famous — specifically the chapters distinguishing Northern (melancholy, spiritual, infinite) and Southern (sensuous, formal, finite) literatures. Part III (Philosophy and Morality) is for readers interested in Kant and German idealism.
Complete De l'Allemagne Book List
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De l'Allemagne
Germaine de Staël·1813·The complete text is available in French in Garnier-Flammarion (3 volumes); no recent complete English translation exists, but Victorian translations are available. Simone Balayé's edition is the scholarly standard. - Buy
Corinne, ou l'Italie
OptionalGermaine de Staël·1807·The companion novel in which Staël performs the Southern vs. Northern contrast through a French-English love affair and a female improvisatrice in Rome.
De l'Allemagne — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the central argument of De l'Allemagne?
The central argument of De l'Allemagne is that European literature divides into two great traditions: a Southern tradition (Greek, Roman, French classical) that values formal perfection, clarity, and the pleasures of earthly life; and a Northern tradition (Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, medieval) that values melancholy, spiritual aspiration, the infinite, and the imperfections of earthly existence. Staël aligns Romanticism with the Northern tradition and argues that French classical literature, which had been exported as the European norm by the prestige of the seventeenth century, is actually a local tradition — beautiful and important, but not universal. The implication (which Napoleon grasped immediately) is that French culture needs to open itself to Northern Romantic influences rather than treating its own classical tradition as the measure of all literary value. The book introduces Goethe, Schiller, and the Schlegels to French readers and argues that their work is the most vital literature of the contemporary moment.
Why did Napoleon suppress De l'Allemagne?
Napoleon had the first print run of De l'Allemagne (10,000 copies, already printed in Paris in 1810) destroyed and the plates melted because the book implicitly criticized France by praising a rival culture. Staël had been exiled from Paris since 1803 — Napoleon considered her a political opponent and banned her from within forty leagues of Paris — and De l'Allemagne, which praised German culture, philosophy, and literature while noting their superiority to contemporary French equivalents, read as a critique of Napoleonic France. The prefect who confiscated the books wrote to Staël: 'Your last work is not French.' She escaped to Austria and eventually published the book in London in 1813, where it became an immediate success. Its French publication followed Napoleon's fall. The suppression made the book famous and gave it the aura of dangerous truth that amplified its influence throughout Europe.
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