Forensic Storytelling and the Literary Roots of Early Modern Feminism

ReSisters

Barbara Abrams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780367029173
• eBook ISBN: 9780429671340
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The writing of letters and the rise of the novel provided a way for some women to express themselves at a time when the all-male French Academy defined the very parameters of French literary acceptability and tradition. Women who were consigned to convents, workhouses or prisons were in most respects deprived of agency, yet many found ways to respond to the legal documents served against them. The letters and associated materials preserved in their legal files provide evidence that these women did not remain quiet, as they found means to resist authority. The forensic storytelling examined in this book supports the conclusion that the documents written in these constrained circumstances have both historical and literary merit and form the core of an understudied genre of literature.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Forensic Storytelling and Antimonarchical Epistolarity
• 2 Les Causes Célèbres, Factum or Fiction? or: “That’s What He Said!”
• 3 Tanastès est Satan: Authenticity and Audacity in the Writings of Marie-Madeleine Bonafon
• 4 Excess or Success?: The Case of Mme Geneviève de Gravelle
• 5 “What’s in a Name?”: The Case of Angélique Schwab
• Conclusion
• Index