On the threshold between Enlightenment and Early Romanticism Madame de Staël had a pivotal role as a literary critic and as a brilliant conversationalist who thrived on lively poetic and political discussions in her intellectual salons in an age of turmoil, the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. Many of her contemporaries confirm that she was a woman of unusual substance, intelligence, and power, among them Goethe who in his

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[Annals] (1804) referred to her as “Weltfrau” [woman of the world] and Lord Byron who in “The Bride of Abydos” called her “the first female writer of this, perhaps any age” (1813). Yet it was not only her overwhelming volubility that prompted successive French governments to exile her repeatedly and Napoleon to…

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Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "Madame de Stael". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 July 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4185, accessed 19 March 2024.]

4185 Madame de Stael 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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