The RomantiC Era John Whittaker 1. General Franziska Meier, ‘La “Mort de l’auteur” dans l’écriture autobiographique romantique: à propos du “jeune” François-René de Chateaubriand (René) et d’Alfred de Musset (La Confession d’un enfant du siècle)’, FS, 67:323–39, finds that, though subsequent theorists have attributed the Death of the Author and the emergence of modern literature to a later period, they are really a post-Revolutionary phenomenon, C. following his experience of the Revolution by taking death as a starting point, and M. very gradually adapting C.’s stance some years later. Sylvain Ledda, ‘Stratégies de la pseudo-traduction: Mérimée et Musset’, LR, 67:417–30, explains the reasons for the original works, Théâtre de Clara Gazul and L’Anglais mangeur d’opium, being presented as translations, showing the importance of both translation and pseudo-translation during our period. Pauline de Tholozany, ‘Revolutionizing the Fossilized: Balzac and Janin’s Naturalist Discourse in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes’, NCFS, 41:48–65, looks at the collaboration of B. and J. in the panoramic project of 1840–42 and their use of paradigms of thought unearthed by natural history, arguing that they subvert the naturalist model on which they claim to build, in an ironic stance that defeats the same taxonomies that it constructs. Claudine Giacchetti, ‘“Comment signer maintenant?”. Le pseudonym raconté par les femmes de lettres’, RoQ, 60:41–51, considers the motivations and relative fortune of four pseudonyms chosen by women writers, George Sand by Aurore Dupin, Daniel Stern by Marie d’Agoult, Charles de Launay by Delphine de Girardin, and Comtesse Dash by Gabrielle Anna Cisternes de Courtiras. Éric Bordas, ‘Introduction. Comment parlait-on’, Romantisme, 159:3–17, reminds us that, though the term ‘homosexualité’ was not formulated during our period, the laws permitting relationships between members of the same sex were drafted during the Revolution and embedded in French law in 1810. Jacques- Philippe Saint-Gérand, ‘Homosexualité des alphadécédets: remarques sur un innommable des dictionnaires conformes, et recours aux excentriques’, ib., 19–34, begins with a survey of the censorship of pornographic material and erotic terms under the Restoration. Julie Mazaleigue- Labaste, ‘De l’amour socratique à l’homosexualité grecque’, ib., 35–46, observes that, though it was not until 1849 that talk of ‘Greek homosexuality’ became acceptable, the effeminate male had already become part of the French cultural spectrum in the later years of the Restoration. Doris Y. Kadish, Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves: Women Writers and French Colonial Slavery, Liverpool U.P., 2012, ix + 186 pp., includes chapters on Germaine de Staël, Charlotte Dard, a passenger on the famously ill-fated ship Méduse who wrote an account of her experiences, Marceline Desbordes- Valmore, Claire de Duras, and Sophie Élisabeth Doin, a fervent and committed abolitionist. John Tresch, The Romantic Machine: Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon, Chicago U.P., 2012, xvii + 449 pp., presents the period 1820–50 as one in which a new image of science appeared, as a theory of nature and of knowing, at the same time as the proliferation of a new range of machines, including steam engines, batteries, sensitive electrical and atmospheric instruments, improved printing presses, and photography. The Romantic machines were flexible, active, and inextricably woven into circuits of both living and inanimate elements. The survey is broad, the machines being presented in three categories: Devices of Cosmic Unity; Spectacles of Creation and Metamorphosis; and Engineers of Artificial Paradises. The Romantic Era 69 2. Consulate Writers Chateaubriand. Chiara Savettieri, ‘L’Atala de Chateaubriand et l’Atala de Girodet: la beauté de la mort’, RIEF, 3:63–84, deals with the continuation of C.’s theme in Girodet’s painting ‘Atala at the tomb’, exhibited in the 1808 Salon, and the way that it showed a new religious sensibility that the Génie du christianisme had helped to establish in Europe and the new opportunities that Romanticism was setting up for both literature and the visual arts. Jean-Claude Berchet, Chateaubriand, Gallimard, 2012, 1050 pp., by a notable C. expert often mentioned here, is a very full, detailed, informative, and readable study of the writer and his work. Having previously finished work on a new edition of the Mémoires, the author is in a position to give the benefit of his heightened awareness of C.’s personality. Though certainly aimed at the C. enthusiast, it is also very accessible, and could well serve for the beginner seeking a complete introduction. Elisa Gregori, Le comiche smorfie: Avramiotti contro Chateaubriand: Alcuni cenni critici del dottor Gian-Dionisio Avramiotti sul viaggio in Grecia che compone la prima dell’Itinerario da Parigi a Gerusalemme, Padua U.P., 2012, 522 pp., introduces and provides an edition of Avramiotti’s ‘critical signals’ of 1826 in response to the first part of the Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem, dealing with Greece. Mme de Staël. Gilles Castagnès, ‘Delphine de Mme de Staël, ou la quête du malheur’, RHLF, 113:71–86, analyses the obstacles preventing the happiness of Léonce and Delphine, the main characters in this first novel, the author not only imposing upon them her own inability to be happy, but also manipulating the plot to that effect. Claire Marrone, ‘The Florentine Sojourn in Staël’s Corinne ou l’Italie’, NCFS, 42:1–17, poses the question why S. sets the ending of the novel in Florence, suggesting that this is a commentary on the future of Italy and at the same time a plea for new possibilities for women, and relating the analysis of this ending to the history of Florence. Staël’s Philosophy of the Passions, ed. Tili Boon Cuillé and Karyna Szmurlo, Lewisburg, Bucknell U.P., xi + 334 pp., includes: Tili Boon Cuillé, ‘Introduction: Setting the Stage’ (1–15), leading to the conclusion that S.’s lasting contribution was in fully grasping the relationship that Enlightenment philosophers sought to establish between sensibility, society, and the arts, and taking advantage of the opportunity afforded to women to contest the perceived opposition between reason, virtue, and the passions; Catherine Dubeau, ‘The Mother, the Daughter, and the Passions’ (19–38), finding the origins of the 1796 treatise De l’influence des passions in S.’s resistance to her mother’s Réflexions sur le divorce, fictional writing permitting her relief from the ravages caused by the passions through interaction with her dual internal selves; Nanette Le Coat, ‘The Virtuous Passion: The Politics of Pity in Staël’s The Influence of the Passions’ (39–55), investigating the crucial role of pity relying on the imagination as the key to the way that S. links private experience to the happiness of the nation; Christine Dunn Henderson, ‘Passions, Politics, and Literature: The Quest for Happiness’ (57–73), exploring S.’s quest for personal and political happiness and the two routes to obtaining it, through philosophical moderation and through writing fiction; Karen de Bruin, ‘Melancholy in the Pursuit of Happiness: Corinne and the Femme Supérieure’ (75–92), turning to De la littérature to show how the quest for happiness became infused with melancholy, a necessary attribute of the superior woman, as exemplified by Corinne; M. Ione Crummy, ‘The Peripheral Heroine Takes Center Stage: From Owenson’s National Tale to Staël’s European Genre’ (95–115), revealing remarkable similarities between Corinne and The Wild Irish Girl, by Sydney Owenson, later Lady Morgan, and demonstrating how S. turned the novel- travelogue of a peripheral Celtic tale into a mainstream European genre; Jennifer Law-Sullivan, ‘Ethnography and Autoethnography: Cosmopolitanism in Corinne ou l’Italie’ (117–30), presenting .