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The Weapon of Personality: a Review of Sexist Criticism of Mme De Stael, 1785-19751 Noreen J

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The Weapon of Personality: a Review of Sexist Criticism of Mme De Stael, 1785-19751 Noreen J Atlantis Vol. 8 No. 1 Fall/Automne 1982 78-82 The Weapon of Personality: A Review of Sexist Criticism of Mme de Stael, 1785-19751 Noreen J. Swallow University of Toronto Je n'aime pas que les femmes ecrivent. steadfastly advocated for his daughter woman's Napoleon2 traditional, restrictive role of devoted subser• vience to husband and family. He feared, of Bonaparte's pronouncement notwithstanding, course, that by writing professionally, by expand• Mme de Stael had been writing since girlhood, ing an amusing hobby from recreation to voca• when family and friends formed a ready public. tion, Germaine would be guilty of defying her By the time she turned twenty in 1786, young female destiny, of perversely sacrificing the "nat• Germaine Necker had produced three nouvelles ural" for the assumed. He understood that she for future publication - Mirza, Adelaide et Theo• must suffer accordingly, that internal conflict, dore and Histoire de Pauline - and was complet• public resentment and critical condemnation ing Sophie, a sentimental comedy in verse. would be her lot. Necker might well have Between 1786 and 1788 she wrote two more plays warned his ambitious daughter that there was, - Jane Gray and Montmorency - and produced for the femme-auteur, small hope of professional her topical and widely-read essay, Lettres sur les gain in the patriarchal system. At best, she would ecrits et le caractere de J.-J. Rousseau} At be tolerated as meddling amateur in an estab• twenty-two, now Mme de Stael, she stood expec• lished male preserve; at worst, she would be tantly at the threshold of a professional literary attacked - not only as incomplete artist, but (even career. more particularly), as incomplete woman. From close at hand, however, came rumblings Child of the times and a fervent admirer of her of discouragement and disapproval. In an omi• father, young Germaine did not dispute the legi• nous foreshadowing of wider critical reaction, timacy of Necker's sexist admonitions. After all, Controller-General Jacques Necker opposed his the great Jean-Jacques himself had said of daughter's literary ambitions.4 Well versed in the woman: "Sa dignite est d'etre ignoree; sa gloire values of a society created for men and long est dans l'estime de son mari...."5 As far as Ger• aware of the challenge to custom inherent in maine was concerned, tradition could not better Germaine's passion for writing, Necker had be served than by two such voices, and she had long since idealized their chauvinistic judge• echoing the reproach of his disapproving fore• ments into eternal truths. Thus, at age nineteen, bears. embracing the very biases that were to form the basis for future criticism of her work she had Through the years, critical comment focused enthused: increasingly on Mme de Stael's life, reinforcing a pattern of criticism that eventually spanned Mon pere a raison. Que les femmes sont three centuries - from the prophetic sexism of peu faites pour suivre la meme carriere que Jacques Necker in 1785, through the patronizing les hommes! Lutter contre eux, exciter en chauvinism of Le Breton in 1901, to the misogy- eux une jalousie si differente de celle que nous hysteria of Anthony West in 1975.8 (Only l'amour leur inspire! Une femme ne doit recently, with the emergence of feminist scholars avoir rien a elle et trouver toutes ses jouis- like Madelyn Gutwirth, has such criticism begun 9 sances dans ce qu'elle aime.6 to subside.) To Jacques Necker's shocked dismay, how• Certainly, sexism served Stael's critics well. ever, his daughter's actions were soon at con• Whether purportedly constructive or blatantly spicuous variance with her expressed attitudes: devastating, it blurred outrageously the line Germaine persisted in writing; she wrote to be between writer and woman, effectively hinder• published. And at age twenty-two - in spite of ing objective appreciation of both. Sexist com• Necker, in defiance of Rousseau - talented, intel• ment was especially useful as a form of moral ligent and infinitely energetic, she moved deter• reproach, directed at discrediting or minimizing minedly ahead into a new phase of her profes• the author's natural strengths. Writing to Pau• sional career. Henceforth, through three decades line Beyle, for example, on the virtues of a true of controversial social, political and artistic acti• woman, Stendhal cautions his sister that a lady vism, torn between convention and her need for of sense and modesty does not display her self-expression, Germaine defiantly produced knowledge: "Mme de Stael a perdu entierement for publication political and social analyses, la grace en montrant sa superiorite; elle ... a literary theory, novels, essays, autobiography, voulu etre aimee comme une femme, apres avoir biography, plays and poetry. Major works like brille comme un homme."10 Benjamin Con• De la Litterature (1800), Corinne (1807) and De stant, contemplating marriage, contrasts Ger• I'A llemagne (1810) vividly attested to her eclectic maine ("quel esprit d'homme")11 with women interests and assertive social and political invol• like Charlotte Dutertre ("Ange adorable!")12, vement. Watchful critics, curiosity piqued by the lamenting that he is tired of that "homme- unconventional and the outspoken, avidly fol• femme."13 Lamartine recognizes Mme de Stael's lowed the active life and the prolific work, abilities, but complains that beside the lady-like observing with regret, ridicule or resentment presence of Mme Recamier, the former seems that both appeared to defy the conventions of "un peu coloree, un peu virile."14 And in mali• femininity. Compared, they suggested, with her cious tribute to Stael's active personal and pro• contemporary, languidly beautiful Mme Re- fessional life, Champcenetz and Rivarol dedicate camier (the beloved norm, the reflection of male to Germaine their Petit Dictionnaire des grands fantasy), forceful, unreticent Germaine de Stael Hommes de la Revolution.15 appeared "different," unwomanly. "... elleaurait pu etre plus simplement, plus purement femme Predictably, while reproaching Mme de Stael qu'elle ne 1' a ete, soit dans sa vie, soit dans son for a lack of femininity, many detractors readily oeuvre explains critic Andre Le Breton, ascribed to her and her writing the traditional weaknesses of her sex. Both were declared exces- sive, unreliable, illogical and trite. As a result, Though used by admirers as a tribute to Stael's critics who were unwilling or unfit to assess genius, masculine analogy easily added to the Stael's work seriously on theoretic or artistic general perception of the author as unnatural, grounds, resorted easily to a pernicious mixture even monstrous. This view was readily exploited of critical fallacy and sexist belittlement. Stend• by detractors who, replacing ostensible praise hal's notes on her Considerations sur les princi- with obvious insult, shifted critical focus on paux evenements de la revolution francaise Germaine's "maleness" from the internal (intel• abound in comments like "Puerilites de femme; lect) to the external (appearance). Accordingly, ... Conclusion de femme."16 Sorel maintains that although Germaine did not affect men's clo• Stael's feminist heroine, Delphine, "n'a qu'une thing, smoke cigars or use a masculine pseudo• aventure, ou le coeur seul est en jeu."17 Herold nym (indeed, she favoured ultra-feminine attire, dismisses Corinne as a "three-volume rhapsody had several lovers, was twice married and bore of self-delusion, self-pity and posturing."18 J. J. five children), hostile critics nevertheless per• Duttault states that, as the work of a woman, sisted in promoting a caricature of the author as what Mme Stael wrote in De I'A llemagne was "le repugnantly masculine in habit and appear• produit de la passion et non de la raison."19 ance. "Elle a reussi a nous representer, elle et Anthony West scorns her woman's writing in moi, deguises en femmes," mocked Talleyrand Corinne as "infantile" and in De I'Allemagne as at the roman a clef success of Delphine.29 "Elle "pretentious waffle."20 And Andre Le Breton, est la seule personne de France qui puisse down-grading both the woman and her work, tromper sur son sexe .... Je n'aime que les sexes contrasts Mme de Stael's conspicuous assertive- prononces," declared Rivarol.30 "Her carriage ness with the quiet perfection of Mme de Lamar- and manner were so masculine," complains tine and Mme Hugo, two ladies who "... sans Anthony West.31 In particular, such critics fo• bruit, sans tapage ... ont cree deux oeuvres cused on Stael's physiognomy, publicly assess• immortelles qui valent un peu plus que tous les ing her for that traditionally most valued and chants de Corinne: elles ont cree l'ame de leur f ils vulnerable of female attributes - physical attrac• "21 tiveness.32 When measured against popular ste• reotypes, Germaine de Stael was found wanting, Mme de Stael's success as a writer could not be a ready target for ridicule and dislike. Critics' denied, however. Her works were published and repeated references to coarseness, size and weight widely read, with respected critics like Nodier, succeeded in shifting the Staelien image even Sainte-Beuve and M.-J. Chenier praising her tal• further from the ideal of dainty femininity ents.22 Unfortunately, in a sexist society neither toward the antipodes of mannishness and the censure nor praise escapes the bias that puts the grotesque. Although portraits by Lebrun and woman before the writer, thereby reinforcing the Gerard show Germaine to be pleasantly attrac• unfeminine image. Even favourable criticism tive, Fievee ridiculed women like the author and dwelt patronizingly on Mme de Stael's "mascu• her heroines as "grandes, grosses, grasses, line" intelligence. Lamartine praised the "genie fortes."33 Danish poet Oelenschlaeger found male dans un corps de femme";23 admiring Stael not lacking in charm, but with "la voix Byron stated that "she ought to have been a forte, le visage un peu male."34 G.R.
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