Madame de Staël and Benjamin Constant in Weimar: 1803–1804

A revealing study of one of the most interesting literary events of the Romantic period: the arrival of Madame de Staël and Benjamin Constant in Weimar, the capital of German literature and philosophy. Here their interchange of ideas and their conversation with the literary, philosophical, and court leaders, such as Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland, later inspired Madame de Staël's book, On Germany, one of the most influential of Romantic literary works.

The details of this extraordinary meeting between two important French literary figures and the leaders of German literature is based upon the diary of Hofrat K. A. Böttiger, director of the school system in Weimar at the time. Böttiger's "Memorabilia on Madame de Stael," hitherto unknown to literary scholarship, furnishes the most comprehensive existing information about her appearance in Germany and constitutes in addition a significant document about the Weimar of Goethe.