A Novel of Female Genius

This chapter considers the links between women and genius in the figure of Mme De Staël's Corinne (from her 1807 of the same name). At the time of its publication women there seemed to be no place for women in genius or for genius in women. At the same time, however, the novel, which was traditionally associated with a female readership, was gaining status as a literary genre. Mme de Staël, as one of the rare women commentators on genius, curiously made no explicit attempt to counter the arguments of those who denied genius to her sex and even echoed many of their assumptions. Yet she would eventually come to portray the heroine of her second novel, Corinne, as an unambiguous incarnation of female genius.