TRANSITS: TRANSITS LITERATURE, THOUGHT & CULTURE
StriaEdiror
Greg Oingham Bucknell University
Tra111ia is the next horizon. The series of books, essays, and monographs aims 10 extend recent achievements in eightecnth-«ntury srudies and co publish work on any aspects of the licemurc, thought, and culrurc of the years 1650-1850. Without ideologial or Stael's Philosophy methodologial restrictions, Trantillseeks to provide transformative =dingsof the literary, cultur.11, and historical interconnections between Britain, Europe, the Far Ease, Oceania, and the Americas in the long eighteenth ccnrury, and as they acend down 10 presenttime. In addition to literature and history, such -global" pcopcctives might entail considerations of the Passions of time, space, narurc, economics, politics, environment, and material culture, and might necessitate the development of new modes of critial imagination, which we welcome. But SENSIBILITY, SOCIETY, the seriesdocs not thereby repudiate the loal and the national,for original new work on puticular writers and readers in particular places in time continues 10 be the bedrock of AND THE SISTER ARTS the discipline. liclcsin the Series
7ht F11milJ,M11rri4gt, 11nd RAdic4'ism in British WommiNow/s of tht I 7901: Public Affimon11nd PrilNlU Affliction Jennifer Golighcly
Ftminism and tht Politiaof Trawl After tht Enlightmmmt Yael Schlick
John Galt:Ob1erv11tio111 11na Conjmurn on Littmtu", History. and SodttJ Edited by Tili Boon Cuille Rtgina Hewitt and Karyna Szmurlo PnfomringAuthorship in Eighumth-CmturyEnglish Ptriodica/s Manushag N. Powell
&ritJZbkImaginations: Eroticism and Rtadingin Britain, /660-/760
K.i1hlecn Lubcy 7htFrmch RtvolutionDtba1t and tht BritishNow/, 1790-1814: 7htStruggk for Hisroryi Authority
Morgan Rooney Lewisburg
Racocr,Fiction in Frrznct, 1600-17/5: Stditiow Frivolity BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY PIU!ss Allison Stedman
For a complete list of ticlcs in this series, please visit h[tJ>://www.bucknell.edu/univcrsiry press. To our mentors {our source of inspiration) and our children (our hope for the future). Published by BucknellUniversity Press Co-published with The Rowman& LlnlcliddPublishing Group, Inc. 4501 ForbesBoulevud, Suite200, Lanham,Muyland 20706 www.mwman.com
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Staci's philosophy of ihc passions : sensibility, society, andthe sister ans/ edited by TiliBoon CuiUc and K2ryn.oSz.mwlo. pagesan. - {Transitsli1erarutt, thought & culruie) Includesbibllogr.,phical idi:rcnccs and index. ISBN 978-1-61148-472-4 (cloth: alk. paper)-ISBN 978-1-61148-473-1 (cbook) I. Stoel,Madame de {Anne-Louise-Germaine), 1766-1817-Cri1icism and interpretation.2. Francc-lnrcllmual life--l9thccnru,y. I. Cuillc, Tili
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Printed in the United Stoicsof America CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Setting the Stage Tili Boon Cuilli
PART I THE POLITICS OF THE PASSIONS
The Mocher, the Daughter, and the Passions 19 Catherine Dubeau 2 The Virtuous Passion: The Politics of Pity in Stael's 1heInflumu of the Passions 39 Nanrttr u Coat 3 Passions, Politics, and Literature: TheQuest for Happiness 57 Christine Dunn Henderson 4 Melancholy in the Pursuit of Happiness: Corinneand the Femme Supmeure 75 KArrndrBruin
PART II INTERNATIONAL AESTHETICS
s The Peripheral Heroine Takes Center Stage: From Owenson's National Tale to Stael'sEuropean Genre 95 M lonr Crummy
{ ¥ii J CONTENTS
6 Ethnography and Autoethnography: Cosmopolitanism in LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Corinne ou l1talie ll7 JenniferLaw-Sulli11an
7 Liquid Union: Listening through Tears and the Creation of Community in Corinne 131 LaurtnFortner Rava/ico
8 Aeolian Translacion: The Acsthecics of Mediation and the Jouissance of Genre 151 CC. Wharram Figures
9 British Le acies of Corinne and the Commercialization g 5.1 Portrait of Sydney Owenson by Samuel Freeman afterJohn of Enthusiasm 171 Comerford 109 KariLokk e 5.2 Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ni Houlihan forIrish pound by John Lavery 110 PART 111 PHILOSOPHY ANO THE ARTS 11.1 Portrait of Germaine de Stael by Finnin Massot 206 11.2 1 o The Power to Corrupt: A Staelian Perspective on the Portrait of Germaine de Staci attributed to Marguerite Gerard, Elisabeth Vigce-Lcbrun, and Finnin Massoc 207 Fine Arts 193 11.3 Replicaof Fran�ois Geracd's portrait of Germaine de Susan Tmmhaum Staciby Marie Gode&oid 208 11.4 Portraitof Mada me deStai/ , , The Many Faces of Germaine de Stael 205 as Corinne by Elisabeth Mary Sheriff Vigc:e-Lcbrun 209 D. 11.5 Miniacurc of Germaine de Stael by Pierre-Louis Bouvier 215 11.6 12 Scacl, Corinne, and the Women Collectors of Portrait of Germaine de Stael by Fran�is Gerard 216 11.7 Napoleonic Europe 237 Replica of Elisabeth Vigee-Lcbrun's Portrait ofMada me de Heathtr Belnap Jensen Stai/as Corinne by Firmin Massot 221 11.8 Corinne at CapeMismo by Fran�is Gerard 228 13 Germaine de Stael Defines Romanticism, or the Analogy of 12.1 Corinne Showing OswaJd her Pictures by H.S. Grie 241 the Glass Harmonica 12.2 g 263 Christ Carryingthe Crossby Bartolome Esteban Murillo 242 12.3 Fabimnt Moo" Photograph of the Portrait Room at Coppet 245 12.4 The MusicSalon at Ma/maisonby Auguste Garneray 248 14 Between Ideal and Performance: Corinne in Female-Authored 12.5 Pauline BorgheseIII Venus Vict1Uby Antonio Canova 251 Singer Narratives of the l 830s 281 12.6 Portrait of Caroline Murat by JeanAuguste Dominique Ingres 253 JuliaEjfmz
Bibliography 303
Index 325 About the Contributors 331 I •iii I l�l HEATHER BELNAP JENSEN 13
66. Nancy K. Mill..-, "Emphasis Added: Plotsand rlawibUitics in Women's fiction: in Sul,jmto GERMAINE DE STAEL DEFINES ROMANTICISM, OR Chang,:/hading Fmrinut Writing (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1988), 25--46. THE ANALOGY OF THE GLASS HARMONICA 67. The subjttt of women's dcsira in the lilt and art of Sae! is a.1Siduously punucd in M•delyn Guiwitth, Mad,,m,d, Stai/, Nov,/isr: 71,,Em, rgtn" oftbt Ams,as Woman (Urbana: University Fabienne Moore oflllinois l'rcss, 1978). 68. "Dans le voyog•de la vie, la femme est le guide, le clunnc et le souticn de l'homme• (Maxi�a ti,, Orimr,zur). &plkationsda oo,m,gad, ptinn,,r, 1,ulpn,rt, arrbittcturrn pvurr daartuta vi11r1ru,cq,,,sn au Mwh Napofio,,...• (Puu: Dubray, lmprimeur du Mwee Napoleon, 1808), 37. 69. Forsusrained anal ysis of Stael'senpgcmcn1 with the vuualarts, see my chapter on Gemu.inc de Scai!Iin my unpublisheddlssemtion, "Po1112i1isrcs 11 la plume:Women An Critiain Revolution• atyand NapoleonicFrance,• (PhD diss., University of lun.a,s, 2007).
Ac C o Ro ING To Willbm Zcicl«, =dd-d,n gl,n lwmoak, player and composer: "Then: is a story printed in an early Irish musicil dictionary of how, upon his returnto America, while his wife was asleep, Benjamin Franklin went up to the attic of his Philaddphia home and set up his GlassArmonica which she had not yet heard. Upon completing this, he startedto draw forth its 'angdick strains.' Floating down fromabove, thesesounds were apparently so heavenly, that 'his wifeawakened with the co11viction that she had died and gone to heaven and was listening to the music of the angels.'"1 What kind of insuumenr is the: glass harmonica, to produce such angelic music that Mrs. Franklin imagined herself
dead and in heaven? Rubbing a wet finger around the rim of a drinking glass ere:• ates a very pure musicil note whose pitch varies according to the amount of water in the glass. In the second half of the eighteenth century, a morc daborate version of this parry trick involving secs of singing glassesbecame a musicil pastimedur
ing social gatherings.The Encyclopedia defined the sounds emitted as mwique d� vtrru, fuvorably describing its harmony while atuibuting its origin to Germany and drawing a comparison with an ancient Persian practice:
GLASSES,Music of. (Arts) A few years ago we invenred with the hdp of glasses a new kind of harmony very flattering to the car... . The instnunent wed for this effect is an oblong box, in which arc aligned and attached several round glasses of different diameters, in which one poucs water in various quantities.By rubbing a wetted linger on the rims of these glasses, which arc slighdy curved in, one draws very sweet, very melodious and long lasting sounds; and in this manner one is able to play very pleasant tunes.1
l 2.G? l I 263 I GERMAINE OE STAEL DEFINES ROMANTICISM i"ABIENNE MOORE
The advantages of this instrument are, that its rones arc incom After listening to a performance by a virtuoso player, Edward Hussey Ddaval (1729-1814), Benjamin Franklin was so fascinated by this nc:wsound chac he sc:t parably sweet beyond those of any other; that they may be swc:llcd and softened at pleasure by suongcr or wc:akc:r pressures of the finger, and his inventive mind to work improving upon che possibilities of musical glasses. He had glassesof differentdiameters blown, each corresponding to a note:, instead continued to any length; and that the insuumc:nr, being once well of filling glasses with �tc:r. He removed che stems and bottoms from the:glasses, tuned, never again �ts tuning. inserted corks in che holes in the bottoms and mounted chem one: after the: other In honour of your musical language, I have borrowed from it the: 5 on a horizoncal spindle:.The: spindle: was rotated rapidly by means of a footpedal name of the instrument, calling it the:Annonica.
{like: an old fashioned sewing machine), and the player sat in front of the ma The new instrument unexpectedly surf.icesin Germaine de Staci's On Lirmz chine: and couched moistened lingers to the: edgesof the: rotating glasses.The first turr, the firstinstance of an association becwcen the Romantic movement not yet modc:l was completed in 1761 and-in honor of the:musical Italian lan u e-he: g ag consciruted and an instrument which, together with the Aeolian harp, gradually baptized it the: "armonica," borrowing the lcalian word for "harmony." In a 1762 becameemblematic of heightened sensitivity, reverie :md transcendence.My pur lc:rtc:r, he enthusiastically shared his invention with his friend and supporter, the: pose in this chapter is co sketch the unusual history of this rare instrument, then fotlian scientist Giambatista Beccaria, whom he thought would appreciate this to analyze how and why it could provide Stael with a fertile analogyto describe nc:w inscrumc:nt "as it is an instrument chat sc:c:ms peculiarly adapted to Italian English and German romantic poetry and the ambivalence at ics core. Franklin's 3 music, especially chat of the: soft and plaintive: kind." Franklin proceeded with description of his invention already alerts us ro the kinship between the exceed a lengthy and exact description of how to rut and rune: the: glasses, how to fix ingly "sweet" sounds of the armonica and Italian music-in particular, ics "soft them to a spindle:, and how co draw a tone with one linger as they rurn around. and plaintive kind." If Enlightenment debates on music constituted the common He then explained in a passage evocative of Pere Castel's 1740 description of his backdrop co Franklin's commencsand Stael's rcferenccs to the armonica, by the "h sicord for the eyes" [clavedn occulai�J: arp end of the eighteenth cennuy Stael's contribution signiliCU1dy surmounted a My l.ugesc glass is G, a little below reach of a common voice, and my whole set of binaryoppositions scalling such debates (including narure vs. artifice, highest G, including three complete octaves. To distinguish the glasses physicalvs. metaphysical,voice vs. instrument, melody vs. harmony, masculine vs. the more readily 10 the eye, I have painted the apparent pam of the feminine). Moreover, the pressingneed to characterize and define:romantic poetry n glasses within side, every semitone white, and the other notes of the oc ten y= lau:r in her work O Germanyled Stael back to an instrument chat effec tave with the scvc:n prismatic colours, viz. C, red; D, orange; E, ydlow; tively tested itslisteners' sensibility by inuoducing a measure of pain in pleasure, F, green; G. blue; A, indigo; B, purple; and C, red again; so that glasses akin to Staci's own reception of overly vague and abstract romantic poetry. From of the same colour (the white excepted)arc: always octaves to eachother.' sounds full of sweetness praisedin Franklin's correspondence to the dangerous lure of (romantic) musical and poetical abstractions analyzed in On Germany, pc:rccp Franklin ends the letter with advice on how to perform: cions of the glass harmonica allow us to approach the: evolution of sensibilityand This instrument is played upon, by sitting before the middle of the set itsexpressions, both from the original perspective of a forgotten instrument and of glasses as before che keys of a harpsichord, turning chem with che from the perspective of Staci, who invokes it in order to exposethe limitations of foot, and wetting chem now and then with a sponge and clean water. both the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The lingers should be first a little soaked in warer, and quite &cc from Musicologist Hcacher Hadlock and Thomas Bloch, one of the most promi all greasiness; a little fine chalk upon them is sometimes useful, to make nent musicians currently performing and recording with the glass harmonica, chem catch the glass and bring out the tone more readily. Both hands arc: have studied this c:urious instrument from a socio-culrural, literary, and musical 6 used, by which means different parts arc: played together. Observe:, char perspc:ctive. While Bloch researchedthe musical propenies of the glassh armonica the tones arc best drawn our when the glasses rum from the ends of the: and pondered its decline, Hadlock investigated the symbolic conjunctions be fingers, not when they rum to chem. tween women and an instrument that-like: the harp--embodied femininity.7
[ 264] I 265 I FA61ENNE MOORE GERMAINE DE STA!clDEF INES ROMANTICISM
The following characteristic verses from 1785, by British poet William �ayl , Melancholy poetry is not capable of infinite variety. The shudder we feel _cr underscore both the gendering of the glass harmonica and the metaphorical m at ccnain narural beauties is always th e same feeling; the emotion chat scrumencalization of the fe male body: the poetry retracing this feeling inspires in us is vn-yclb se to the dfia of the armonica. Thesoul, gently shaken, takes pleasure in prolonging this Wo man, I say, or dame or lass, condition as long as it c;m bear it. What makes us fed tired after a while Is an Harmonka of g'4si, is not the poetry's fuult, but the weakness of our own organs; what we Celestial and complete: fe el is not bored, but exhausted, as if by ama/ music which we ha11e bun If new, or by some trials known, mjoying a link too lbn . 11 It matters not g
A single jot; Just before this passage Staci gives the namesof three representative, earlyrom:llltic e e Wh n rightly touch'd, its every con poets: Edward Yo ung, f.unous forhis Night Thoughts (1742), JamesThoms on, who Is ravishingly sweet.• cdebraccd the poetry of nature in 1he SeaJons ( 1730), and the German Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, who revived sacred poetry. The three poets have in common Fran�is-Rene de Chateaubriand would also later gender the instrument as . a melancholy perspective. Shuddering and shaking f,frimissmunt and ib rankmmt] fe minine in the 1826 prose epic Les Natthez when evoking the fields of parad�e, _ arc physical as well as emotional and mencal reactions: body and soul shiver as wh ere "a moreal wo u)d think that his ear perceived the plaintive accents of a divine the contemplate nature's sublime spectacle, a shiver prolonged by the poetic armomca,· " ' an ·ncercsting1 revision of a fragment originally descn •b· mg Ch nst1an· · y experience of reading poems that capture this awe. Though a direct influence is paradise, and at first intended for the Ginie du christianimre (G,emus . .,0., Ch ns ·ti an - unlikdy, Stael's analogy echoes Friedrich Schl d's portrayal of the philosopher ity, 1802): cg Jacobi's "sensitive character .•.re sonating everywhere like a fu away harmonica 12 A ravishing music rises endlessly from everything. Sometimes, �ere arc of the world of the mind. " uninterrupted shivers, similar to the rare vibrations of an Acohan �arp Staci analyzed read ers' response to romantic poetry based on two co-deter if touched by the sofr breath of th e wind during a silent summer mght; minants; first, the weakness of our organs limits our sensorial perception, therefore · e -- 1 would think that he heard the plaintive accents of som umcs a m0 n.u melancholy poetry-while emotionally powerful-generates fatigue; secondly, a divine armonica, these whispers of glass, which do not seem to belong weariness also arises if a perfe ct aesthetic experience lasts too long. Clearly, for 0 to anything earthly.' Staci, duration :menuares aesthetic pleasure, leading her to argue chat discontinu icy, not continuity, should be sought; otherwisethe absence of variation creates "a Chatcaubriand's initial analogyand its rephrasing appropriate the i�trument for kind of uniformity," which turns pleasure into discomfort and pain. In her novel strictly poetic and suggestive effects, such as the striking metonym1c mecap�or Corinne, or Italy , moments when the soul vibrates in unison with a duet of voices, "sighs of glass" [soupin de vm-e] born of the imaginative search for transcnb_ ng '. while delicious and render, would become excruciating if they lasccd too long: coo the divine. Staci's own genius consists in a trilica/ appropriacion-nam�y, cvo_king perfect a harmony sustained fortoo long would "break the accord."13 One experi the instrument to debunk a series of aesthetic and cultural dichotomies. Neuher ences chis paradox while listening to even just a few minutes of music performed Bloch nor Hadlock mention Staci, yet her orig_inal perspective adds a n � :1"d _ on the glass harmonica,which is delightful ac first,bur whose high pitch isdiffi cult more critical dimension co the instrument's close association with the _fe mmmc. co sustain acoustically after a while.14 Unpacking the history of this instrument with itsheavenly notes an btza te �. � � allows for a better understanding of the aesthetic pertinence of Stacis dcfimt1on and the implications of her musical revisionism. A Mixed Reception .. . The quotation at the origin of my inquiryoccurs in chapter xu of On litmz Franklin's popularity and connections throughout Europe helped spread his turr, titled "De la litterarure du Nord" [Of Northern Llcerarurc]: invention in courts and salons: "Some 400 works were composed for it, some
I 266 l ! 267 I FABIENNE MOORE GER MAINE DE STA £L DEFIMES ROMANTICISM
unfortunately lost, and probably about 4,000 instruments were built over the inst�ment drove perform ers and listeners to ment.11 disturbance and insanity. A course of some seventy years."') The notoriety of gifi:cd performers concributed negauve press account from 1798 underlined how "it excessively stimulates the to the instrument's popularity. Franklin himself, true to his idiosyncratic tastes, nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and 16 liked to play Scottish ballads. The future queen Marie-Antoinette was taughtat melancholy mood, that it is an ape method forslow self..annihilation."20 A Traite the Viennese court by Marianne Davies (1740-1792), the eighteenth-century's daeffors dr la musique rurk corpr humain (T"ariJe on the Effe ctso fM usic on th e best player, who spent the end of her life in a mental hospital. The notorio� Vi Human Body) by Joseph Louis Roger in 1803 warned that "its melancholy cone ennese doctor and hyp notist, Fran:t Anton Mesmer, used the glass harmonica to plunges you into dejection ...to a point the strongest man could not hc::ir it for relax his patients as part of his treatment and to convey and reinforce magnetism. an hour without fainting." 11 As[ mentioned, some interpreters went mad-among Furthermore, as per Leopold M0:tart's correspondence, we know that f.uher and them, one of the besr, Marianne Davies-and "the Armonicawas accused of c:ius i es an i an son adm red M mer's perform ce in Vienna n 1773, d that seventcen-ycar ing evils such as nervous problems, domestic squabbles, premature deliveries, fatal old Mo:tart had the opponunity to play Mesmer's armonica himself. Later, in disorders, animal convulsions. The instrument was even banned fromone German spring 1791, Mo:tart wrote two pieces for the blind arrnonica player Marianne town by the police for ruining the health of people and disrurbing public order (a Kirchgacssner (1769-1808).'7 On December 10, 1803, during her firstjourney to child died during a concert)."21 Eventually the glass harmonic:i became a prop in Germany, Staci wrote a letter to her fatherfrom Gocha, in which she tells of having theatrical parodies of Mesmerism. 2' taken two armonica lessons: if she succeeds in playing it, she plans to buy one in We know today that the 30 percent lead content of the blown glasses might Paris. Te llingly, just before this reference, Stael informs Necker that she has sent have been responsible for the mental illnesses that befell its performers. Bur this - him an Aeolian harp affordable and easyto transport in contrast to the expensive modern, prosaic hypothesis docs not suppress the instrument's association with and &agileglass harmonici: physical and moral danger, very much in the background of Staci's analogy. There seems 10 be a strange curse on the glass harmonica. The one man responsible for I'm sending you what is called here an Aeolian harp. Yo u'll only receive it in about rwo months. I'll explain to you in my first letter how it needs itsrev ival in the twentiethcentury, the only person able to recreate the instrument to be exposed co a draft wind co emit sounds that you'll hear in another in the 1980s, Gerhard Finkenbeiner, disappeared with his plane in 1999 offthe room. It also produces them in the middle of the garden when it is well Massachusetts coasc.24 set between leaves, and it's a rather soft effect forwhoever loves to dream. Bes ides, it is an inexpensive amusement and ific works in your home, we The Instrumental Imaginary can order some: it costs eighteen fumc.s, including packing. I have cakcn rwo armonica lessons; if I manage to play, I'll buy one in Paris, but not The glass harmonicas haunting past,which I have just evoked, is pan of what one here:. It's expensive and frag ile. 11 might call "the instrumental imaginary" [l'imaginaire dr l'instrummt], namely a �orld of connotations brought about by itsdistinctive sound, at once captivat es an i Respons co the glass harmonica grew passionate d ranged from in tial p�se mg and dangerous, treacherous in its very sweetness akin to the fascination of a to gradual distrust and dismissal. Among its enthusiasts were Johann Sebasnan _ siren's song. Epithets used to describe itssound (angelic, heavenly, celestial, ethe Bach, Niccolo Paganini, Thomas Jefferson, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, lheo real) often referred to the othenvorldly due to the instrument's unique physical phile Gautier, and George Sand. In her 1848 novd LaComtast drRudohtadt (1ht properties. This is its great paradox: the evocation of the metaphysical, superhu Countess ofRudolstad r) , Sand encapsulated this musical devotion, speaking of"the man realm can be attributed to the instrument's distinctive physical attributes magical voice of the armonica, that recently invented instrument, whose vibrant, �d h�man acous�c limitations. First, its very pure sound-almost cxclusivdy penetrating quality was a wonder unknown to Consuelo's cars, was borne on the h1gh-p1tchcd-rap1dly approaches ultrasounds, not perceptible to a human car air, and seemed to descend from the dome that lay open to the moonlight and but affect.ingbabies and pets such as dogs. Ultrasounds were discovered later, but the refreshing bree:tes of the night."" According to its detractors however, the popular intuition had already grasped the phenomenon at the time. Secondly,
[ 269 J GERMAINE OE STA�L OEFIMES ROMANTICISM i'ASIENNE MOORE variations are impossible, unlike the ability to modulate brc1th when playing the: book La Mu sique des Lumibrs, helps to situate the glass harmonica and to give ffute, for instance, or when the wind blows through an Aeo lian harp. The sound the context of St:1el's analogyat the turn of the nineteenth century. I will leave is actually mechanical and cannotbe fu lly expressive. Staci's warning against the aside the political undertones of this musical division along national boundaries to concentrate on its aesthetics:the caseof Italianvs. French music was the: caseof futiguc: born of a lack of v.iriation therefore captured the: armonica's unusual, e: ce monotone: vibrations, and she transferred the instrument's musical uniformity to voic vs. instrument. On one side, Italy, the feminineand the voi . On the other, e: melancholy poetry. France, the masculine and the instrument. On the Italian sid srood melody; on Add to these demc:ms the fact that the instrument is extremely difficult to th e: French side harmony. Expression belonged to the Italian, the feminine, the natural, the vocal, and the mdodic, whereas imitation was associated with the build and exceedingly fragile, as Stael wrote to her father, which is why so few French, the masculine:, the artificial, the: instrumental, and the: harmonic. This survived from its heyday. It also re mains somewhat of a scientific enigma: "The actual vibrational modes which produce the sound arc not at all well understood overly schematic picrurc aligns a rich set of oppositions that characteri:z.c:compari sons between French and Italian music, which Rousseau recapitulated in part I, ... the underlying physics of the ...'Glass Harmonica' remains asm ysterious as 2 letter XI.VIII of his epistolarynovel,/ u/ie, or the New Heloise.� When Saint-Preux its sound." S In its delicacy and mystery, Franklin's invention escapes rc:ality and rationality. The instrument was a marvd of engineering progressan d pre cision chat writes to Julie of "his conversion fromF rench to Italian music,":, he criticizes the: emitted an indefinable music on the one: hand, a modern invention in the: spirit former as consisting in "a mannered poetry unakin ro narurc .•.shouts that make the sounds not more mdodious but more noisy."» He denounces"the forced style of the Enlightenment and, on the other, a sensual and quasi-mystical experience in the spirit of Romanticism. The: paradoxical combination of these two aspects and all the French frills ...that boring and lamentable French song that is more mirror the Enlightenment's intrinsic contradictions, the fucination for all things l�e �e cries o� colic than the transports of passion.".! • On the conrruy, when mechanical-wimcss the craic fur mechanical dolls and the invention of the l1Stenmg to Italian music, Saint-Preux's imagination rakes Right and his emotions metronome, dashing with the perpetuation of sensibility aswel l as the: irrational, How: the spiritual, or the sacred. The glass harmonica was not mere ly metaphorical, ic At each phrase some image entered my brain or some sentiment my literally embodied this dualism. According co Hadlock: heart; the pleasu.re did not stop at the car, but enrered the soul; ...I
The: immediacy of its effect on the listener-its ability to produce a thought I was hearingthe voice of grief. rage, despair; in my mind's eye, T rants i2 spont211cous, sensuous response-made: it the: perfect instrument for the I saw mothers in tears, lovers betrayed, fu rious y . "age of sensibility." Yet that same: immediacy raised doubts about the: in Saint-Prcux's aesthetic epiphany, that pleasure derived from music could be expc: tdleccual and aestheticstatus of the armonic:i's music, for its "automatic" _ nenced at fudeeper mental, emotional, and spiritual levels, engaging not only the effect on listeners could be discounted as a mere mechanical response to ear, but �th� brain," "the heart" and "the soul," is couched in rerms of a newly dis a ph sical stimulus.� y covered;o�wa�ce (asopposed to "coliquc:s" a la &an�e) that Sainc-Preux is eager The novd instrument echoed a split aesthetic, with a fuult line that also ran to share with h1S beloved, and Rousseau with his readers.In addition, as Rousseau beneath the eighteenth-ce ntury debate about music pitting dcfc:nders of Fre nch argued in his Lerm rur la musique ftanraise (Letter on Ftmch Music, 1753) and music, most notably Jean-PhilippeRam eau and Jacques Cazotte, against partisans later, his .EJsay on the Origin of Lang uages, "parole" asconv eyed in songs is essential, of Italian music including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot.17 which is why "Like Rousseau, Diderot docs not much appreciate purely instru mental music. Ir strays from the essence, the origin of music, which is founded
upon language."" Instrumentswere suspicious, more a luxury item than a genuine Enlightenment MUSIC musical source.l-1 At the same time, in the wake of Rousseau and influential trea
A reminder of the aesthecican d musical dichotomies of the quarrel on "Enlight tiseson language theory, writers dissatisfiedwith versification as ornamental rather enment music," as Beatrice Didier strikingly put it in the: synesthetic title of her than melodic generated poetic o:pcriments in prose that introduced oraliry and
! 2.10 I I 271 I FA !:!tENNE MOORE GERMAINE DE STA!::LOEF IMES ROMAN-ICISM musicality to escape from the neo-classical confines of eighteenth-century poetry. association with superior forces, the connection of its music with the occult and 3 The opera quarrel is mirrored by a second quarrel around the libenics taken by ex the uncanny (to we an ancient and a modem tcrm}. ' perimental prose poems in seeking a rejuvenated "parole." and expressive rhythms The glass harmonica offered evidence that Enlightenment dichotomies by shunning the "insuumcnt" of verse.51 While the philosophcs could not accept could be overcome, an objective at the heart of Stael's aesthetic analyses. Indeed, a strict imitative vic:w of instrumental music, namely the mimetic understanding Staci's merit as a wrcvisionist" of musical aesthetics and a precursor of Romantic of music dominating the century, desiring freer expression, a similar rcsimnce oc sensibility was to legitimize the autonomy of music by insisting on its spirirual curred in literaturc.36 Such was the aesthetic environment from which Staci's new and metaphysical properties-leavingaside, though not discounting, its imitative approach to reading literature and listening to music emerged. aspcct.40 Though absent from James Johnson's rich cultural history, Listening in The glass harmonica ovenurned staid oppositions: here was an instrument, Pa riJ, hers is an important contribution in the gradual evolution of musical expe named for the harmony of its music, which turned our to be intensely expressive. rience from the Enlightenment to the 1830s. A5early as 1800, she had conjoined In other words harmony and instrumentality did not have to be incompatible a new mode of listening (away from imitation toward affect) documented by with exprcssivity. Indeed, the glass harmonica conjured up a suptmatural, a nu Johnson, with literary models (Young, Thompson and Klopstock) that provided minous musical sphere: music played on the glass harmonica escaped the confines in turn the vocabulary to express this new aesthetic undemanding of music as of imitation (of sounds in nature} by lifting listeners into the imaginary realm of expressive rather than strictly referential. A new type of Klistcner" in the realm of music and poetry, Staci searched for an adequate language to express the emo the otherworldly. Describing a conccn with Rute, harpsichord, violin and voice, Louis-Sebastien Mercier distinguished the celestial music of the glass harmonica tions aroused by melancholy poetry as well as to describe the ineffable music of with superlatives: the glass harmonica.
In the next room, one could hear a concert. There were soft flutes ac companying the sound of voice. The high-pitched harpsichord and Germaine de Stael's On Germany the monotonous violin yielded to the enchanting organ of a beautiful Thesecond occurrence of the glass harmonica in St:iel's writing appears when she woman. Which instrument has more power over the heart! And yet the refers to the instrument in On Germanyto explain Jean-Paul Richter's poetic scyle, perfected armonica seemed to challenge it. It produced the fullest, the emphasizing yet again the ambiv;ilentpkasurr in pain aroused by the armonica: purest, the most melodious sounds that could Raner one's ear. It was a ravishing and celestial music that resembled in no way the racket of our J(ean] Paul (Richter]'s sensitivity touches the soul but docs not operas, where men oft:l.!te, sensitive men, look for consonance and unity strengthen it enough. The poetry of his scyle resembles the sound of the but never 6nd thcm.37 armonic;i, which delights at fuse then buns .ftera few moments, because the a4/tation it aroum tk,n not ha11e- afixed object. 41 For Mercier "the perfected armonica" rivaled with the human voice-a pro vocative claim that clfcaivdy transcended the by now sterile dichotomy between St:iel adds here another reason-besides our scnsorial limitations and the mo French instrumentalist music and Italian vocal melodics. Moreover, this exceed notony of uniform sound-why rapture turns into pain when listening to the ingly complex, rare, and fragile lnstrumenr, though epitomizing the kind of mate armonica or readingJean Paul Richter's verse. The absence of a determined object, rial luxury that one would expect Rousseauian adepts to criticize, produced music the want of spirirual direction that would match spiritual elevation, the lack of a so "celestial" as to lift the listener into a higher immaterial realm. However, as I referent behind and beyond the sound mc:i.ns the listener loses herself in vague mentioned, the cxprcssivity praised by Mercier was but shon-lived, as mechani ness, in abstract and sterile phanwms.◄l St:icl's measured criticism reminds us cal uniformity could soon take over. Hadlock justly writes of the armonica as a that, while she advanced the cause of music's autonomy, it would still take some "poetic sign ofliminality."31 Thu the glass harmonicawas Mcsmer's indispensable years before music could be appreciated abstractly, for itsown sake, without a ref- instrument to achieve therapeutic magnetism confirms the instrument's perceived
[ 272 ) I !13 l F..i.St!::NNE MOORE GERMAINE DE STA£L DEFINES ROMANTICISM
3 ere mial illlchor.4 Similarly, her critical distance vis-a-vis Richter's romillltic poetic overly sensitive hearts. Now associated with sensibilicy, it turned co mwic as an exaltation reflects a sensibility that still rct:J..ins Enlightenment boundaries-◄• artistic expression more congenial than painting. Musicalth eories, coo, reinforced In a graceful and symbolic aesclmic move, Staci displaced the cl assic string the change: "During the XVIIIth century a 'mdancolisation' of mwic responds instrument of the lyre with the recent invention of the glass harmonica. The anal to the musicalisacion of melancholy.MSG ogy between the harmonica's crystalline vibrations and the shivers of "the soul, The principles of representation, figuration, and imitation defined visual gently shaken" [J'dme, do uctmmt ibran/ie] is emblematic of the displacement of arcs, and by extension neoclassical poetics based on the ut pictura poesis precept the Greco-Latin tradition in favorof new inspiration coming from England and that prevailed throughout the eighteenth century. By contrast, music was gradu Germany. The musicalsensibility at the core of Staci's undemanding of Roman• ally understood less as a representational mode than an expressive mode, signal ticism succeeds (ac least in her theore tical writings) in overcoming the pictorial ing a shift from an aesthetic of mimesis co one of sensibility-as Johnson has mimesis central to the neoclassical aesthetic chat still dominated the Enlighten documented-thereby opening the door co idealism, mysticism, and enthusiasm, ment.4' A similar revision is at work during the Enlightenment and accelerates which for Staci dominated German genius but was sorely lacking in the Fre nch, towards the end of the century from treatises such as Charles Baneux, 1he Fin e Cartesian analytical mind and tradition. FoUowing Rousseau, Staci suggested the uce u u Am &d d to a Single Principle, Franr;ois-Jcan de Chastellux, fuai s r /' nion de incompatibility between musical sensibility illld a purely sensualist appre ciation
lapoiJi e et dela mwique (fuay on the Un ion of Po etry and Mwic, 1765), Michel (similar to tasting fruit or seeing colors) chat would disunite physical and spiricual, s Paul Guy de Chabanon, De laMusi qut considbi e m ellt-mhne et dansus rap ports the senses and the soul: • auec la parole, Its langues, lapohit et It thidm (Of Mu sic Considertd lndepm Is there music for those incapable of enthusiasm? A cenain habit makes dentlyand in Its &larions with Sp mh, Languages, Poetry, and 1heater, 1785), and harmonious sounds necessary 10 them, they enjoy them like tasteful Bernard-Germain-Etienne de Lacepede's Poiti ut de la musiljut (Poetia of Music, q fruit or colorful decorations. But did their entire being resonate like a 1785}. 46 This revision, in which painting still serves as a systematic analogy to lyre when, in the dead of night, silence was suddenly broken by songs describe music (the musician "paints"), culminates in Mercier who, in contrast, or by chose insttumencs resembling a human voice? Did they fe el then reverses the customarysuperiority of painting over music: "We do nae talkabout the mystery of existence in the tenderness chat re unites our cwo natures Paradise's paintings, but about the music that one will hear there; it's because a and collides, in a single jouissancc, sensations and the soul? Have their melodious tune is more touching than a gallery of paintings.H47 And indeed, as we heart's palpit:1tions followed music's rhythm? Did an emotion full of saw earlier, Chateaubriand twice describes the music heard in paradise by refer charm teach them chose cries that have nothing personal, those cries chat ring to the glass harmonica. One finds two more revealing analogies in his later do noc ask for pity bur deliver w from an anxious pain pricked by the writing: in the I 844 Vie de Rand (Lift of Rancej, the melancholy penitence of need 10 admire and co love?12 the Christian hermit Rance is compared to "a voice at the bonom of the sea, like the sounds of the armonica, born of water and crystal, and chat hun,H◄I and in Stael's interrogative style and her evocation of a dual jo uinanu, sensual and spiri
the Mhnoim d'oum-tombe (Mtmoirr beyond the Graut, 1848}, his adolescent self cual, echo here Saint-Preux's exaltation at discovering music's full potential. Sc:icl's H e ass conjures up his imaginary lover [la �lphid ] from the "liquid sounds of the gl comparison of the romantic or enthusiastic person to a resonating Orphic lyre per harmonica.◄'Wr iting on Chateaubriand, whose metaphors become mwical when feccly translates the new way of hearing and listening that Johnson demonstrates exploring melancholy, Yv es Hersant interrogates chis change: "Why this slide is taking place in theaters illld conccn halls at the beginning of the nineteenth 1 toward music whereas the theme of melancholy was for a long time the preroga cenrury. l However, the critical analogy of the glass harmonica shows that while tive of painters? Why, in the representation of the darkest of temperament, chis Sc:icl identified the spiricual longings of Romanticism, she also made visible a passage from the pictorial to the mwical?" Hersanc secs the source of this change glass ceiling, so to speak: Romantic poetry, like chords from the glass harmonica, in the shifting medical conception of melancholy during the Enlightenment-a could only reach a certain height befo re reaching the limits of expression and melancholy no longer generated by a brooding mind or black bile but located in communication.
( 274 I { VS I FA61EN NE HOORE GER MAINE DE STA�L DEF INES ROHANTICISH
11. My emphasis; Germaine de Sacl, On 1.zttntturt, in Maj ar Writintr of Gmnoint tkSui!. ed. and Notes irans. Vivian FolkenRik (New Yo rk: Columbia Univenicy Press, 1992), 178. I. Clttd in 7ht Guw Armoni"'' Bmja min Fr,,nl:litti M,ifje4/ Mw,c,i/ ln11tt1non, http://www.glastat• 12. August Wt lhclm and FriedrichSchlcgd, Fragment 449, Ati,,,,uum, in KritischtAwtabt, 3 vols., monia.com/umonic:alfnnldin_armonica2.phpltthF!NIAAI. Franlclin n>lmd the insuwnau quoted by Trvccan To dorov, 7bioriadu tJ"'bok (P.ris: Scuil, 1977), 197. Founded by August "armonic:a" wiihour an "h" and I will follow his usage. While subsequent spellings in French Wt lhdm and Friedrich Schlcgd, the litcra,y journalAnothtvm was published &om 1798 10 1800. vary, English spelling isgator.illy "glass lwmonia." lhc glass insuument should nor be confused Howcvu, it seems Stacibcc:ame acquainted with the Schlcgd brochen' works only afm the pub- wiih its wind namesake, the mouth harmonica, invantd in 1821 (Thomas Bloch, I.:Anrrottia, dt liarion of On Littralllrt and during her fin1 trip 10 Germany (1803-1804) when she convinced wnr 011 Gla"4rmonia,: dor111ia tt 1Jffthat hismritp,t, •'f""o/ofjqut, IICOIIJTu/Ut tt bib/Jopp hiqut August-Wtlhdm Schlegd 10 n:nun wid, her to Copper to be her children's pn:ccptot. Whc=.s n,rnnsm,mmt dtBmj amin FrrznJ:/Jn tt "'r Ininsm,mm11 Jirillis [Puis: Conserv.11oin: Nalional the chapter on German li,cratWC in On Litmlturt docs nor rdet10 the Schlegels. by che time she Supcrieut de Musique, 1989), 18 and 36). published OrrGmna ,ry, Stai! wasthoroughly familiar wiih the writings of both brothen, which
2. "Ven-es,musique des" in EnCJC!,,pitur, ou di FrrznJ:/Jn, hnp://www.yalc.tdu/franklinpapas/, cited in 71,, Gia Annaniu, hnp://www.gl.ustr be broken by 100perfect a harmony (Stael, Corlnnr, or lw,, ed. and tnns. Avrid Goldberger monia.com/:umomc:a/franldin_aimspondencdl.hunl. [New Brunswtck, NJ: Rurgen Univenicy Press, 1987), 162). For ananal ysisof music in Sacl's 4. Ibid., 10:126. Corittnt, seenu Boon Cuillc, "Sacls Sweet �engc," in Norronwln1n/,u/a: Mwi,4' Tabkoux i,r Eithtmr1b-Cm11n]Frmch Tt:11# (Toronto: Unh-miryoIToronto Press, 2006), 173-203; and Anne S. Ibid., 10:126. For Franlclin's complete comspondena: rehring 10 ihc glass harmonica, see 71,, Den0)'$""Tunney, •c�ri,rnr by Madame de:Sac!: The Utopia of feminine Voia:as Music within the Gia Annonie4, hn ://www.glassarmonica.com/armonic:a/fr.inlclin_comspondenwinda.php. p No�: Da/J,ou,;, Frmch Snulia28 (Fall 1994): 55-63. 6. Heaiher Hadlock. "Sonorous Bodies: Wo men and ihe Glass Htnnonia.•Jo unr,Joftht Ammu,r 14. Sec recordings byThomas Bloch, Gt.us Ho rman""' Mourt, Btt1ho11tt1, Daniutti, Schulr. &ti/Ji, Mwim/,,fie4/ Socitty S3 (2000): 506-42. Noumattrr, Rmhon/t, von Holt Somb«h, von April. 8/t,,h (Naxos, 2001) and Bruno Hoffinan, 7. •11,, harp. An instrument renewed from the Ancients, our masters in every genre; a harmoni• Mu sicfor Gt.us H4 nnania, (VOJt Unique, 1990). ow insuument with cords that unite naturally with the SWtttaccenu ofvoia:. The posture that 15. Bloch, Gia Ho rmorrmz, in,Jeaf4. it requlra casts a favorable light on the dcvdopmen1 of all graa:s. Then, a beautiful woman's 16. "I play some of the softesrTunes on my Annonio, with which Entertainment ous !'topic here head amveys en1huslasm and ravishment; her deliate, docile fingers fty about the strings; sounds seem 10 d�nd &om the heavens: a roundedarm unfolds, a preny foo1 moves forward uc quite dunned, and concelvc the Scottish Tu nes 10 be the 6nest in the Wo rld. And indeed, and seems ro anract all eyes. This insuumenl, a rival to the harpsichord, is in fuhion, and there is so much simple Beauty in many of them, that i, is my Opinion they will never die. bur the queen's predilection for it funhet con1ribu1ed to iu prefen:na: by the Coun and the city" in all Agesfind a Number ofAdmirers among those whose Ta ste ls nor debauch'd by An" (Letter (Louis Sebastien Mcteier, Tabkou tkPa ris, ed. Jean-Claude Bonnel (Paris: Mercure de Frana:, from Benjamin Franklin to Sir Al=nder Dick, D=bct 11, 1763, in 7btF¼zpm of Bmjamin 1994), 2:1290). Fn,nk/Jn. 19:384, cited in 7bt Guw Armorriro. hnp://www.glassarmonia.com/annonic:a/frank• lln_comspondenw8.hunl). 8. William Hayl,y, "Epigramon this Question: "Which ls the more Eligiblefor a Wife, a Widow or 17. Adagio in C and Adagio and Rondo for Armonica, Fluse, Oboe, Y-rola, andCdlo. Se,;e Th, Gia an Old Maid!" Essay on Old Maids, in A Philtisophiul. Hirt(Jriai/, ,s,u/Moral ED,,,on O/J Maids. S,•Frinul 11>thtSistnhood. 3 vols. (London: 1785), 3:173-74. Armorriu. hnp://www.glassarmonia.com/armonia/moun.php. 9. Fran�is-Rwe de Chateaubriand, Ln Natrha. ed. Gilbert Chirwd (Baltimore: John Hopkins 18. Germaine de Staci, Con-apondanathrirdlt dt Ma damt dtSui/, ed. Bi!:aniceJasinski and Othenln University l'ras. 19321, 4, 174. d'Haussonville (l'>ris: Hachette, 1982-1985), 5:139-40.Se,;e also Simone Bat.ye ed., Ln C.mm dtIIOJlll' tkMa dam,dt St4il (Gcntve Dmz. 1971), 61-62. 10. Charaubriand, "Fragments du Gt!nic in fuoi n,r In Rlvolutions. Gari, du Chrisri4nisntt, ed. Maurice Reg2Jti(P.ris: Gallimard, 1978), 1337. When reworking this passage more than rwcncy 19. GeoigcSand, Conn,,!,,, in eo,,,,,,/o.. 1.A C,,mtmt dt�lstdl, 2 vols.,ed. Uon Cdlier and Uon � utet 10 insctt it in his proseepic on the Indians, LaNa trha. Chateaubriand adopted nco- Guichard (Paris: Gallimard, 2004), 2:478-79. classic:al tropes to ennoble his prose (feminine gendering of the harmonica, "ouir instead of 20. In 1798 Friedrich Rochlia. wrote in the Alftmrnnt Mw;/a,Jis,ht Zn111ng: "'There may be various "enrendre"J, thereby wning his more poetic and original lintdnfr. The glass harmonic and the reasons for the scarcity of armonic:a puyu,, prindpally the almost univmally shared opinion dut Aeolian harp uc oftencon112Sted, as we will see subsequendy. playing i1 is damaging 10 the halth, that it acessivrly stimulates the nc:ncs, plunges the player I 277 I I 276 J FA 64ENNE MOORE G E R M ,\ I N E D E S T A £ L D E F I ti E S R O M A N T I C I S M lntnlut/,s, 25-55). Seeabo Jamd H. Johnson, LJstmint,i n P11 ns: A Cu ln,n:/Him, (Berkele and inro a naggingd q,r=lan and hence into a dark and melancholy mood, that it is anapt method ,y y Lo.,Angdes: Universiry of CaliforniaPress, 1995}, in panicuar, •�ressionas lmir:u.ion."35-50. for slow self-annihilation.... Many (physicians with whom I have discussed this matter) say the slwp pe,mnting tone runs loo,a spark through the entire nervous system, forcibly slulting 37. Louis Sobaslicn Mercier, L:An ,In,:,:m ilk quatrt crntquan: ntt. Riws'il rnfa, j,zmaiJ {London: Gale it up and causing nervous disordm.' He went on to give some warning,: 'If you are suffering ECCO print edirions, 2010), 428. from any nervous disorder you should not play it, / If you are not yu ill you should not play it 38. Hadlodt."Sono10w Bodies," 509. cxa:ssivdy, / If you arc fcding melancholy you should not play it or else play uplifting pieces, / 39. "Music in mesmeristpractice becamean intangible correlativeof ihc magic/magnetic obj.as dm If tlred, avoid playing it late at night.'" Cited in Y,,trii Glast Armonie4, http://www.cryswmusic. com/glassarmonica.hunl increased the body's receptiveness and charged the aunosphere, awing magnetism to flow mote freely and inducing uana: or collapse ('crisis')" (Headier Hadloclc, MIiii lwa: W/Jmm a,uJM wic 21. In his Mt thod toTiarh Yount!{AnM11i ,a (1788), J. C. Mille, answemlobjcctlans: "It is uue that in Ojfrn barhi Les Con1CSd'Holfmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univenity Pr=, 2000], 52). For the Annonicahas smnge elf.as on people. If you arc irritatedor distwbed by bad news, by friends a more deca.ilcd discussionon "the mesmerist paradigm• and how iu discourse anticiparcd Freud, or even by a disappointing lady, ab.min from playing, it would only in= your disrurbana:." wi psychoanalysis, see Hadlock's "MamerizingVo ices:Mwic, Medicineand the Invention of Dr. Qn,din Y,,trii Gian Armo,riu, http://www.aynwnusic.com/glassarmonica.hunl. Mirxlc," in M,z,I um, dupter 2, 42�. 22. Bloch, Gla st Han111, ,,iu, in-le:if4. 40. "Merit l.sdue 10 Madame de St:zc.l forlegitimizing the auronomy of musicby neglecting: its imi• ma o 23. Pierre Guigaud-Pi�e, Lr &nf{"tt pltitJllt (Landres(i.e., Ly ns], 1784); louis-Nicola.sMare t:ztiveaspect on ihe one hand, and on the other by insisting on iu spiritualist and metaphysic:al schal, Lr M11gn msmr ,mimal, Mamrr 011la 1011 (London: James Flesher, 1786). properties• {Naudin, "Madame de Staci," 394). s 24. Michael l'olladt. "Glass, We, Fingm and a My ierious Disapparana:," Nt11J York 7ima (Decem 41. My cmphasl.s; Staci, "Des romans," in Dtl'Ailmw gnt, 2:52. ber 12, 2001). 42. Seethe sentencepreceding the insertionof�.;, nary in Cha1eaubriand's Gini,du Christilt nismr. 25. Nigel Bunceand Jim Hunt, "TheGlass Hattnonia," 7h,Scimc, Cornrr(Coll ege of Physic:al Sci- "We wimesscd the birth of this guilry melancholy which rises in the mids, of passions, when these ence, Univeniry ofGudph, March 29, 1989). passions withou1 object consume thenudvcs in a solitary heart" (716). Unlike Stael, Chataubri 26. Hadloclr. "SonarouJ Bodies," 509. and cmpha.sized here "guilty" melancholy. 27. Sec Pan I ofCuillc, Na m1ti11t lnttrbula. 43. On this tr.uuitional period, sec Johnson, "In Search of Hannonys Sentimcnu," in Listming in .l¼sris,206-27. 28. For a more thorough comcxtUa!iution, see CulUi, "Introduction: TableauTheory," in N11m1 ti11t lntnlwln, 1-21. 44. "R,:,mantic elf.as arc the =mn of a primitiw '4ngiust,t that all men do nor know and thar be• comes foreign ta sevcnlcoun1ries. We soon a:ise to hear them if we do not Uve with them; and ye, 29. Ibid., 4. this romantic harmonyis the only one char preservesin our beam the colorsof youth and the joy of r O. Masrm 30. Rousseau, ]11/i,, or th, Ntw Htloist, in 7b, ColltaetJlinri,rgr ofRoossrau, ed..RD gc life. •.. N11111 rr p'4ctd th, mont,ataprraia n of tht romantic ehllT1Utn' in sound,a,uJ i, isap«i4U, ,o and Christopher Kelly, trans. Philip S,ewan and Jean Va che (Hanover, NH: Universiry Pr= of th,strut of htaring thatwe <11n impms i,r afew moka and tn an tntffttiC mannrr o:imordi1111,yp'4c a New England, 19!m, 6:108. ,z,uJ things. Smdk give rise 10 quickand grea1 pc=plions, albeit vague;pcrccptlons by sighr seems 31. Ibid., 110. Scuba Julie's �ly, letter UI in ibid., 117. to in1eres1 the mind more than the hearr, wtlllimirr whllzwe stt, bu: ""f,tlwhiu wtht ar• (my 32. Ibid.. I 09. emphasis;Eticnne-Pivcn de Senancour, Obmnann [P:uis: Garnier, 2003}, lertre38, D, l'ap=ion ramanti,p,t tidu "n:nz:des wuha." 18�5. Also ci«d in Girud Gengembre, u Romanrinnt m 33. Marie Naudln, "Madame de Stael, prro.imur de l'esthotique mwic:ale romantique.• 1/n;ut des mn« tt ,n Eurap, (Paris: Pocket, 2003). 19 and in Femand Baldcnsperger, Stnsibiliti mwicak tt srirncn lmmainn 139 Uuillet-Scp1cmbte 1970), 394. ranumtinM (Paris: Pr=es Univenicaires de France, 1925), 34. 34. For her pan, Sta..!suggests a mwical (and pictorial) appreciationpreceding the origin oflan u, g ge: 45. "A,s long as there isno opposition between die poem and mwic, we give way tothe art tha1 mus, "If we wereable to inugine the impr=ions 10 which o.ur soul W2S susceptible befote coming 10 always win ovrr all the others. For the ddiciow reverie into which it projects us desaoys the language, we would better understand the effect of y.ainting and music" ("Des beaux-ans enAJ. thoughts tha1 wonts can apr=, and as mwic awakens in us the fe eling of the infinite, everything lenugne." m Dt l'Alltm11pt, 8�5). thar tends to paniatlarize the objea of the melody must diminish itseff ect" (Staci, "Des be:tux 35. For more on this subjea, see my Prost PMruof thtFm.ch Enli htrn mrnt: Dtlimitin Grnrr (Al. t, t, aru en Allcmagne,• in Dt l'Allnnapt, clup1cr 32, 83-114). dershoi: Ashga1e, 2009). 46. Seealso Guillaume Andre VUloiau, Rr,btrrha 111r l'anltlot,it tk'4 m "'Ulut1WtC ks ortJ f{"i o n, pour 36. Cuillc makes important distinctions beiwttn Rousseau'svehemenl criticism of French musicand ol,jn/'i mitation du /,z,rg,zgt, pour smrir dinn-oductian ,i/'m,J, des pri nripa "4turtls,k m ,zrr, 2 vols. language, and Diderot's mote nuancedand open-minded musicalappreciation based in pan on his (Paris: L'lmprimerie lmpcriale, 1807). bdicf thar Ftench language could improve (Cullie:, "Didetot and Musical Mimesis," in N11m1 tive [ 278 l 1279 I FASIEN NE MOORE 47. Mercier, Ji,bfr,zu tkPam, 1290. 48. Chareaubriand, V,nu &nci, ed. George Condomina.s (Paris: Fwnmarion, 1991), 194. 49. Chareaubmnd, MhM im d'outrr-tombr, ed.i. Maurice l=,.ilbnr and Georges Moulinicr (�is: Gallimanl, 1951), I, 3:95. 50. Yves Hcrsanr, "Une lyre ou U manque des mrdes,• in Char,11ubrillnd: u Tr rmblrmmt du Tm1ps, ed. Jan-Cbude Bercher [foulouse: Presses universirairesdu Mini!, 1994), 279-88. On rhe medi c:aliurion of xnsibiliry during rhe Enlighrenmenr. see Anne C. VJ a, Enlithtmmmt and Pathology: Sn uibilil] in 1M !Jm,m,rt and MrrliriM of Eithttt11tb-Cmtu,y Fran« (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Pies, 1998). 51. For an analysis of Staci'sknowl� of Rousse:au's writing, on music, and her su-aregic inmrpo� rion of7disandng fivm Rousseau's views on music in her novel C..rinnt, Ke CuiUc, "kvoidng Rousseau: Stael's C..rinn, andrhe Song of the Sourh• in Phrm, and Subjm: Snulia in Utmm1rt and Mun., ed. Ddia Da Sowa C,,rrea (Oxford: l.egwda, 200G), 100-11. 52. Stael, "ln8uencede l'cnthowia.sme sur le bonheur; in D, l'AJ/nnap,, 313. 53. Johnson, linmint in Paris, 270. I 280 l