Female Intimacies in Seventeenth-Century French Literature
Female Intimacies in Seventeenth-Century French Literature

Author: Marianne Legault

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1317136020

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Examining literary discourses on female friendship and intimacy in seventeenth-century France, this study takes as its premise the view that, unlike men, women have been denied for centuries the possibility of same sex friendship. The author explores the effect of this homosocial and homopriviledged heritage on the deployment and constructions of female friendship and homoerotic relationships as thematic narratives in works by male and female writers in seventeenth-century France. The book consists of three parts: the first surveys the history of male thinkers' denial of female friendship, concluding with a synopsis of the cultural representations of female same-sex practices. The second analyzes female intimacy and homoerotism as imagined, appropriated and finally repudiated by Honoré d'Urfé's pastoral novel, L'Astrée, and Isaac de Benserade's seemingly lesbian-friendly comedy, Iphis et Iante. The third turns to unprecedented depictions of female intimate and homoerotic bonds in Madeleine de Scudéry's novel Mathilde and Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force's fairy tale Plus Belle que Fée. This study reveals a female literary genealogy of intimacies between women in seventeenth-century France, and adds to the research in lesbian and queer studies, fields in which pre-eighteenth-century French literary texts are rare.

Mendacity and the Figure of the Liar in Seventeenth-Century French Comedy
Mendacity and the Figure of the Liar in Seventeenth-Century French Comedy

Author: Emilia Wilton-Godberfforde

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-06-14

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1317097416

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The first book-length study devoted to this topic, Mendacity and the Figure of the Liar in Seventeenth-Century French Comedy offers an important contribution to scholarship on the theatre as well as on early modern attitudes in France, specifically on the subject of lying and deception. Unusually for a scholarly work on seventeenth-century theatre, it is particularly alert to plays as performed pieces and not simply printed texts. The study also distinguishes itself by offering original readings of Molière alongside innovative analyses of other playwrights. The chapters offer fresh insights on well-known plays by Molière and Pierre Corneille but also invite readers to discover lesser-known works of the time (by writers such as Benserade, Thomas Corneille, Dufresny and Rotrou). Through comparative and sustained close readings, including a linguistic and speech act approach, a historical survey of texts with an analysis of different versions and a study of irony, the reader is shown the manifest ways in which different playwrights incorporate the comedic tropes of lying and scheming, confusion and unmasking. Drawing particular attention to the levels of communicative or mis-communicative exchanges on the character-to-character axis and the character-to-audience axis, this work examines the process whereby characters in the comedies construct narratives designed to trick, misdirect, dazzle, confuse or exploit their interlocutors. In the different incarnations of seducer, parasite, cross-dresser, duplicitous narrator/messenger and deluded mythomaniac, the author underscores the way in which the figure of the liar both entertains and troubles, making it a fascinating subject worthy of detailed investigation.

All the Abbé's Women
All the Abbé's Women

Author: Bernard J. Bourque

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2015-05-27

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 3823369741

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"One of the most striking aspects of abbé d'Aubignac's fictional output is that the principal focus of his work is women. D'Aubignac's attempt to articulate his philosophy about the female sex is very much an intricate balancing act. While he is clearly interested in women, placing them on a pedestal in many of his writings, the abbé imposes limitations on their perceived innate qualities and often embraces the notion of the female as a societal scapegoat. All the Abbé's Women explores how these ideas were influenced by the socio-political conditions of d'Aubignac's time, resulting in a complex inter-relationship between the notions of power and misogyny in the author's fictional and critical works. The study also aims to contribute to the scholarship on d'Aubignac, painting a portrait of the abbé that has not been the focus of previous books. The work will appeal to students of French literature, gender studies and the cultural history of Early Modern France."--Back cover.

Invisible Relations
Invisible Relations

Author: Elizabeth Susan Wahl

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 0804736502

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This book explores how representations of intimacy between women included both a sexualized model of the "lesbian" tribade and an "idealized" model that portrayed female friendship as devoid of sexual expression.

The School of Women
The School of Women

Author: Nicolas Chorier

Publisher: Sunny Lou Publishing

Published: 2021-10-27

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 9781955392143

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The School of Women, by Nicolas Chorier (1612-1692), is an erotic novel written and published in the mid to late 17th century France. It has a convoluted history, much of it made up: Luisa Sigea, a female Spanish poet, had purportedly written the original in Spanish (Sotadic Satire on the Mysteries of Love and Venus); later Johannes Meursius, a Dutch classicist, purportedly translated it into Latin (Elegantiæ Latini Sermonis...). From there, it made its way into French and later English, multiple times. This translation in English, from the French, contains the first 5 of 7 dialogs between two young women protagonists, Tullie and her younger companion, Octavie. The plot is simple: Tullie, the more experienced of the two women, has been asked by Octavieʼs mother to instruct her daughter on how best to satisfy her future husband in bed. Unsurprisingly, the dialogs themselves take place in bed. Itʼs a coming of age story of sorts for Octavie, and a paean to tribadism as well as to the heterosexual love between a man and his wife. Very graphic in nature, - if written today, it might have had a subtitle of "How to please your man in bed, while practicing on a woman." Highly erotic - it is definitely not a book for children, and may not be a book for some adults even.