This article was downloaded by: [University of Georgia]On: 17 December 2014, At: 15:34Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Symposium: A Quarterly Journal inModern LiteraturesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vsym20

Romantic Aesthetics and AbolitionistActivism: African Beauty in Germaine deStaël's Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageurKaren de Bruin aa University of Rhode IslandPublished online: 24 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Karen de Bruin (2013) Romantic Aesthetics and Abolitionist Activism: AfricanBeauty in Germaine de Staël's Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur , Symposium: A Quarterly Journal inModern Literatures, 67:3, 135-147, DOI: 10.1080/00397709.2013.820057

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00397709.2013.820057

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Symposium, Vol. 67, No. 3, 135–147, 2013Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0039-7709 print / 1931-0676 onlineDOI: 10.1080/00397709.2013.820057

KAREN DE BRUIN

University of Rhode Island

Romantic Aesthetics and Abolitionist Activism: African Beautyin Germaine de Stael’s Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur

In 1786, long before the definitive end of slavery in France, a young Germaine de Stael pennedMirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, an African tale of love and the slave trade recounted by aEuropean narrator. In this novella, Stael boldly challenges neoclassical ideals of beauty throughthe story of two black Senegambians, Mirza and Ximeo, from warring ethnicities in the Kingdomof Cayor. Through these characters, Stael presents to the European reader a new concept ofbeauty, a contagious beauty, that she hopes will move her or him to pity and recognition of thebasic humanity of slaves. In addition, via this new beauty, Stael hopes to dispose the readerto arguments in favor of abolition, both of the slave trade and slavery. Mirza ou Lettre d’unvoyageur, a work heretofore largely ignored, can thus be read as the presentation of Romanticbeauty as central to Stael’s political views and especially to her abolitionist agenda.

Keywords: abolition, beauty, Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, neoclassical, romantic, slavery,slave trade, Germaine de Stael

In 1786, long before the definitive end of slavery in France, a young Germaine de Stael pennedMirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, an African tale of love and the slave trade, recounted by aEuropean narrator. In this novella, Stael boldly challenges neoclassical ideals of beauty throughthe story of two black Senegambians, Mirza and Ximeo, from warring ethnicities in the Kingdomof Cayor.1 Through these characters, Stael presents to the European reader a new concept ofbeauty, a contagious beauty, that she hopes will move her or him to pity and recognition of thebasic humanity of slaves.2 In addition, via this new beauty, Stael hopes to dispose the reader toarguments in favor of abolition, both of the slave trade and slavery. Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur,a work heretofore largely ignored, can be thus read as the presentation of beauty as central toStael’s political views, and especially to her abolitionist agenda.

Stael diverged morally and aesthetically from neoclassical art and literature because in herview, they did not move the soul to feelings of generosity and pity for the oppressed. Moreimportantly, the beauty that neoclassical art and literature sought to perfect did not have as its endgoal the perfectibility of the human species—the moral movement initiated in ancient Greece andRome, catalyzed by the advent of Christianity, that tends toward freedom, equality, and happinessfor all, women and Africans included.3 Stael consequently sought a new inspirational literature

135

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

136 Symposium

that would go beyond staid representations of perfect form, stoic virtue, ancient heroism, andfemale and African subservience typical of neoclassical literature, and she initially founded thisliterature in both Rousseau and an aesthetic conception of Christianity.4

As I will highlight in this essay, Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur represents an attempt tomarshal devotion to the abolitionist cause through a “revolution in the virtue” (Mirza 22) ofher readers, provoked by the experience of beauty. In her later works and heavily inspired bythe German pre-Romantics, and especially by Immanuel Kant, Stael defines this concept ofbeauty, the Beautiful, as the experience of harmony between reason and sentiment, subject andobject. The Beautiful, for Stael, opens the individual to the experience of “moral independence”(De l’influence des passions 32), namely the moment of precise balance between sentiment andreason at which conscience is heard. The Beautiful also allows for the temporary suspension ofnegative passions such as those (greed, ambition, and self-interest) that she believed led to thecontinued practice of slavery and the slave trade despite economic arguments that asserted thecounterproductivity of these institutions.5 Although Stael would formulate fully in later writingsher Romantic theory of “moral independence,” the beau moral, and the duty of literature torepresent this concept of beauty, in Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, she nevertheless conceivedof a working theory of an inspirational and contagious beauty that directly challenged the Frenchneoclassical tradition. In fact, the originality of this early work by Stael can be found in herconception of beauty embodied in an African woman and then propagated by moral men. Throughher embodiment of moral beauty, Mirza, a Jaloffe woman, succeeds in transforming the self-absorbed hero, Ximeo, into a moral individual, committed to the freedom of his African brothersand sisters. Ximeo’s example of morality consequently inspires a white European narrator alignedwith neoclassical moral and aesthetic ideals to transcend his own prejudices and to call for freedomfor all.

Germaine de Stael fought relentlessly for the abolition of both the slave trade and slavery. Inaddition to Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, as a young woman, she wrote a second novella thatdirectly addressed the horrors of the slave trade: Histoire de Pauline (1786). Despite running therisk for immediate censorship by Napoleon, in her nonfiction as well as in her two major novels,Delphine (1802) and Corinne, ou l’Italie (1807), she condemns on numerous occasions slavery,the slave trade, and the barbaric self-interest of Europeans and Americans.6 In 1814, three yearsbefore her death, Stael wrote an open letter addressed to the “Souverains reunis a Paris” callingfor a Europe-wide end to the slave trade. Shortly thereafter, she penned a preface to her daughter’sFrench translation of William Wilberforce’s call to end the slave trade. In addition, imbued withher father Jacques Necker’s antislavery spirit, Stael shared her abolitionist activism with her sonAuguste de Stael and her son-in-law Victor de Broglie who founded in 1822 the Comite pourl’abolition de la traite, an organization widely credited with bringing an end to the slave trade.7

Furthermore, the abolition of the slave trade and slavery figured as a central occupation of hersalon, the Groupe de Coppet.8

Stael was particularly sensitive to the plight of slaves in part thanks to the abolitionist spiritof her father, but almost certainly, as Francoise Massardier-Kenney explains, because of her“cultural position” (14) as a woman. Christopher Miller nuances this gender-specific culturalposition with regard to Stael by explaining that she may have been particularly concerned withthe parallel between slavery and her own status as a “sold good” because territory, slaves, money,and title were exchanged in order for her to marry the Swedish Eric de Stael-Holstein (143).Indeed, because the former Germaine Necker was the richest heiress in Europe, however not partof the nobility, the negotiators of this marriage, including Marie-Antoinette herself, arranged for

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Romantic Aesthetics and Abolitionist Activism 137

the exchange of the French colonial island Saint-Barthelemy for the title of “de Stael-Holstein”(143). As Miller highlights, this bit of “biographic marginalia” (143) explains more concretelywhy Stael might draw a parallel between the “sale” of women and the sale of slaves. It comesthen as little surprise that one year after her marriage and in the spirit of textual opposition toslavery (Massardier-Kenney 14), Stael wrote Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur as a means to callattention to the humanity of two “enslaved” groups: black Africans and women.

Historical studies on the antislavery movement in France have underscored Stael’s majorcontributions to abolitionism.9 Yet, in literature, save for the pioneering work of Doris Kadishand Francoise Massardier-Kenney, and a response to Kadish and Massardier-Kenney’s studies byChristopher Miller, very few Staelien or Romantic studies critics have picked up on the theme ofabolitionism in Stael’s corpus as central to her political preoccupations.10 Kadish and Massardier-Kenney’s studies on Stael focus globally on the relationship between her “cultural position as awoman” and her abolitionist agenda. They furthermore underscore how Stael proposes femalesentiment as a means of resistance against colonial patriarchy. Miller, although acknowledgingthe importance of gender in Stael’s work, also suggests that her abolitionist agenda, especially assketched in Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, finds its origin in her father’s own struggle with theeconomic justifications for slavery and colonialism. Kadish, Massardier-Kenney, and Miller havepaved the way for my study, which shows that it is precisely at the intersection of moral sentimentand the economic motivations behind slavery that Stael seeks to catalyze moral revolution througha new concept of beauty.

To better understand how Stael might arrive at the conclusion that abolition of both the slavetrade and slavery depended on moral revolution, it is helpful to take a closer look at the economicdebates to which both she and her father were responding. Stael’s father was an influential figureboth in Stael’s life and in French economic and colonial policy. As both the minister of financeunder Louis XVI and former trustee of the Compagnie des Indes, Necker demonstrated himselfto be an “orthodox mercantilist” (Isbell 40).11 As Catherine Larrere argues convincingly, upuntil the publication of the Wealth of Nations, economic theorists who aligned themselves withthe mercantilist position on slavery were more predisposed than liberal economic theorists toconsider moral arguments in favor of better treatment of slaves because they believed that slaveswere subjects of the ultimate patriarch, the king, and thus were subject to his protection (Larrere211–18). Although open to debate on the humanity of slavery practices and better treatment ofslaves, mercantilist economists were not necessarily willing to forgo the institution of slaverybecause they believed that it undergirded the very economic success of French colonial commerce.This was indeed the case for Necker who claimed in his De l’Administration des finances de Francethat wealth in the colonies was measured by the number of those who suffered, but that unless aninternational pact were possible, abolition of slavery would benefit economic rivals (Isbell 40).

In contrast to mercantilist economic theory, as Larrere highlights, liberal economic theorists,those who believed in free markets and laissez-faire, considered slaves domestic property thatcould be bought and sold for profit without interference from the state. As domestic property,slaves were subjugated to the authority of the family patriarch. This equation between slavesand property by liberal economists led to the complete eclipse of the visibility of slaves. Forliberal economic theorists, it was perfectly congruent to believe in liberal moral and politicaldiscourses of natural rights while upholding the institution of slavery because slaves were con-sidered first and foremost objects of commerce (213). Needless to say, Necker could not agreewith liberal economic theory because he believed that slaves were first and foremost humans, ashe demonstrated five years after his report De l’Administration des finances de France, at the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

138 Symposium

opening of the Estates General, when he moved from a tentative position of denouncement to aresolute proposition to abolish the slave trade. Explaining that the king had diminished by halfthe bonuses (les primes) that he would award to the slavers for the encouragement of commerce,Necker added that this decision was made “en adoptant une disposition que l’humanite seuleaurait du conseiller” (Necker 522).

With the publication of the Wealth of Nations in 1776 and the subsequent re-editions, twoof which were in 1784 and 1786—precisely the years that correspond with Stael’s initiation intothe antislavery debates—Adam Smith caused great disruption in both mercantilist and liberaleconomic theory (Larrere 219). Smith argued that slave labor cost more than free labor and thatslavery had been able to subsist only because of the immense profits gained from the sale of sugarand tobacco. Furthermore, if it was not good economics that sustained the practice of slavery,Smith argued that the explanation for the enduring practice had to be sought elsewhere. It is herethat he joined Montesquieu to attribute the sustained use of slaves by the colonists to corruptingpassions such as pride, greed, and volupte (Larrere 220).

In Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, Stael inserts herself into the debates on slavery. Shedemonstrates her alignment with Montesquieu and Adam Smith early in the novella when,through the voice of Ximeo, she attributes the perpetuation of slavery to the passions of pride,greed, and self-interest.12 For Stael, slavery and the French slave trade could not be abolishedwithout first challenging the confluence of self-interest and dangerous passions, left uncheckedby social mores and Catholic doctrine.13 Furthermore, with regard to Stael’s economic position,on the one hand, Stael was undoubtedly influenced by her father’s mercantilist policy, whichallowed for debates on the humanity of slaves and slavery; however, on the other hand, theopening pages of Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur indeed suggest that Stael is in the beginningstages of formulating a preference for liberal free-trade policy. We see this conflict embodiedin the contrast between the European narrator and Ximeo in the opening pages of the novella.The narrator betrays his mercantilist leaning when he seemingly mocks the governor’s plans tocultivate and facilitate free trade with the Senegambians.14 Ximeo, on the other hand, explainsto the narrator that he became head of the Senegambian plantation to stem the slave trade andto inaugurate free trade between France and Senegambia: “Puisse un commerce libre s’etablirentre les deux parties du monde!” (26). As this contrast hints, Jacques Necker’s mercantilisteconomic position probably helped Stael formulate the beginnings of an abolitionist stance, butit was undoubtedly Adam Smith’s liberal economic arguments against slavery that allowed Staelto find congruency between her paramount belief in freedom for all and her penchant for liberalmoral, political, and economic philosophy.15 Consequently, at the time she was writing Mirza ouLettre d’un voyageur, during a period in which she was enamored with Rousseau and had alreadybegun to hear of Kant, Stael sought to tame the passions revealed by Smith as the primary motorsbehind the practices of the slave trade and slavery through a new literature capable of provokinga “revolution in the virtue of men.” Eager to reach out to potential sympathizers of slavery,Stael attempted to appeal to readers’ moral sensibility, and she used Rousseau as her point ofdeparture.

In Lettres sur J.-J. Rousseau (1788), Stael writes in favor of the moral greatness of Rousseau’swriting and his imperfect but sentimental style: “[il] s’eleve et s’abaisse tour a tour; il est tantot au-dessous, tantot au-dessus de la perfection meme” (44). For Stael, Rousseau transports his readerthrough the expression of sentimental abandon and “il agit sur l’ame” (44). Clearly suggestingthat Rousseau’s rejection of stylistic perfection and his appeal to sentiment should serve as themodel for future literature, she exclaims: “Ah! si l’homme n’a jamais qu’une certaine mesure de

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Romantic Aesthetics and Abolitionist Activism 139

force, j’aime mieux celui qui les emploie toutes a la fois; qu’il s’epuise s’il le faut, qu’il me laisseretomber, pourvu qu’il m’ait une fois elevee jusqu’au cieux” (44). Although the seeds for Stael’snew literature lie partially in sentiment, she suggests that they equally lie in what she calls at thisyoung stage “passion for reason” (43).

In her later work, De la litterature (1800), Stael further develops the idea that she advancesin her early analysis of Rousseau, namely that literature should elevate the soul to the infinite andthe universal, while simultaneously encouraging reason to obey its duty to the soul. Althoughneoclassical literature had its place and its purpose, Stael argues that literature needed to progress:“Les progres de la litterature, c’est-a-dire, le perfectionnement de l’art de penser et de s’exprimer,sont necessaires a l’etablissement et a la conservation de la liberte” (76). Here Stael advances theidea that freedom depended on a literature that sought to perfect the art of thinking rather thanto perfect merely conventions and form. Stael viewed this literature, a philosophical literature,as the veritable guarantee of freedom (78). In her chapter entitled “De l’emulation” of De lalitterature, she explains that to serve the cause of freedom, however, this philosophical literaturecould not merely expose dry philosophical truths. On the contrary, this literature had the duty toinspire the enlightened reader to emulate virtuous action, so that he or she may contribute to thepropagation of the perfectibility of the human species.

Before I turn to how Stael mobilizes her theory of literature and a new Romantic concept ofbeauty to an abolitionist end, I would just like to quickly note the structure of this novella. Staelpresents Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur as a letter written by a European narrator, presumablya merchant, to a reader named “Madame.” In the first part of the letter, the narrator recounts to“Madame” his encounter with Ximeo and Ximeo’s wife Ourika. In the second half of the letter, hequotes Ximeo who tells the story of his relationship with Mirza. (Ximeo’s story takes place priorto his encounter with the narrator.) The letter finishes with the narrator explaining to “Madame”that to fulfill his promise to Ximeo, he is telling her Ximeo’s sad story and entitling it “Mirza.” Itis worth noting that by choosing to address this story to “Madame,” he is, in fact, addressing allfemale readers. It is equally worth noting that by creating a male narrator, Stael actively avoidsany conflation of her person with the narrator.

The narrator’s letter opens with the account of his arrival on a Senegalese sugar plantation.He explains to his reader, “Madame,” that he went to the plantation out of curiosity because hehad heard while at the slave-trading outpost of Goree that the governor had employed an Africanfamily to run it. This narrator, typical of many of Stael’s masculine characters and reminiscentof Saint-Lambert’s narrator in his novella Zimeo (1769), is somewhat open-minded but alsovery much inhibited by conventional thought, and especially with regard to Africans.16 In theopening passage, he explains to his reader, “Madame,” that he had been intrigued by the ideathat this enlightened governor would attempt to enlist “les negres imprevoyants de l’avenir poureux-meme [ . . . ] plus incapables encore de porter leurs pensees sur les generations futures” (22)in an effort to manage and propagate the cultivation of sugar in Senegal. Although the narratorindeed expresses fascination, his comment also betrays a widespread prejudice that amalgamatesall Africans into improvident Negroes, with limited faculties of reason. This convention is furtherbetrayed as the narrator approaches the plantation: “Quand j’approchai, les negres jouissaient deleur moment de delaissement; ils s’amusaient a tirer de l’arc, regrettant peut-etre le temps ouce plaisir etait leur seule occupation” (22). With an allusion to the time of the “noble savage,”the narrator seemingly reduces the indigenous people he encounters to an entirely “uncivilized,”albeit “good” race. When the narrator meets Ximeo, the head of the plantation, however, he issurprised by what he encounters:

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

140 Symposium

Je vais a lui, vous ne pouvez pas imaginer une figure plus ravissante: ses traits n’avaientaucun des defauts des hommes de sa couleur, son regard produisait un effet que je n’aijamais ressenti; il disposait de l’ame, et la melancolie qu’il exprimait passait dans lecœur de celui sur lequel il s’attachait; la taille de l’Apollon du Belvedere n’est pasplus parfaite. (23)

This passage foreshadows the theme of the narrator’s transformation through the experienceof a new beauty different from the canonical beauty epitomized in eighteenth-century neoclassicalart. With his reference to the intrinsic physical flaws in black Africans (which Ximeo did notpossess) and the Apollo of Belvedere as the mark of perfection in beauty, the narrator signalshis aesthetic alignment with the neoclassical European canon that necessarily posits the Africanas the “anti-Beautiful.”17 Stael quickly overrides, however, the possible amalgamation of Ximeoand the anti-Beautiful by attributing to him not only a beauty that the narrator surprisingly findssuperior to the ideal of neoclassical perfection, the Apollo of Belvedere, but also a melancholyof soul by which the narrator cannot be helped but be moved.18

The fact that Stael attributes feelings of melancholy to Ximeo must be underscored notonly because this melancholy stands in opposition to neoclassical stoic virtue, but also becausesuffering engendered by melancholy, for Stael, is a perfecting force. As she states in Reflexionssur le suicide (1813): “Les plus grandes qualites de l’ame ne se developpent que par la souffrance,et ce perfectionnement de nous-memes nous rend, apres un certain temps, le bonheur” (262).Stael corroborates the generative force of suffering in De la litterature (1800): “Ce que l’hommea fait de plus grand, il le doit au sentiment douloureux de l’incomplet de sa destinee” (208). Aslong as Ximeo accepts the challenge of melancholy, namely to perfect his moral self through“l’abdication de la personnalite pour rentrer dans l’ordre universel” (Reflexions sur le suicide262), he transcends his passions, contributes to the perfectibility of the human species, and thuscan be considered a person of “moral dignity” (Reflexions sur le suicide 263). If he succumbsto the temptation to alleviate his suffering by committing suicide, thereby dedicating his life tono one, he gives into his passions and thus can no longer be considered a moral individual: “carlorsqu’on abdique la vie pour faire du bien a ses semblables, on immole, pour ainsi dire, soncorps a son ame, tandis que, quand on se tue par l’impatience de la douleur, on sacrifie presquetoujours sa conscience a ses passions” (Reflexions sur le suicide 263). Even though overwhelmedby suffering, Ximeo announces upon meeting the narrator that he knew that he had no otherchoice but to dedicate his life to his confreres. By devoting himself to the happiness and freedomof others, he consciously contributes to the perfectibility of the human species. And it is preciselythe beauty of this tableau of Ximeo’s self-sacrifice that moves the narrator still ignorant of thecause of this suffering: “Je me couchai, je ne fermai pas l’œil; j’etais penetre de tristesse, tout ceque j’avais vu en portait l’empreinte, j’en ignorais la cause, mais je me sentais emu comme onl’est en contemplant un tableau qui represente la melancolie” (Mirza 25).

In the beginning of Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, the narrator, despite his preconceptions,is moved by Ximeo’s beauty and melancholy. However, had the narrator met Ximeo at thebeginning of his own narrative when he was a mere warrior from the African kingdom of Cayor,who allowed himself to be dominated by passions of glory and seduction, he would certainlyhave judged Ximeo from a more rational perspective typical of his neoclassical and merchantleanings. It is thanks to Ximeo’s transformation brought about by his own encounter with a newform of beauty that the narrator himself is transformed and is moved to want to recount Ximeo’sstory to “Madame,” and thus to the public.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Romantic Aesthetics and Abolitionist Activism 141

Ximeo’s encounter with melancholic beauty happens when he meets the heroine. One day,while hunting in the mountains, Ximeo hears a beautiful voice singing hymns unknown tohim—hymns of abolition and freedom. Surprised, much like the narrator is when he first seesXimeo, Ximeo approaches the source of the voice: “J’approchai: une jeune personne se leva[ . . . ] elle n’etait pas belle, mais sa taille noble et reguliere, ses yeux enchanteurs, sa physionomieanimee, ne laissaient pas a l’amour meme rien a desirer pour sa figure” (28). Ximeo does not yetfind Mirza beautiful because he is basing his judgment on a preconceived idea of female beautyembodied in his soon-to-be wife Ourika. He describes Ourika as having a “beaute parfait [qui]me frappa davantage quand je l’eus comparee a celle des autres femmes” (27). Like the narratorwho approached Ximeo with a preconceived idea of perfection (the Apollo of Belvedere), Ximeoapproaches Mirza having already defined “perfect beauty” for himself as a beauty of perfect form.Coupled with the fact that Ourika, chosen for Ximeo by his father, also represents perfect virtue,though African, the reader can nevertheless identify her with a more traditional, neoclassical ideaof beauty. This identification is further reinforced by the narrator’s first impression of Ourikawhen he arrives on the plantation: “Elle vint a moi avec precipitation; sa beaute m’enchanta; ellepossedait le vrai charme de son sexe, tout ce qui peint la faiblesse et la grace” (23). The narrator,aligned with neoclassical representations of beauty, finds Ourika’s physique enchanting and hercharm to correspond with representations of feminine beauty that he knows and espouses.

The parallel between the narrator’s first encounter with Ximeo and Ximeo’s first encounterwith Mirza continues when Ximeo finds himself stunned to learn that Mirza composed the words toher hymns of freedom and abolition. When the narrator hears Ximeo’s eloquence and intelligencefor the first time, Ximeo bluntly confronts the narrator on behalf of himself and his people: “Vousetes surpris . . . quand nous ne sommes pas au niveau des brutes dont vous nous donnez ladestinee” (24). Similarly, when Ximeo first hears Mirza speak, she has to summon him out of hisshock: “Cessez d’etre surpris [ . . . ] un Francais etabli au Senegal [ . . . ] a daigne prendre soin dema jeunesse, et m’a donne ce que les Europeens ont de digne d’envie: les connaissances dont ilsabusent, et la philosophie dont ils suivent si mal les lecons” (28). Ximeo finds himself surprisedby Mirza’s French, her intelligence, and her challenge to his expectation of beauty. Much asthe narrator expected Ximeo to be devoid of reason as Africans had typically been representedin neoclassical literature and art, Ximeo could not fathom that a woman could deviate from afeminine beauty that valorized perfect form and the domestic virtues of “faiblesse” and “grace.”Nevertheless, intoxicated by Mirza’s enthusiasm, and unconcerned with his future marriage toOurika, Ximeo deploys his poetic arsenal to seduce her: “‘Mirza, lui repetai-je, place-moi sur letrone du monde en me disant que tu m’aimes, ouvre-moi le ciel pour que j’y monte avec toi’ ”(29).

Mirza warns the passionate Ximeo that she would consider his declaration but that he shouldunderstand that their relationship would obligate a rupture with her friends, family, and country,thereby leaving her in a position of total vulnerability. Upon meeting again the next day, ignorantof Ourika, and after hearing Ximeo’s promises of love and fidelity, Mirza replies that she hasleft everyone and everything for him and that her vulnerability and weakness were now in hishands: “j’ai tout eloigne pour dependre de toi seul; je dois etre a tes yeux, sacree comme lafaiblesse, l’enfance, ou le malheur” (30). With Mirza now embodying only grace and weakness,as opposed to poetic genius, enthusiasm, and strength, Ximeo begins to tire of her. With twoexamples of traditional beauty before him, Ourika and now Mirza, Ximeo defaults to a move ofconvenient respect for patriarchal tradition (the same tradition, as the narrator remarks, that sellsenemies as slaves to European slave traders). He marries Ourika and instead offers to Mirza his

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

142 Symposium

friendship. Quite predictably, after having sacrificed her family, friends, and country for Ximeo,Mirza responds dramatically; however, despite feeling dead inside, she nevertheless conserves herspirit of sacrifice and dedicates herself to the care of the ailing Rousseau-like figure who servedas her educator as a child. In contrast, after having recognized the cruelty and self-centered natureof what he calls his “grand crime” (33), Ximeo, still incapable of sacrifice, throws himself intothe war against the Jaloffes and risks his life with “un secret plaisir” (34). Mirza, while wishingdeath, continues to sacrifice herself to others, whereas Ximeo, who also wishes death, continuesto pursue his selfish passions.

Ximeo does not perish in the war between his ethnic group and the Jaloffes. Instead, he istaken captive by the Jaloffes and is brought to the slave traders. Instantly, he conceives of yetanother plan to take his life: drowning himself in the river with the weight of his chains. Althoughthe slave traders indeed physically enslave Ximeo, his emotional enslavement to passions isthe cause of his desire to sink to nothingness. Once again, in contrast, Mirza, upon seeingXimeo captive, immediately sacrifices herself to his good. She negotiates an exchange with theslave traders: her enslavement for Ximeo’s freedom. As Ximeo watches her from the depths ofhis emotional abyss, he remarks: “je regarde, j’apercois Mirza, belle, non comme une mortelle,mais comme un ange: car c’etait son ame qui se peignait sur son visage” (36). Whereas until thispoint, Ximeo had emphasized that Mirza was not beautiful, at this moment of sacrifice, he findsher as beautiful as an angel. Furthermore, he realizes that while he has sacrificed his soul to hispassions, Mirza has immolated her body to her soul through her multiple sacrifices. For Ximeo,Mirza now transcends the “weakness” and “grace” characteristic of the feminine conventionsof beauty embodied in his wife Ourika and becomes a new inspirational model of beauty. Thisportrait of beauty inspires both “admiration” and “shame” in both Ximeo and the slave traders.Once again, Ximeo is dumbfounded: “j’avais perdu la parole, et je me mourais du tourment dene la pas retrouver” (37).

It is worth noting that at this point in the narrative, Ximeo no longer sees Mirza as a loveobject, but rather as an object of admiration that leaves him speechless. Given that Stael wroteMirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur after the publication of Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiryinto the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) and Kant’s Observations onthe Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764), one might wonder whether Stael expresslyrepresents Mirza’s beauty in the mode of the sublime to challenge the gendered concepts ofbeauty that both Burke and Kant put forth in their two aforementioned works (namely thatbeauty is inherently feminine and inferior and that the sublime is masculine and superior).19 Asublime representation of feminine beauty in Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur would certainlygive precedent to the manner in which Stael represents feminine leadership and sacrifice in thedenouements of her two later novels Delphine and Corinne, ou l’Italie.20

If in addition to challenging neoclassical conceptions of beauty, Stael was also indeedchallenging Burke and Kant’s gendered and hierarchical representations of beauty, this mightexplain why Ximeo, in a panic, attempts to reason with the slave traders: “Barbares [ . . . ] c’esta moi, jamais, jamais; respectez son sexe, sa faiblesse” (37). However, as if to create forevera symbolic rupture with the neoclassical tradition, and perhaps even Burke and Kant’s earlyrepresentations of beauty, which seek to enslave women in representations of weakness andgrace, Mirza rejects Ximeo’s plea to respect her sex and her weakness and retorts: “Arrete[ . . . ] cesse d’etre genereux; cet acte de vertu, c’est pour toi seul que tu l’accomplis; si monbonheur t’avait ete cher, tu ne m’aurais pas abandonnee; je t’aime mieux coupable quand je tesais insensible” (37). She adds to reinforce the tableau of sacrifice that she is embodying before

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Romantic Aesthetics and Abolitionist Activism 143

Ximeo: “je meurs si mes jours ne te sont pas utiles” (37). It is only after the governor liberatesthem both and Mirza stabs herself with a fatal arrow (a surprising act of suicide to which I willreturn momentarily) that Ximeo finally understands Mirza’s melancholy and her drive to sacrificeherself for the well-being and freedom of others. Prostrated before her tomb, he feels the entireweight of Mirza’s pain. However, contrary to when, in his impatience, he contemplated suicideto alleviate his pain, after Mirza’s death, he respects her last wish, namely to be useful to hisAfrican compatriots. In an effort to end slavery and bring freedom and happiness to his people,he accepts the position of head of the sugar plantation that the narrator was visiting. The tableauof Mirza’s death and its revelation of his own amour propre allows Ximeo to finally achieve thedefinition of virtue that Stael defines years later as the preference that one must give to othersover oneself, namely through respect for duty (to the perfectibility of the human species) overcapitulation to personal interests (Reflexions sur le suicide 277).

Although Mirza’s sacrifice inspires Ximeo to devote himself to the freedom of his Africanconfreres, there is indeed ambivalence to Mirza’s death. After all, she commits suicide, whichStael seems to condemn as the ultimate selfish and passionate act. However, in Reflexions surle suicide, a work penned by Stael twenty-six years after Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, Staelmakes an exception in her condemnation for what she calls “des suicides de devouement” (287).For Stael, Cato’s death represented a “suicide of devotion” because he killed himself to opposetyranny, and more importantly, so that his example of resistance to tyranny would live on (287).21

When we think back to how Ximeo met Mirza and then to Mirza’s death, we can draw a parallelbetween Mirza’s death and Stael’s description of “suicide of devotion.” When Ximeo first meetsMirza, as we recall, she is singing hymns of freedom and resistance to slavery. In hindsight,we can now view these hymns as Mirza’s swan song. When Ximeo announces his rupture withMirza, she does not seek to commit suicide. On the contrary, she devotes herself to the care ofher French father figure. When she then learns that Ximeo is to be sold to the slave traders, shesacrifices her freedom for his and promises the slave traders that she will go on living. But whenthe governor, precisely the figure who governed the slave trade in Senegal and its correspondingoutposts and also the man who is moved by their “grandeur d’ame,” frees both Ximeo and Mirza,thereby annulling her sacrifice to freedom and act of resistance against the slave trade, Mirza killsherself with an arrow through the heart. Much like Cato who stabbed himself with his own sword,Mirza stabs herself to remind Ximeo, the governor, and the Senegambians that it was throughthe sacrifice of a free soul that their freedom was achieved, and that they must never forget theprice of their freedom. Ximeo, himself moved by Mirza’s greatness of soul, understands Mirza’ssacrifice, which explains why he says, “je respecte en mon cœur le souvenir de Mirza, et crains,en me donnant la mort, d’aneantir tout ce qui reste d’elle” (40). It is also why he begs of thenarrator never to forget Mirza’s name: “Ah! promettez-moi que vous n’oublierez pas le nomde Mirza; vous le direz a vos enfants, et vous conserverez apres moi la memoire de cet anged’amour” (40). Through Ximeo, who is intent on keeping Mirza’s spirit alive, Stael introduces aChrist-like figure into an otherwise animistic world. And it is when Ximeo prostrates before hertomb that he feels for the first time the weight of Mirza’s metaphoric cross or “le sentiment toutentier de ses peines [de Mirza]” (39). It is in these moments before her tomb that Mirza appearsbefore him as a benevolent phantom, reminiscent of the Holy Ghost, who consoles him in hissacrifice and teaches him “la jouissance du malheur” (39). Mirza succeeds in converting Ximeofrom a life dedicated to selfish passions to a more Christian-like life of suffering in the name ofself-sacrifice. Furthermore, she orients him toward the Staelien path of the perfectibility of thehuman species and the propagation of freedom.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

144 Symposium

The tableau of Ximeo, moved to melancholy and devotion by a Christ-like figure who teachesfreedom and love, moves the narrator to want to share the abolitionist message of love and freedom.The combined actions of Ximeo, who chooses to sacrifice his self-interest to the promotion offreedom of his African confreres and who inspires the narrator to convey this message of freedom,reveals the young Germaine de Stael’s nascent aesthetic, namely an aesthetic of the contagious,revolutionary, and moralizing power of the Beautiful, but not the Beautiful of the eighteenthcentury, not the neoclassic ideal, rather a new Romantic Beautiful that, through its exaltation ofthe soul, inspires respect for the duty to freedom for all. And finally, the narrator’s presentationto “Madame” of this Romantic Beautiful, of which the impetus comes from a female Christ-likefigure, suggests Stael’s vision for the role of women in the “revolution of virtue of men,” that is,to become the principal propagators of a morality rooted in self-sacrifice to equality, humanity,and freedom.22

CONCLUSION

The slave trade was declared illegal in 1818. However, it flourished more than ever untilit was ultimately ended for good in 1830 by the liberal King Louis-Philippe. The abolition ofslavery had to wait eighteen more years. Although members of the French elite agreed to sign thepetitions attesting to the horrors of the slave trade, they were much more reluctant to affirm thebasic humanity of African slaves and their right to freedom thereby due (Miller 197). Germainede Stael proved through Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur to be an early exception to this reluctance.In this novella, not only does she seek to garner support for the end of the slave trade through acall for moral revolution, but she also challenges the accusations of inhumanity of Africans moregenerally. Through a new model of beauty, embodied in an African woman, who lets her bloodto bring freedom to her people, Stael makes a case for the very humanity of Africans. As if tobuttress her portrait of African humanity, she furthermore underscores their capacity to acceptthe responsibilities of their newfound freedom, to assimilate the “civilizing” philosophies of theEnlightenment, and to receive Christian teachings.

It is important to remember, however, that relatively shortly after the end of the slave tradeand slavery, French colonization took hold of Northern, Western, and Central Africa. ChristopherMiller reminds us that “slave trade abolitionism and African colonization were twins born of thesame egg” (201). The French justified both practices under the banner of Christian conversionand “civilization” of Africans. In her “Appel aux Souverains Reunis a Paris,” Germaine de Staeluses herself the expression “les lumieres du Christianisme” (283) to describe what Europeanmissionaries should seek to bring to Africans. When we recall the distinctly religious, evenProtestant, overtones of Stael’s concept of beauty in Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, and when weremember that Mirza was originally “educated” by a French man of the Enlightenment, we areforced to consider Miller’s assertion that Stael’s African protagonists operate (at least partly) asspokespeople for French philosophy. Indeed, Stael sought to end the slave trade and she arguedthe right to freedom for Africans, yet Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur clearly betrays her belief thatAfrican freedom depended on a Christian and French Enlightenment education. Unbeknownstto her, in her pre-Romantic drive to spread the message of freedom, Germaine de Stael was, infact, sowing the seeds for the oppressive colonialism of the late-nineteenth and early-twentiethcenturies.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Romantic Aesthetics and Abolitionist Activism 145

Notes1Although the buying and selling of slaves, the “slave trade,” was finally abolished in France in 1830, the practice

of slavery, namely the use of slaves on plantations, continued until 1848.In this novella, Stael makes reference to the Jaloffes and the Kingdom of Cayor. The Kingdom of Cayor (1566–1886)

was situated between the Senegal and Saloum Rivers in Northwest Senegal. This kingdom was inhabited by the Jaloffes(referred to today as Wolofs) and several other ethnic groups. In this story, Mirza is a Jaloffe whereas Ximeo is of anotherunspecified ethnicity.

Stael undoubtedly drew her inspiration for this novella from an encounter that her father certainly had and that shemay have had with the Chevalier de Boufflers, governor of Senegal. As Claire de Duras belonged to the same socialcircles as Stael and her father, Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur surely served as a model for Duras’s best-selling Ourika.For more on the encounter between Stael and Boufflers, see Miller 144, and for Stael’s influence on Duras, see Miller159.

2In her conclusion to De l’influence des passions (1795) and after having lived the horrific Reign of Terror, Staelelevates pity to the highest moral disposition, a position that will later become second only to living in accord withone’s conscience: “Une belle cause finale dans l’ordre moral, c’est la prodigieuse influence de la pitie sur les coeurs”(245).

3Stael dedicates her whole work De la litterature to the definition and propagation of the perfectibility of the humanspecies. For an overview of Stael’s definition of the perfectibility of the human species, and especially with regard tothe woman writer’s role in this movement, see de Bruin, “Melancholy,” and Lotterie. For a brief introduction to theimportance of the perfectibility of the human species to De la litterature, see Gengembre and Goldzink’s introduction tothe 1991 Flammarion edition of De la litterature, 7–47.

4Stael fully formulates her conception of this new literature, what we now call Romantic literature, in her two laterworks De la litterature (1800) and De l’Allemagne (1810).

5Here I am making reference to Adam Smith’s argument against slavery to which I will return later in this study.See Larrere.

6In Delphine, M. de Lebensei condemns on multiple occasions civil and political slavery. For a detailed analysis ofStael’s condemnation of slavery in Corinne, ou l’Italie, see Kadish,”Patriarchy and Abolition.”

7For detailed historical analyses of the extent to which Stael’s family participated in the abolitionist movement, seeAurenche and Isbell.

8See, for example, Sismondi’s De l’interet de la France a l’egard de la traite des negres or Constant’s speechesagainst slavery.

9See, for example, Aurenche. See also Jennings 1–23.10See Kadish and Massardier-Kenney and both works by Kadish. See also Miller 99–108, 141–157.11Nineteenth-century economist Henry Higgs confirms Necker’s orthodox mercantilist position in his study entitled

The Physiocrates 121.12Ximeo states: “puisse mes infortunes compatriotes renoncer a la vie sauvage, se vouer au travail pour satisfaire

vos avides desirs, et contribuer a sauver quelques-uns d’eux de la plus horrible destinee !” (26).13Jean Ehrard reminds us of the Catholic Church’s doctrinal position on slavery and the slave trade: “En 1764 le

theologien Bellon de Saint-Quentin, dans une Dissertation sur la traite et le commerce des negres, demontre method-iquement que la possession et le commerce d’esclaves ne sont contraires ni ‘a la loi naturelle, ni a la loi Divine ecrite, nimeme a la loi de l’Evangile”’ (101).

14The narrator states: “J’appris a Goree [ . . . ] que M. le gouverneur avait determine une famille negre a venirdemeurer a quelques lieux de la, pour y etablir une habitation pareille a celles de Saint-Domingue, se flattant sans doute,qu’un tel exemple exciterait les Africains a la culture du sucre; et qu’attirant chez eux le commerce libre de cette denree,les Europeens ne les enleveraient plus a leur patrie pour leur faire souffrir le joug affreux de l’esclavage” (23).

15For a discussion of the evolution of Stael’s liberal philosophy, see Craitu.16The narrator of Saint-Lambert’s Zimeo is an English merchant, of Protestant persuasion, who is visiting Jamaican

plantations. Like the narrator of Mirza ou Lettre d’un voyageur, he is not an abolitionist although he is schooled inEnlightenment thought and is sensitive to the working and living conditions of the slaves.

17Jean-Baptiste Bon Boutard, founder of the Journal des Debats, wrote of African faces in 1800: “Ces visagesafricains sont, par la nature, si uniformement laids, qu’il est impossible a l’art de leur donner aucune espece de beaute”(Grigsby 325).

18The physical portrait of Stael’s character Ximeo is largely inspired by Saint-Lambert’s hero, Zimeo. Saint-Lambertdescribes Zimeo in the following manner: “Zimeo etait un jeune homme de vingt-deux ans: les statues d’Apollon et del’Antinous n’ont pas de traits plus reguliers et de plus belles proportions. Je fus frappe sur-tout de son air de grandeur. Jen’ai jamais vu d’homme qui me parut comme lui ne pour commander aux autres” (55). However, contrary to the heroicportrayal of Zimeo, typical of the “great man” representations of the eighteenth century, Stael sketches an antiheroicportrait that accentuates Ximeo’s melancholy rather than his capacity to command.

19In Ian Balfour’s fascinating analysis of the manner in which Burke and Kant gender the concepts of beauty andthe sublime, he poses the question with regard to Burke’s own slippage in A Philosophical Enquiry: “if the male is aligned

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

146 Symposium

with the sublime and the female with the beautiful, what happens when the distinction between the sublime and thebeautiful blurs?” (331).

20For an analysis of the manner in which Stael represents the (feminine) sublime in Corinne, ou l’Italie, see deBruin “Melancholy,” and for the (feminine) sublime in Delphine, see de Bruin, La Femme superieure 149–94.

21Stael is making reference to Cato the Younger (95 BC–46 BC) who famously opposed the corruption of Caesarand in a last act of rebellion stabbed himself with his own sword.

22For more on Stael’s vision of the role of women in the moral revolution of men, see de Bruin, “The Helm and theCompass.”

Works Cited

Aurenche, Marie-Laure. “Le Combat pour faire cesser la Traite et pour abolir l’esclavage: De la Societe de la moralechretienne (1822–1834) a la Societe francaise pour l’abolition de l’esclavage.” Litterature et esclavage XVIIIe-XIXe

siecles. Ed. Sarga Moussa. Paris: Editions Joncqueres, 2010. 301–17. Print.Balfour, Ian. “Torso: (The) Sublime Sex, Beautiful Bodies, and the Matter of the Text.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 39.

3 (2006): 323–26. Print.Craitu, Aurelien. A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748–1830. Princeton:

Princeton UP, 2012. Print.de Bruin, Karen. La Femme superieure: l’individu, le roman et la republique libre de Germaine de Stael. Diss. U of

Chicago, 2007. Print.———. “The Helm and the Compass: The Great Man and the Superior Woman in Germaine de Stael’s Republic.”

Heroısme au siecle des Lumieres. Ed. Sylvain Menant and Robert Morrissey. Paris: Champion, 2010. 235–50. Print.Collections Moralia.

———. “Melancholy in the Pursuit of Happiness: Corinne and the Femme superieure.” Stael’s Philosophy of the Passions:Sensibility, Society and the Sister Arts. Ed. Tilli Boon Cuille and Karyna Szmurlo. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2013.75–94. Print.

Duras, Claire de. Ourika. Edouard. Olivier ou le Secret. Ed. Marie-Benedicte Diethelm. Paris: Flammarion, 2007. Print.Ehrard, Jean. Lumieres et Esclavages: L’esclavage colonial et l’opinion publique en France au XVIIIe siecle. Bruxelles:

Andre Versaille, 2008. Print.Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France. New Haven and London: Yale

UP, 2002. Print.Higgs, Henry. The Physiocrates: Six Lectures on the French Economistes of the Eighteenth Century. New York: MacMil-

lan, 1897. Print.Isbell, John Claiborne. “Voices Lost? Stael and Slavery, 1786–1830.” Kadish, Slavery in the Caribbean Francophone

World 39–52. Print.Jennings, Lawrence C. French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848. Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 2000. Print.Kadish, Doris. “Patriarchy and Abolition: Stael and Fathers.” Germaine de Stael: Forging a politics of mediation. Oxford:

Voltaire Foundation, 2011. 63–78. Print. Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 2011:12.Kadish, Doris, ed. Slavery in the Caribbean Francophone World: Distant Voices, Forgotten Acts, Forged Identities.

Athens: U of Georgia P, 2000. Print.Kadish, Doris, and Francoise Massardier-Kenney, eds. Translating Slavery: Gender and Race in French Women’s Writing,

1783–1823. Kent and London: The Kent State UP, 1994. Print.Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Beautiful and the Sublime. Ed. Patrick Frierson and Paul Guyer. Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.Larrere, Catherine. “Economie politique et esclavage au XVIIIe siecle, une rencontre tardive et ambigue.” Abolir

l’esclavage: Un reformisme a l’epreuve (France, Portugal, Suisse, XVIIIe-XIXe siecles). Ed. Olivier Petre Grenouil-leau. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008. 209–23. Print.

Lotterie, Florence. Progres et Perfectibilite. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2006. Print.Miller, Christopher L. The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade. Durham: Duke UP, 2008.

Print.Necker, Jacques. Œuvres completes de M. Necker. Tome 6. Ed. M. le Baron de Stael. Paris: Truttel et Wuertz, 1820–21.

Print.Saint-Lambert. Œuvres de Saint-Lambert de l’Academie Francaise. Tome 2. Paris: Menard et Desenne, Fils, 1823. Print.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Romantic Aesthetics and Abolitionist Activism 147

Sismondi, J.C.L. Simonde de. Corinne ou l’Italie. Ed. Simone Balaye. Paris: Gallimard, 1985. Print.———. De l’Allemagne. Ed. Simone Balaye. 2 vols. Paris: Flammarion, 1968. Print.———. De l’interet de la France a l’egard de la traite des negres. Geneva, 1814. Print.———. Delphine. Ed. Beatrice Didier. 2 vols. Paris: Flammarion, 2000. Print.———. Histoire de Pauline. Trois nouvelles. Ed. Martine Reid. Paris: Gallimard, 2009. Print.———. Reflexions sur le suicide. De l’influence des passions suivi de Reflexions sur le suicide. Ed. Chantal Thomas.

Paris: Payots & Rivages, 2000. Print.Stael, Germaine de. “Appel aux Souverains Reunis a Paris pour en obtenir l’abolition de la traite des negres.” Kadish and

Massardier-Kenney. 281–83. Print.———. De la litterature. Ed. Gerard Gengembre and Jean Goldzink. Paris: Flammarion, 1991. Print.———. De l’influence des passions suivi de Reflexions sur le suicide. Ed. Chantal Thomas. Paris: Payots & Rivages,

2000. Print.———. Lettres sur J.-J. Rousseau. Œuvres de jeunesse. Ed. Simone Balaye. Paris: Desjonqueres, 1997. 33–99. Print.———. Mirza, ou Lettre d’un voyageur. Trois nouvelles. Ed. Martine Reid. Paris: Gallimard, 2009. Print.

Karen de Bruin is an associate professor of French at the University of Rhode Island. She specializes in late-eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth-century French literature, with special emphasis on the writings of Germaine deStael. She also advocates for the importance of the humanities and aesthetic education in both her research and a weeklyradio show, The Beauty Salon (http://www.beautysalonuri.com).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f G

eorg

ia]

at 1

5:34

17

Dec

embe

r 20

14