Tender Geographies: Women and the Origins of the Novel in France

By Joan DeJean

Book Overview

Tender Geographiesoffers a new version of literary history by arguing that French women writers were the originators of the modern novel. Joan DeJean exposes the gender politics of canon formation in France. During what is considered the Great Century of French Letters (1630-1715), women writers were active in numbers unheard of before or since. Featuring the best known early women novelists--Scudery and Lafayette-- Tender Geographiesrepositions literary women in their contemporary context. DeJean demonstrates that women's writing was widely thought to convey a politically and socially subversive vision. Originally considered a threat to Church and State, women's novels were deliberately represented as innocent love stories by the first official literary historians and subsequently consigned to oblivion. DeJean demonstrates that the novel owes its origins to a thoroughly political act; the decision by women to make the genre a revolutionary force.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231062311
• ISBN13: 9780231062312
• Release Date: December 1993
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 297 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 8.8"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher