Delphine

by Madame de Staël

Delphine d’Albémar, une jeune veuve riche et cultivée, qui dispose de ses idées, de son cœur et de ses biens – une femme libre –, vit un amour impossible, empêché par la distance et l’interdit, au lendemain de la Révolution. En entretissant des vies et des voix haletantes, et en puisant dans son expérience personnelle, Mme de Staël analyse ce qu’a de cruel et d’injuste la condition féminine. À sa parution en 1802, le roman fait sensation, et l’auteure est condamnée à l’exil. Car Delphine met en scène l’écart entre les avancées de la Révolution et le conservatisme de la société, dans un pays meurtri qui a besoin de compassion. Romancière dans un monde où les femmes sont réduites au silence, Mme de Staël est révolutionnaire. Ce temps n’est pas si reculé, et les problèmes qu’elle soulève n’ont rien d’inactuels.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, France, French Literature, 19th Century, Literary Fiction, 18th Century

1088 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1802

About the author

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (22 April 1766 – 14 July 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French woman of letters of Swiss origin whose lifetime overlapped with the events of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. She was one of Napoleon's principal opponents. Celebrated for her conversational eloquence, she participated actively in the political and intellectual life of her times. Her works, both critical and fictional, made their mark on the history of European Romanticism.

Reviews

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's basically 18th-century french gossip girl, and I mean that as a huge compliment.

[Sincerae Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delphine is the novel that got Madame de Stael, proto-feminist, political philosopher and novelist kicked out of France by Napoleon. Napoleon was irritated by the author's dedication to "The France of Silence", and he didn't particularly like the author's comments on how women were limited and suppressed in French society. He wasn't buying it that Delphine was merely a tragedy.

Like Corinne in Madame de Stael's Corinne, or Italy, Delphine d'Albemar is a beautiful young woman who is highly intelligent and who is unafraid to express her opinions. Delphine is a young widow in her early 20s who had been married off at a young age to a much older man. She respected her husband but didn't love him. She and her circle are lesser untitled aristocrats. Then she meets a man closer to her age, Leonce de Mondoville, who is part French and grew up in Spain. It is an earthquake for Delphine and Leonce, love at first sight, but because both are impulsive, overly emotional and Leonce's mother who lives in Spain doesn't like outspoken and independent young women like Delphine, the two are kept separated by a number of unfortunate events. There is much fainting and tears on the part of both main characters.

Delphine which is an epistolary novel is very slow moving at times and besides being a romance and tragedy it briefly covers the limitations of women in French society at the time, the question of young girls being married off against their will to much older men, marriage, religion, morality and the French Revolution.

The crying and fainting of the two main characters and the slow movement of the novel are the results of my 3 star rating. At first I started to give Delphine 4 stars. Outside of these issues, I rather liked this classic French novel. However, I prefer Madame de Stael's Corinne, or Italy more than this one.

[Amandine · Rating 4 out of 5]

D’un point de vue analytique, ce roman est absolument passionnant : publié en 1802, il se trouve tout juste entre les valeurs de l’Ancien Régime mourant et celles du Romantisme naissant en France (pour en savoir plus, je vous conseille la lecture de la préface de Béatrice Didier, extrêmement intéressante et instructive). On ressent à la fois l’influence de certaines lectures de Mme de Staël, comme celle des romans libertins ou du Marquis de Sade (l’attitude de Delphine rappelle en tout cas grandement celle de Justine : aucune de ces deux héroïnes n’apprend de ses malheurs), et du Romantisme allemand : l’attitude des deux amants, par exemple, victimes de la société attachée aux convenances et de leur idéalisme, romantique et libertaire pour Delphine, attaché à l’honneur chevaleresque d’un autre temps pour Léonce. La forme même témoigne de cette transition qui s’effectue : le roman épistolaire s’effiloche au fur et à mesure de l’intrigue pour terminer en journal intime, puis en compte-rendu. La sociabilité des Lumières s’avère de plus en plus impossible et le Mal du siècle, qui isole et désespère, commence à poindre. Enfin, les thèmes abordés sont également symptomatiques de cette époque : Mme de Staël brosse une série de portraits de femmes et d’éducations, ainsi que de rapports à la religion. De toutes ces composantes, elle tire des conclusions pour le sort de ses personnages, esquissant parallèles et vies de femmes avec virtuosité.

Il y aurait encore beaucoup à dire sur ce roman, mais je préfère vous inviter à le découvrir vous-même et à en faire votre propre analyse. Mon unique regret, personnellement, tient dans la conclusion : rapide et presque invraisemblable pour cette raison, elle m’a déçue. Mme de Staël était parvenue à tisser lentement une toile grandiose et témoin de l’époque troublée qu’elle a vécue, ce qui me rend un tel empressement à terminer suspect : comme une note discordante pour terminer ce chœur de voix qui m’avait captivée jusque-là.

http://minoualu.blogspot.com/2011/11/...

[pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

c’est vraiment gossip girl mais au 18ème, donc très fun j’adore

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

idk like my girlfriend the other day was singing YOU ARE A DRAMA QUEEN to the tune of ABBAs Dancing Queen but she hasn't read Delphine

Somewhat of an inbetween to the Frances Burney novels Camilla and Cecilia, DELPHINE still looks questioning the roles of women, how free are they to think, what is the control of emotion, is chastity everything in life, the sincerity and structure of relationships? Arguably Burney's novels are tragic (but like from a modern perspective they are because Burney chooses in a slightly 'cynical' decision to default into conventionality in the resolution to especially Camillia) just like DELPHINE is but DELPHINE really plays those MELODRAMA cards that I love and really commits to being a good tragic read like HEY GERMAINE this is good I liked it.
De Stael in-debts herself to recent fiction, which is great because she's setting this novel in the time when her influences are being published, and all the way back to Richardson's time as well. Delphine's voice as a character is strong and best shown in her travelling fragments that open Part Five

'I speak of my grief only to myself; ah, for one who was loved once, solitary thought is such a sad confidant!'

[kaylee i · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay, interesting but had some very slow parts. Gave me headache a lot of the times ngl.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book, though it was terribly melodramatic in parts and did tend to go on a bit. It started very strongly, the main character was a delightful young widow who wasn't interested in convention or other people's opinions, she was witty, wealth...y and generous. Then she had the misfortune to fall in love, and the man she fell in love with was a complete idiot and everything went down hill from there. Whenever something happened Leonce always chose the wrong option, leading them both down a path that led to their ultimate destruction. Still when he wasn't around there were some very interesting discussions about the fate and trials of (upper class) women in late 18th century France. It was interesting as so much of the book, was simply conversations between women. When these conversations dealt with philosophy, society and morality they were quite interesting, unfortunately when they were just dealing with the melodramatic romance not quite so much. The minor characters were also well written with a strong degree of difference between them, some I loved, some I hated. It was a very well written book, even in translation I enjoyed the style of the letters. While not as good as Dangerous liaisons I definitely do want to read more by this author.

[Kyla Vaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Germaine de Staël’s passion certainly shines with her heroine Delphine. I truly believe this novel is a love letter to self-sacrificial emotional women. Delphine suffers so much, but she never lets go of her desire to help others. While the ending is easily read as a tragedy, the last scene makes it all feel hopeful again.

[Victoria · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is basically the worst.

[Mouâd Benzahra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delphine de Germaine de Staël (scindé en deux tomes) : » Un roman épistolaire très délicat où l’exaltation des sens bat son comble : Des échanges mettant en lumière l’histoire de Delphine (Madame d’Albémar) et de Léonce de Mondoville, deux âmes pures et sensibles, dont les cœurs furent consumés par un amour latent et des douleurs desquelles ils n’arrivaient point à s’affranchir.

Et pour cause : Que d’entreprises périlleuses et de compromettantes affaires de cœur présentées sous le prisme de différends portant sur un conservatisme fortement enraciné dans la société, d’autant ancré par un rattachement aux principes religieux, ainsi que certaines opinions politiques (idées inhérentes à la révolution que l’auteure soutenait ardemment dans cette oeuvre).

L’épanchement le plus sincère des deux personnages, délicieusement décrit par Madame de Staël tombe sous le joug d’une société inflexible rivée aux convenances, l’honneur et la réputation y prévalaient de surcroît.

Le long du récit, victimes furent les deux amants de l’accablante injustice de l’opinion publique et des calomnies qui se répandaient dans les salons parisiens.

Dans « Delphine », le génie de la douleur et cette magie à laquelle Madame de Staël nous convie à travers les pertinentes et sensuelles correspondances entre les différents personnages est ce qui rend sa plume d’autant plus captivante, et mérite d’être mieux étudiée. »

[Gilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting love story against the background of the French Revolution. Germaine de Stael was quite the woman ahead of her times. She and her family played different parts with the reigns of French Kings and Napoleon, which lent to her knowledge of world affairs. She was a prolific writer, so much so, that I have seen her name mentioned in quite a few other novels from that time period.
Most enjoyable, with a sensational ending.

[Heitor Derisso]

"je sentis qu’une femme avait tort de se croire indépendante de l'opinion, et qu’elle finissait toujours par succomber sous le poids de l'injustice; mais, depuis que j'ai revu Léonce plus tendre que jamais pour moi, toute mon âme aurait repris à l'espérance du bonheur"

Já escrevi tanto sobre esse livro para a minha dissertação que eu não quero mais escrever nada aqui.
Mas uma coisa precisa ser dita... Cristo! que livro entediante.

[Helynne]

Delphine (1802) is Madame de Staël’s first full-lenth novel and her most passionate effort to preach against a myriad of conventions and norms that sabotage what she sees as the right of the superior woman to obtain love, happiness, respect, and inner peace. The publication of this novel in 1802 so enraged Napoleon Bonaparte that he condemned Madame de Staël, with whom he was already peeved, to exile from a 40-league radius from her beloved Paris. (This did not stop her from writing her even more inflammatory second novel Corinne in 1807, but that is another review). Delphine is largely an epistolary novel, much of it consisting of the widowed heroine’s letters to her kind, older maiden sister-in-law chronicling her doomed love for a handsome, but weak-willed nobleman as well the sorrows of some of her female friends. Contemporary norms regarding a woman’s role as wife, laws and prejudices on divorce, scheming, self-serving and vindictive family members, injustices, severity and hypocrisy in Catholic convents, society’s propensity to scorn and condemn any degree of individuality, and its unwillingness to forgive and forget are all richly analyzed and the consequences therefrom are made painfully evident. But Delphine is ultimately a novel expressing very little hope that such reform will come about. The heroine in particular is consistently powerless in the face of convention, and during the course of the story, is swept farther and farther down a whirlpool of oppression and deceit. “Je vis que j’étais sans forces, une lutte inutile parut la conduit d’un enfant,” Delphine writes. “J’y renonça mais avec un sentiment de haine contre la société qui ne prenait pas ma défense, et ne me laissait d’autre ressources que la dissimulation.” So, this is not a happy story, but definitely a watershed work of feminism, beautifully written and an embattled impetus for reform.

[Maman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roman épistolaire de plus de 1000 pages. Le dossier annexe fait 60 pages entre chronologie et notes de l'auteure ce qui est impressionnant.

C'est l'histoire de Delphine une jeune veuve qui en plus d'avoir toutes les qualités requises pour être adorée du monde... Tombe amoureuse du fiancé de sa cousine. Oups, pas de chance.

Tout cela sur fond de revolution française. Et donc en plein dans la transition entre le conservatisme ancien et les nouvelles résolutions sociétales. Une femme qui écrit à propos d'une femme parfaite qui aime un homme indisponible... Cela promet. Le roman a eut un accueil très mitigé et l'auteure à été condamnée à l'exil.

Ce roman est très long à lire. J'ai beaucoup de mal avec le format épistolaire en continu surtout avec un contexte à replacer constamment. Mais il y a de magnifiques références littéraires, artistiques, etc... Et surtout on voit les prémices du féminisme : l'injustice de la condition de femme est visible durant tout le roman

[Nick Black]

I really liked "The Great de Staël" in the May NYT Review of Books, and figure this is probably worth picking up (although the cover frankly isn't doing anything for my ambitions, being rather suggestive of 18th century Gallic pudding-eating competitions).

[Dangermousie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love over-the-top romanticism and traaaagedy, plus I like peeking into such a different worldview, so four stars.

Though a word to the wise - I like this novel as much for being a historical curiousity as its merits as a work of fiction (to modern eyes, it can seem prosy and drawn-out, but to me, the leisurely unfolding is part of its charm).