Salonnières, Furies, and Fairies: The Politics of Gender and Cultural Change in Absolutist France

by Anne E. Duggan

ISBN: 0-87413-897-3          Published in 2005          $53.50          AUP Order Form

Salonnières, Furies, and Fairies is a study of the works of two of the most prolific seventeenth-century women writers, Madeleine de Scudéry and Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy. Analyzing their use of the novel, the chronicle, and the fairy tale, Duggan examines how Scudéry and d'Aulnoy responded to and participated in the changes of their society, but from different generational and ideological positions. As both women wrote from within the context of the salon, this study also takes into account the history of the salon, an unofficial institution that served as a locus for elite women's participation in the cultural and literary production of their society. Duggan demonstrates the need to include writers like Scudéry and d'Aulnoy within the literary canon, not only to understand the history of women writers, but also to better understand the literary field of the period. Anne E. Duggan is an Assistant Professor of French at Wayne State University.