Making Way for Genius : The Aspiring Self in France from the Old Regime to the New

by Kathleen Kete

• ISBN13: 9780300174823
• ISBN10: 0300174829
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2012-05-29
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Examining the lives and works of three iconic personalities Germaine de Stael, Stendhal, and Georges CuvierKathleen Kete creates a groundbreaking cultural history of ambition in post-Revolutionary France. While in the old regime the traditionalist view of ambition prevailedthat is, ambition as morally wrong unless subsumed into a corporate wholethe new regime was marked by a rising tide of competitive individualism. Greater opportunities for personal advancement, however, were shadowed by lingering doubts about the moral value of ambition. Kete identifies three strategies used to overcome the ethical "burden" of ambition: romantic genius (Stael), secular vocation (Stendhal), and post-mythic destiny (Cuvier). In each case, success would seem to be driven by forces outside one's control. She concludes by examining the still relevant (and still unresolved) conundrum of the relationship of individual desires to community needs, which she identifies as a defining characteristic of the modern world.

Author Biography

Kathleen Kete, Borden W. Painter, Jr., Associate Professor of European History at Trinity College, is the author of The Beast in the Boudoir: Petkeeping in Nineteenth-Century Paris. She lives in West Hartford, CT.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
The Aspiring Self in France from the Old Regime to the New	p. 1
Genius, Madame de Staël, and the Soul of Prodigious Success	p. 23
Vocation, Stendhal, and the Art of Living Ethically	p. 73
Destiny, Cuvier, and Post-Revolutionary Politics	p. 107
Friendship Matters; Arguments from Egypt; Coda on Napoleon	p. 145
Ambition in Post-Revolutionary Lives	p. 168
Notes	p. 181
Index	p. 229
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