called "Giselle". This ballet is still popular with modern audiences. This particular ballet was based upon a German legend of a girl who loves to dance and falls in love with a shepherd boy. Her mother warns her of her fate by saying "Unhappy child! You will dance forever, you will kill yourself, and when you are dead, you will become a Wili (dancing spirit)." Her prophecy eventually becomes truth when Giselle kills herself after finding that her beloved is a duke in disguise and is already engaged to a noble lady. The woman who danced the lead (Carlotta Grisi), as told by Gautier himself, danced the role "With
perfection, lightness, boldness, and a chaste refinement and refined seductiveness, which placed her in first rank . . .she was nature and artlessness personified." In literature Madame de Stael's novel "Corinne" is about a poetic genius who suffers and eventually dies of unrequited love, a very passionate and common theme in the Romantic Era. Madame de Stael's statement on poetic inspiration is chiefly known for its portrayal of women and for its romantic glorification of inspired genius. Here is a portion of that statement: "Sometimes my impassioned excitement carries me beyond myself; teaches me to find in nature and in my own heart such daring truths an...