The Aesthetics of Madame De Staël and Mary Shelley
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Université de Montréal The Aesthetics of Madame de Staël and Mary Shelley Maria Mouratidis Département d’études anglaises, Faculté des Arts et Sciences Thèse présentée à la Faculté des Arts et des Sciences en vue de l’obtention du grade de Doctorat en Études anglaises. Décembre, 2012 ©, Maria Mouratidis, 2012 Résumé L’esthétique de Madame de Staël and Mary Shelley discute l’art de l’improvisation et le concept de l’enthousiasme dans les écrits de ces deux auteurs. Dans ce projet, j’explore l’esthétique d’improvisation et d’enthousiasme de Madame de Staël dans Corinne, en me référant à son autre roman Delphine, à sa pièce de théâtre Sapho, et à ses nouvelles ainsi qu’à ses textes philosophiques comme De l’Allemagne, De l’influence des passions, et De la littérature. J’argumente que Madame de Staël représente à travers le caractère de Corinne une esthétique anti-utilitaire. J’explique qu’elle évoque des valeurs cosmopolites qui valorisent une culture indigène qui est en opposition avec l’impérialisme de Napoléon. De plus, j’examine comment les improvisations de Corinne dérivent d’un enthousiasme qui est associé à la définition que Platon offre du terme. Ceci est évident par la signification que Madame de Staël présente du terme dans De L’Allemagne. J’interprète la maladie de Corinne comme étant d’origine psychosomatique qui est manifesté par la perte de son génie et par un suicide lent qui est une expression de colère contre la patriarchie. Le caractère de Corinne permet à Madame de Staël d’explorer le conflit que les femmes artistes éprouvaient entre ayant une carrière artistique et adhérant à l’idéologie domestique. Chapitre deux se concentre sur l’intérêt que Shelley démontre sur l’art de l’improvisation comme elle l’exprime dans ses lettres à propos de l’improvisateur Tommaso Sgricci. Malgré sa fascination avec la poésie extemporanée, Shelley regrette que cette forme d’art soit évanescente. Aussi, j’examine son enthousiasme pour un autre artiste, Nicolò Paganini. Son enchantement avec se violoniste virtuose est lié à des discours concernant le talent surnaturel des improvisateurs. J’argumente qu’il y a un continuum d’improvisation entre les balades orales du peuple et les improvisations de culture sophistiqué des improvisateurs de i haute société. J’estime que les Shelleys collaboraient à définir une théorie d’inspiration à travers leurs intérêts pour l’art de l’improvisation. Chapitre trois considère le lien entre cosmologie et esthétique d’inspiration à travers la fonction de la musique, spécialement La Création de Joseph Haydn, dans The Last Man de Shelley. J’examine la représentation du sublime des Alpes dans le roman à travers de discours qui associent les Alpes avec les forces primordiales de la création. Les rôles de la Nécessité, Prophétie, et du Temps peuvent être compris en considérant la musique des sphères. Chapitre quatre explore les différentes définitions de terme enthousiasme dans les écrits de Shelley, particulièrement Valperga et The Last Man. Je discute l’opinion de Shelley sur Madame de Staël comme suggéré dans Lives. J’analyse les caractères qui ressemblent à Corinne dans les écrits de Shelley. De plus, je considère les sens multiples du mot enthousiasme en relation avec la Guerre civil d’Angleterre et la Révolution française. Je présente comment le terme enthousiasme était lié au cours du dix-septième siècle avec des discours médicales concernant la mélancolie et comment ceci est reflété dans les caractères de Shelley. Mots Clés Improvisation, Enthousiasme, Inspiration, Esthétique, Sublime, Evanescence, Romantisme, Musique des Sphères, Cosmologie, Mélancolie. ii Abstract The Aesthetics of Madame de Staël and Mary Shelley discusses the art of improvisation and the concept of enthusiasm in the writings of these two authors. In this project, I explore Madame de Staël’s aesthetics of improvisation and enthusiasm as represented in Corinne by drawing from her other novel Delphine, her play Sapho, and her short stories as well as her philosophical texts such as De l’Allemagne, De l’influence des passions, and De la littérature. I argue that Madame de Staël embraces through Corinne an anti-utilitarian aesthetic. I maintain that she represents a cosmopolitanism that values indigenous culture as opposed to Napoleon’s Imperialism. Furthermore, I examine how Corinne’s improvisations derive from an enthusiasm that can be associated to Plato’s elucidation of the term in Phaedrus and in Ion. This is evident by Madame de Staël’s own definition of enthusiasm as presented in the closing chapters of her De l’Allemagne. I interpret Corinne’s illness that is manifested in the loss of her genius as having psychosomatic origins and as being a slow suicide that is an expression of anger against patriarchy. The character of Corinne allows Madame de Staël to explore the conflict that women artists faced between having an artistic career and adhering to the domestic ideology. Chapter two focuses on the interest that Shelley takes in the art of improvisation as is manifested in her letters about the improvisator Tommaso Sgricci. Despite her fascination with extempore poetry, she regrets that this art form is evanescent. Moreover, I examine her enthusiastic response to another artist, Nicolò Paganini. Her fascination with this virtuoso violinist is linked to discourses about the unnatural talent of improvisatores. I argue there is a continuum of improvisation from the ballad form of the common people to the high-cultured iii improvisatore. I hold that the Shelleys were collaborating in defining the theory of inspiration through their interest in the art of improvisation. Chapter three considers the link between cosmology and aesthetics of inspiration through the function of music, especially Joseph Haydn’s The Creation, in Shelley’s The Last Man. I examine the representation of the sublimity of the Alps in the narrative through discourses that associate the Alps with the primordial forces of creation. The roles of Necessity, Prophecy, and Time can be understood in the novel by taking into account the notion of the music of the spheres. Chapter four explores the different meanings of the word enthusiasm in Shelley’s writings, primarily in Valperga and The Last Man. I discuss Shelley’s views on Madame de Staël as presented in Lives. I analyze Corinne-inspired characters in Shelley’s texts. In addition, I consider the meaning of enthusiasm in Shelley’s writings in relation to the English Civil War and the French Revolution. I present how enthusiasm was linked in the seventeenth- century to medical discourses about melancholia and how this is reflected in Shelley’s characters. Key Words Improvisation, Enthusiasm, Inspiration, Aesthetic, Sublime, Evanescence, Romanticism, Music of the Spheres, Cosmology, Melancholia. iv Table of Contents Abbreviations vi Dedication vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Corinne’s Aesthetics and Victimization 21 Chapter Two: Mary Shelley and the Art of Improvisation 122 Chapter Three: Mary Shelley’s Aesthetics and Cosmology 161 Chapter Four: From Exaltation to Regulation: The Different Meanings of Enthusiasm in Mary Shelley’s Writings 235 Conclusion 321 Works Cited 325 v Abbreviations Some of Mary Shelley’s texts are abbreviated throughout the dissertation in the following manner: LMWS The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Journals The Journals of Mary Shelley: 1814-1844. History History of Six Weeks’ Tour Through A Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland: With Letters Descriptive of A Sail Round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni. Rambles Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843. By Mrs. Shelley in Two Volumes. Perkin Warbeck The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: A Romance. vi Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Aspasia Mouratidis. vii Acknowledgements I am very grateful to my parents, Aspasia Mouratidis and Dimitrios Mouratidis, for their unbounded generosity. I will like to thank my supervisor, Professor Michael Eberle-Sinatra, for his understanding and patience with me during the writing process and for his feedback on my dissertation. viii Introduction On the 3rd of July 1827, Mary Shelley would write to Teresa Guiccioli concerning a letter by Lord Byron: “Do you recall that little English letter that he wrote at the end of your Corinne? Would you mind giving me a copy” (LMWS Bennett 554). That Lord Byron chose to write his love letter in his mistress’s copy of Corinne suggests that he was one of the many early readers of this novel who ascribed a fair amount of accuracy on its descriptions. Similarly, Shelley asks specifically for this particular letter among other letters written by Lord Byron not because she wants to pry into the poet’s love affairs but because Corinne is a novel that would have a great impact on the writings of many women writers of the Romantic era. In this project, my primary aim is to trace and define the aesthetics of inspiration in Madame de Staël and Mary Shelley. In A Defence of Poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley writes, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” (Defence of Poetry 36). In Madame de Staël’s Corinne, it is a woman poet, Corinne, who is the unacknowledged legislator through her art of improvisation. Madame de Staël chooses to make Corinne an Improvisatrice because high cultured poetic improvisation performed, for instance, by Corilla Olimpica and Tommaso Sgricci was a particularity of Italian literary culture that attracted tourists and was seen as foreign and fascinating among European travelers in Italy. Aesthetics cannot always be divided from the political, and if Madame de Staël chooses specifically to display the Italian art of improvisation, she does so with a political aim—she wants to promote Italian nationalism. In other words, she wants Italians to take pride in their literature, language and arts in order to stir nationalistic sentiments in Italians for Italy’s independence and unification.