Colette H. Winn - Böcker

The present volume covers 30 Pre-Revolutionary French women, providing a representative sampling of their manifold and varied contributions to intellectual and cultural history. This volume is unique in its grouping of essentially French writers from the Pre-Revolutionary period. The authors included here range from those prominent because of their social position or literary fame, to those slowly becoming part of a new canon of Old Regime women writers - authors whose works were known to their contemporaries but who have slipped into near invisibility in the following centuries until their recent rediscovery and reassessment.

This edition presents in English, for the first time, Jeanne d’Albret’s Letters to the king, his mother, his brother, her own brother-in-law, and the queen of England, together with her Ample Declaration (1568) defending her decampment to the Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle. A historical-biographical introduction situates these writings in the larger context of Reformation politics and examines in detail the specific literary characteristics of her memoir. In her works, Jeanne d’Albret asserts her own position as legal sovereign of Béarn and Navarre and situates herself at the nexus of overlapping political, religious, and familial tensions.

This volume provides an English translation of firsthand testimonies by three early modern French women. It illustrates the Huguenot experience of persecution and exile during the bloodiest times in the history of Protestantism: the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the dragonnades, and the Huguenot exodus following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The selections given here feature these women’s experiences of escape, the effects of religious strife on their families, and their reliance on other women amid the terrors of war.Edited by Colette H. Winn. Translated by Lauren King and Colette H. WinnThe Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, Vol. 68

The present volume covers 30 Pre-Revolutionary French women, providing a representative sampling of their manifold and varied contributions to intellectual and cultural history. This volume is unique in its grouping of essentially French writers from the Pre-Revolutionary period. The authors included here range from those prominent because of their social position or literary fame, to those slowly becoming part of a new canon of Old Regime women writers - authors whose works were known to their contemporaries but who have slipped into near invisibility in the following centuries until their recent rediscovery and reassessment.

Considers the issues critical to teaching recently rediscovered writers, such as Hélisenne de Crenne, Pernette Du Guillet, and Louise Labé, who have enriched the literary canon by offering alternative perspectives on the social, political, and religious issues of early modern France. Addressing topics from law and medicine to motherhood and aesthetics, these women wrote in nearly every genre, and their works include several literary firsts: the first book of Christian emblems ever published by a woman (Georgette de Montenay), the first published collection of private letters between women in French (the Dames Des Roches), and the first full-length memoir by a woman in French (Margaret of Valois).The volume considers techniques for reading women’s writing alongside the texts of their male contemporaries and offers guidance on incorporating a range of resources into the classroom. Essays in part 1 explore the background and contexts so crucial for helping students understand how these writers negotiated their entry into the public world of writing. In part 2, contributors discuss specific genres. Part 3 describes critical methodologies that are useful in the classroom and demonstrates the benefits of teaching certain pairings of texts and authors. The fourth and final part recommends a range of electronic and print resources.

An engaging account of women’s travels in the early modern period. This book showcases three Frenchwomen who ventured far from home at a time when such traveling was rare. In 1639, Marie de l’Incarnation embarked for New France where she founded the first Ursuline monastery in present-day Canada. In 1750, Madame du Boccage set out at the age of forty on her first “grand tour.” She visited England, the Netherlands, and Italy where she experienced firsthand the intellectual liberty offered there to educated women. As the Reign of Terror gripped France, the Marquise de la Tour du Pin fled to America with her husband and their two young children, where they ran a farm from 1794 to 1796. The writings these women left behind detailing their respective journeys abroad represent significant contributions to early modern travel literature. This book makes available to anglophone readers three texts that are rich in both historical and literary terms.