The Classical Feminine Heritage



The feminine "autrice" has existed since antiquity. As old as the masculine "auteur", it was used by Lagrange, Molière's actor, to designate the first female playwrights in the 17th century. More than a hundred women wrote nearly 400 plays during the Ancien Régime. We will study Mme de Villedieu, the first female playwright performed in Paris in 1662, as well as Madame de La Fayette, the famous writer who, according to La Bruyère, "has so eclipsed her husband that one does not know if he is dead or alive!” Her first historical novel, The Princess of Montpensier, was published in 1662, but it was undoubtedly The Princess of Cleves (1678) that brought her fame, a success that has become an essential classic in the history of the analytical novel, which examines the feeling of love and testifies at the same time to the major role of noblewomen in the cultural life of the 17th century. Mme d'Aulnoy, at the origin of the written genre of the fairy tale, will show us how, unlike authors like Perrault, she infused a subversive spirit to reflect on the fate of women under patriarchy.



Required texts:

Madame de VILLEDIEU, Le Favori (1665), Hermann, 2017, ISBN-102705694773

Madame de LA FAYETTE, La Comtesse de Tende, La Princesse de Montpensier, La Princesse de Clèves (1678), Folio, 2020 ISBN-10-2072884667.

Madame d’AULNOY, Contes de fées (1698), Folio classiques, 2008, ISBN: 10- 2070400727