JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to 19th-Century Music.Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, Madame de Stael-Holstein, was not renowned for her tact. So it probably did not surprise as many Italians as it angered when, in January 1816, she published a stinging critique of Italian literary culture in the first issue of a new Milanese journal. Mme de Stael's subject, announced in her title "On the Manner and Usefulness of Translations," was innocent enough. And the criticism implied in her first sentence was ecumenical: "To translate excellent works of human genius from one language to another is the greatest boon one can give to literature, since perfect works are so few, and invention in any genre so rare that each modern nation, if satisfied with its own riches alone, would be poor."' But near the end of her article, she addressed herself specifically to Italian writers, urging them to translate English and German poetry. This would introduce new styles and genres to Italian readers, who were otherwise too liable to think of nothing but outdated tales of ancient mythology. It would lead Italian writers not to dress themselves in foreign clothes, but to put aside their own obsolete fashions.Even better than rendering foreign lyrics, according to Mme de Stael, would be the translation of foreign dramas, of Shakespeare, Schiller, and others. This would help renovate the languishing Italian theatre, and would urge to 19th-Century Music X/1 (Summer 1986). O by the Regents of the University of California. An earlier version of this paper was read at the conference on Verdi and Wagner held at Cornell University in October 1984. 'Anna Luisa StaEl-Holstein, "Sulla maniera e la utilita delle traduzioni," Biblioteca italiana, January 1816, pp. 9-18; rpt. in Manifesti romantici e altri scritti della polemica classico-romantica, ed. Carlo Calcaterra, rev. and enlarged Mario Scotti (Turin, 1975), pp. 83-92; see p. 83. Translations throughout are my own unless otherwise noted. 43 This content downloaded from 195.34.79.228 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:02:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 19TH CENTURY MUSICdeeper expression both Italian scholars, those erudite men scratching about in ancient ashes to find grains of gold, and Italian playwrights, who tended to trust their harmonious language to cover a lack of ideas and true emotion. Works like Racine's Athalie would easily hold the Italian stage, especially if their choruses were accompanied by the stupenda musica italiana. This last thought led Mme de Sta6l to take a sidewise swipe at the state of Italian opera: "You will say to me that in Italy people go to the theater not to...
