Authoring the Nation: Madame de Staël and the Literary Origins of the State

Abstract For a reflection on the role of literature in the construction of constitutionalism within the Anglosphere, the writings of a French salon-hostess in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries might not seem the obvious choice. And yet, to exclude Germaine de Staël from the constitutional dialogue taking place in the Anglosphere at this time is to erase a crucial site of inter-pollination between the Franco and Anglo worlds that, so often, defined themselves in opposition to one another. In re-establishing these ties and cross-border conversations, we can see that de Staël, a prolific writer of both constitutional theory and fiction, makes an excellent candidate for an investigation into the role of literature in constitutionalism. To explore the interrelationship between literature and constitutional theory in de Staël’s thinking, this article reads across her literary texts and political treatises. Firstly, the article situates de Staël within the Anglosphere as a unique commentator on English constitutionalism. It then explores in more detail the co-constitutive role of literature and politics in de Staël’s theories of constitutionalism, and the central role she stakes out for literature in the construction of “the nation.”