Furst, Lilian R. “The Salons of Germain de Staël and Rahel Varnhagen.” In Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age: Critical Essays in Comparative Literature, edited by Gregory Maertz, pp. 95-103. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Furst discusses the literary salons of Varnhagen in Berlin and of Germain de Staël in Coppet to consider the salons' effects on cultural interaction in the Romantic Age.

In any consideration of cultural interaction in the Romantic Age, one major social institution immediately springs to mind: the salon. The salon was instrumental in bringing together men and women from different backgrounds, classes, and countries. The conversational exchange of views, which was the main occupation of the salons, was a salient medium for the discussion and transmission of innovative ideas. The growing internationalization of the salon at this period was of primary importance in...