The Hysteric's Revenge : French Women Writers at the Fin de Siecle / Rachel Mesch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mesch, Rachel.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women in literature.

Women and literature.

French literature--Women authors.

French literature.

Women and literature--France--History--19th century.

French literature--19th century--History and criticism.

French literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

France.

Genre:

History.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 268 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Nashville, Tenn. : Vanderbilt University Press, 2006.

Summary:

"This book argues, however, that the fear of sexual abandon--though real--veiled an even more insidious fear: that women might be capable of intellectual equality with men and thus pose a threat to the most basic structures of French patriarchal society. In demonstrating the pervasiveness of this anxiety through analysis of nineteenth-century medical texts, literary criticism, and fiction, The Hysteric's Revenge brings into relief a critical relationship between the female mind and body that is essential to understanding the discursive position of the turn-of-the-century woman writer. The novels presented here confront this mind/body problem through a wide variety of styles and genres that challenge conventional fin-de-siecle notions of femininity. From the compelling autobiography of Liane de Pougy--one of Paris's most renowned courtesans--to Colette's frank discussions of female pleasure in one of her early novels, to the violent creativity of Rachilde's androgynous heroine, Mesch demonstrates how both canonical and non-canonical writers promoted women's intellectual authority through the development of a sexual counter-discourse. In engaging the relationship between women's minds and bodies, these novels challenge the conclusions of a century of doctors who sought to prove a physiological basis for female intellectual inferiority. At the same time, they point the way towards later French feminists who sought to subvert patriarchal structures through literary explorations of sexuality."--Pub. description.

Contents:

Literary science and the female subject : the brains behind Emile Zola's Nana

Memoirs of the Fille Publique

Virility and the intellectual woman : can a woman be a naturalist?

Can a woman be a decadent? : Rachilde, gender and the male body

The right to pleasure : sex and the sentimental novel.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780826515315

0826515312

OCLC:

1273427501