Three eighteenth-century women writers: Contravening authority.
Item
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Title
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Three eighteenth-century women writers: Contravening authority.
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Identifier
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AAI9807920
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identifier
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9807920
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Creator
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Crumpacker, Margery Ann.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Renee Waldinger
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Romance | Language, Modern | History, European
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Abstract
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The intellectual currents of the eighteenth-century galvanized women to a consciousness of unimagined possibilities. Although those of royal birth took full advantage of the disintegrating bonds of traditional authority, the marginal aristocrats remained mired in the old conventions. Women of talent therefore turned to writing in the novel and memoir genres not only to exercise creativity but as a means of transmuting disappointed hopes into a concept of partial victory.;The Introduction to this dissertation outlines the variables that informed society's changing perceptions of women's role throughout the century and questions why works by three accomplished women authors of the period failed to survive. Chapter I traces the deformed destiny of Mme de Tencin from her brash abrogation of religious vows, through the turbulent Regency and the early years of Louis XV, her unsuccessful endeavor to find fulfillment in the attainment by her brother of the post of Prime Minister, and her eventual relative serenity as an author of gothic tales of the perils of virtuous love. Chapter II discloses, across the elegant pages of her Memoires, the ambiguities inherent in the vision of Mme de Staal which led to her conversion from precocious pensionnaire in a convent to the demeaning role of lady's maid to the arrogant Duchesse du Maine and her hopeless efforts to escape her servitude. Chapter III seeks to unveil the mutations in her attitude toward the role of women Mme de Genlis exhibited in the face of traditional authority in several of her plays, nouvelles, romans and treatises, which reveal a will, intelligence and flexibility that enabled her to overcome almost every impediment but those attached to lasting fame.;The Conclusion places these women in the context of their times and suggests that by their talents they deserve a more enduring place in literary history, and that the barriers they so valiantly sought to overcome retain their relevance today.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
