- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction
-
Chapter 1 The Eighteenth Century -
Chapter 2 Genius Obscured -
Chapter 3 Language, Religion, Nation -
Chapter 4 Individual versus Collective Genius -
Chapter 5 The Romantic Poet and the Brotherhood of Genius -
Chapter 6 Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, and the Dynasty of Genius -
Chapter 7 Genius under Observation -
Chapter 8 Genius, Neurosis, and Family Trees -
Chapter 9 Genius Restored to Health -
Chapter 10 A Novel of Female Genius -
Chapter 11 Balzac’s Louis Lambert -
Chapter 12 Creativity and Procreation in Zola’s L’Œuvre -
Chapter 13 Exemplarity and Performance in Literature for Children -
Chapter 14 Alfred Binet and the Measurement of Intelligence -
Chapter 15 Minou Drouet -
Chapter 16 Cultural Critique and the End of Genius -
Chapter 17 The Return of Genius -
Chapter 18 Julia Kristeva and Female Genius -
Chapter 19 Derrida, Cixous, and the Impostor - Bibliography
- Index
A Novel of Female Genius
A Novel of Female Genius
Mme de Staël’s Corinne
- Chapter:
- (p.125) Chapter 10 A Novel of Female Genius
- Source:
- Genius in France
- Author(s):
Ann Jefferson
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
This chapter considers the links between women and genius in the figure of Mme De Staël's Corinne (from her 1807 of the same name). At the time of its publication women there seemed to be no place for women in genius or for genius in women. At the same time, however, the novel, which was traditionally associated with a female readership, was gaining status as a literary genre. Mme de Staël, as one of the rare women commentators on genius, curiously made no explicit attempt to counter the arguments of those who denied genius to her sex and even echoed many of their assumptions. Yet she would eventually come to portray the heroine of her second novel, Corinne, as an unambiguous incarnation of female genius.
Keywords: Mme De Staël, Corinne, female genius, novels, gloire, genius-heroine
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction
-
Chapter 1 The Eighteenth Century -
Chapter 2 Genius Obscured -
Chapter 3 Language, Religion, Nation -
Chapter 4 Individual versus Collective Genius -
Chapter 5 The Romantic Poet and the Brotherhood of Genius -
Chapter 6 Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, and the Dynasty of Genius -
Chapter 7 Genius under Observation -
Chapter 8 Genius, Neurosis, and Family Trees -
Chapter 9 Genius Restored to Health -
Chapter 10 A Novel of Female Genius -
Chapter 11 Balzac’s Louis Lambert -
Chapter 12 Creativity and Procreation in Zola’s L’Œuvre -
Chapter 13 Exemplarity and Performance in Literature for Children -
Chapter 14 Alfred Binet and the Measurement of Intelligence -
Chapter 15 Minou Drouet -
Chapter 16 Cultural Critique and the End of Genius -
Chapter 17 The Return of Genius -
Chapter 18 Julia Kristeva and Female Genius -
Chapter 19 Derrida, Cixous, and the Impostor - Bibliography
- Index