From Coppet to Milan: Romantic Circles at La Scala

Polidori, Hobhouse, Scrope Davies and Byron himself were also assiduous visitors despite Byron's irreverent depiction of De Staël's salon as "overwhelming - an avalanche that buries one in glittering nonsense - all snow and sophistry," a world full "with a strange sprinkling...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Wordsworth circle 2017-01, Vol.48 (1), p.59-66
Main Author: Casaliggi, Carmen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
British & Irish literature
Byron, George Gordon (Lord) (1788-1824)
Collaboration
Creativity
English literature
Police
Politics
Romantic period
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797-1851)
Stael, Anne-Louise-Germaine de (Madame de Stael) (1766-1817)
Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)
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Summary:Polidori, Hobhouse, Scrope Davies and Byron himself were also assiduous visitors despite Byron's irreverent depiction of De Staël's salon as "overwhelming - an avalanche that buries one in glittering nonsense - all snow and sophistry," a world full "with a strange sprinkling - orators, dandies, and all kinds of Blue" whose behaviour while "sitting together, at dinner, always reminds me of the grave" (Moore 227; 211).1 Thus, while the hdmlichizn experience of Villa Diodati can be interpreted as a model of Habermasian sociability as well as mutual collaboration and creativity that inspired a stream of writing, including Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III, The Dream, Darkness, The Prisoner of Chillon and Manfred, Shelley's Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and Mont Blanc, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, its British localism and insularity - reminiscent of the Lake School - makes such a coterie national in its orientation as compared to the diverse and cosmopolitan Europeanness of the artists and intellectuals surrounding Madame de Staël's Enlightenment centre at Coppet. Germaine De Staël, whose exile started in Coppet as early as 1802, made her salon a centre for liberal opposition where new ideas about literature, art, history, and politics were discussed, attracting the attention of Napoleon's secret police who scrutinised anyone who visited her (Ellis 72-73). De Staël's salon was thus a breeding ground for progressive ideas, and the works that generated from her entourage appear to imaginatively colonise a landscape that is not only British and insular (as in the experience of Villa Diodati)...
ISSN:0043-8006
2640-7310
DOI:10.1086/TWC48010059