Out of all the great looming figures of the French Romantic period in the early 19th century, one courageous woman claimed her place boldly and without reservation on account of her gender. George Sand (1802-1876), the pen name of Aurore Dupin (later Dudevant, after marriage), rose to perhaps more fame than even Balzac or Hugo in the 1830s with her countless captivating novels and her unusual public presence.
Through her writing and her activism, Sand was a champion for feminist causes and criticized the institution of marriage. She fought against the prejudices of conservative society, causing scandal by wearing men’s clothes, smoking, and publishing under a male name. Though she had many critics, a great number of 19th century artists and writers had considerable admiration for her, such as Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, and Eugene Delacroix. Hugo commented on Sand’s gender ambiguity: “George Sand cannot determine whether she is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother” (Gerson, Noel B. (3 October 2021). George Sand: A Biography of the First Modern, Liberated Woman. Sapere Books. p. 13).
Although George Sand had a great multitude of lovers throughout her life, she is most well known for her nine year relationship with the piano composer Frédéric Chopin, which is why I have included materials about Chopin in this exhibit. Chopin and Sand had a great deal of influence on each other’s artwork–many of the characters in Sand’s novels are directly based on the composer, such as the sickly Karol in Lucrezia Floriani and the genius violinist Albert in Consuelo.
Most of Sand’s novels feature women in strong roles which subvert expectations of the feminine destiny (much of the time, that involves marriage). Her novel Consuelo features a young woman (Consuelo) who must choose between marrying her love interest Albert and saving him from death–typical drama of Romanticism–or pursuing her dream of being an opera singer. In her novel Mauprat, the protagonist Edmee “civilizes” her violent cousin by teaching him the value of education and how to live peacefully in society–it resembles the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast. Sand also uses Mauprat to advocate for women in the issues of sexual harassment and violence against women.
UW Special Collections contains a number of George Sand novels printed in Paris in the 19th century, including Valentine, which is shown in this exhibit. I included a few sources of Sand’s writing as well as others indicating an outside perspective of the Romantic author. The selection displays Sand’s love of the provinces, her passion for Chopin and his music, and her great respect for art and the theatre, among other facets. Together these facets build a picture, bit by bit, of the great writer which has been somewhat lost to history compared to her immense fame in the 19th century.
Watson, Mary. People I have met: short sketches of many prominent persons.
The writer of this book, Mary Watson, describes herself as a tourist, a journalist, and a correspondent from the US. Her account of George Sand gives us a window into perceiving the Romantic author later in her career from an outsider’s perspective. Watson describes her as welcoming, composed, charming, and fashionable.
The passage displayed here also offers us a snippet of what upper-class Parisian society was like in the late 19th century: “For in the opera-house the gentlemen enter the boxes of their acquaintances, the same as though they were making a call at their residences…”. This may have been novel for Watson, but it’s certainly novel for many of her readers and more so for us of the 21st century. Watson goes on after her impression of Sand to give us a short narrative of Sand’s life, yet frequently continues to return to her observations of Sand at the opera.
Sand, George. A letter to M. Regnier…
The purpose of this letter, in George Sand’s own words, is “of the art and of its mission in the world”. In large part the letter is a sort of preface to Sand’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s “As you like it” for the Theatre Francais, as well as a homage to Shakespeare (which is mainly why the letter was translated into English in 1856), but morphs into an excellent commentary on the purpose of art.
On page 12 and 13, Sand surmises that an alien from a happier planet would be astounded by how much of our lives is taken up by art, which from a practical standpoint seems useless, because it only serves to distract us from our own lives. She also hails the theatre in particular as being the most complete and expressive of all art forms because it combines all of them into one ephemeral experience.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The complete poetical works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
The English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) was a contemporary of George Sand, only two years younger. Similarly to Sand, she achieved a high level of fame and was a champion for progressive causes, such as the abolition of slavery. Browning long admired Sand, and they met in 1852. The two poems dedicated to Sand on page 363 were published in 1844, and they reveal Browning’s admiration for Sand’s boldness in writing and living, as well as her simultaneous intellect and sensibility in her novels.
Overall, the sonnets celebrate how Sand upends gender roles with courage in her unwavering pursuit of self-expression, radical in its time. Although Elizabeth Barrett Browning is known to have had an aversion to French literature, she described George Sand to Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855) as “the greatest female poet the world ever saw,” despite the fact that Sand did not write poetry.
Sand, George. Valentine.
Most novels of the French Romantic period take place in Paris; by contrast, most of Sand’s novels take place in the provinces–particularly her home region of Berri, which is where Valentine takes place. Her adoration for Berri shines through with her descriptions of the country in this passage and others. In addition, women characters are consistently at the forefront of Sand’s novels. Very few if any Romantic authors accomplished the breadth of character that George Sand did when writing women. With her well-rounded, wise, and capable women characters, George Sand was a leader in feminist fiction in her time:
“The weather was delightful; the moon had not yet risen, leaving the path buried under its obscure shadows; from time to time a glow-worm shimmered in the grass, a lizard crawled into the bush, a sphynx buzzed on a damp flower; a warm breeze had risen, full of the vanilla scent exhaled from fields of blooming broad beans. The young Valentine, brought up in turn by her banished sister, by her proud mother, by the nuns of her convent, by her dizzy and young grandmother, had been definitively brought up by no one. She had made herself what she was, and, unable to find any real sympathy in her family, had acquired a taste for study and daydreaming. Her naturally calm mind and sound judgment had preserved her equally from the errors of society and those of solitude. Devoted to thoughts as sweet and pure as her heart, she savored the well-being of that May evening so full of chaste voluptuousness for a poetic, young soul. Perhaps she was also thinking of her fiancé, the man who had first shown her trust and respect, things so sweet to a heart that values itself and has not yet been understood. Valentine didn’t dream of passion, she didn’t share the mistake common to young minds who regard it as an imperative need of their organization. More modest, Valentine didn’t believe she was destined for these energetic and violent trials; she easily yielded to the reserve that the world made a duty of her; she accepted it as a benefit and not as a law. She promised herself she would escape from those ardent inclinations that made the misfortune of others before her eyes, from the love of luxury to which her grandmother sacrificed all dignity, from the ambition whose dashed hopes tortured her mother, from the love that had so cruelly led her sister astray. This last thought brought a tear to the edge of her eyelid. This was the only event in Valentine’s life; but it had filled her up, influenced her character, given her both shyness and boldness: shyness for herself, boldness when it came to her sister.”
Hubbard, Elbert. Little journeys to the homes of great musicians.
This passage about Frédéric Chopin offers a glimpse into George Sand’s beloved home, Nohant, which is inextricably tied to her. Sand lived in that house in the region of Berri from when she was a child until she died, aside from the several months each year when she lived in Paris. She adored the country, and found much inspiration for her writing at Nohant and the surrounding region. In addition, she hosted all kinds of famous artists, writers, and musicians from Paris. A few of them are listed here: Liszt, the Countess d’Agoult, Delacroix, Lamartine, and others. Chopin must have also had a lot of inspiration from Nohant for his compositions; perhaps his pieces wouldn’t be quite as moving had he spent all of his time in Paris. Indeed, as the next page describes, Chopin stopped working at the same time that he stopped seeing George Sand, and had an early death.
Sand, George. Winter in Majorca.
Winter in Majorca is an autobiographical travel novel by Sand, initially published in 1841 (displayed here is the Valldemosa Edition, 1956). She, her two children, and her lover Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) traveled to Majorca, an island in Spain, in order to help Chopin recover from tuberculosis. They stayed in the town of Valldemossa from the end of 1838 until February 1839, and Chopin’s health did not improve, perhaps on account of the difficult winter. Sand wrote the entire book as if she were a male friend of Chopin’s rather than his lover. It also includes several illustrations by her son, Maurice Sand (1823-1889), who was an artist by occupation (as well as a writer and entomologist). The front cover of this edition features George Sand as depicted in an illustration by one of her previous lovers, the writer Alfred de Musset (1810-1857). The illustration was made in 1833, making Sand about 29 years old.
Laughlin, Clara E. Stories of authors’ loves, vol. 2.
Luigi Calamatta, a friend of Sand, based this 1834 engraving off of a portrait painted by Eugène Delacroix (also close friends with Sand). To the left is biographical information on Sand.
Hubbard, Elbert. The complete writings of Elbert Hubbard, Vol. 6.
This account may be somewhat embellished by the writer Elbert Hubbard, but it’s faithful to the spirit in which Chopin and Sand met for the first time.