Germany

…fruits of her visit to Germany are contained in her most important work, De l’Allemagne (1810; Germany). This is a serious study of German manners, literature and art, philosophy and morals, and religion in which she made known to her contemporaries the Germany of the Sturm und Drang movement (1770–1780).…

The other, Madame de Staël’s Germany (1810), was a description of the new and thriving literature, philosophy, and popular culture in Germany. Napoleon prohibited the circulation of the book in France, but its message percolated French public opinion nonetheless. Two other sources of future light were the Idéologues, a group…

…Society) and De l’Allemagne (1810; Germany), expanded conceptions of literature with the claim that different social forms needed different literary modes: in particular, postrevolutionary society required a new literature. She explored the contrast, as she saw it, between the literature of the south (rational, Classical) and the literature of the…