ly, but suspected, because of her observation of her own life, literary
and otherwise, that it is characterized instead by interruption and
discontinuity. One's literary existence is no less subject than one's
ordinary life to those directions and changes of direction, shapings
and misshapings, doings and undoings that transform our projec-
tions and expectations into unanticipated configurations. Such is the
story to be recounted in this book.

If a life story can usefully serve as a metaphor for a literary
existence, many of the same elements will be treated in each one.
Before any words of this book could be written, one of those
elements had to be dealt with: name. Probably the first question we
ask, in order to begin to know another person, is that person's name,
which then becomes more than just a label but a part of the identity
of the person for us. Names are rather problematic in the case of
women, who typically, or at least traditionally, pass from the name
of the father to the name of the husband.

Germaine de Staël's position on this point is quite interesting. She
was proud of her father's name because it was the name of a father
she respected, indeed, almost worshipped. For a different reason she
was pleased with her married name, not because she loved Eric-
Magnus de Staël (she did not) but because it contained the presti-
gious aristocratic particle. In her adult life she typically signed her
name "Necker de Staël," following in this a pattern other women of
her time also used. The name by which she has traditionally been
known, even during her own lifetime, is "Madame de Staël."

This is rather odd. After all, in French, male writers are not
referred to as "Monsieur So-and-So" or "Monsieur de So-and-So."
We do know, though, that men and women are differentially named.
As Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar point out, it is not uncommon
to hear Austen called "Jane" or Dickinson "Emily," but one would
not call Milton "John" or Whitman "Walt." ² Not wishing to con-
tinue the tradition of differential naming, believing that it has the
effect of belittling the author, I had to ask myself what I would call
"Madame de Staël." I decided to avoid the gender-marking title and
call her, simply, "Staël."

"Nominal" matters, common usage notwithstanding, are seldom
trivial. The difference in our naming of male and female writers

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