A Feminist Analysis of Gender and Primogeniture in French Neoclassical Tragedy : The Literary Politics Behind the French Revolution

In the tradition of Virginia Woolf's “In Search of a Room of One's Own,” this study traces the origins of French feminism to Neoclassical theatre and the court of Louis XIV. Through feminist revisionist histories of French literature, the Neoclassical plots and female archetypes from Racine's Phedre and Andromache, Voltaire's Brutus (Catherine Bernard) and Marmontel's Belisarius (Stephanie Genlis) were transposed by women writers and patrons onto actresses and the queens, empresses and mistresses of the French ruling dynasties from Louis XIV- to Napoleon at a time when women were denied the rights of citizenship. Women authors include Bernard, Genlis, Olympe de Gouges and Germaine de Staël, among others. Arguing that emerging feminism is a function of historicism that defines female identity through parallel constructs between regency and theatre, Neoclassicism and modernity, authors of an emerging body of French feminist writings ineluctably reconcile sadist and pacifist incongruities between gendered roles in tragedy. Front Cover Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Abstract Illustrations List Foreword by Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol-Diéval Introduction Chapter One: Olympe de Gouges and Marie-Joseph Chénier: Gender and Feminism in Tandem with the Parabola of Revolutionary Politics and French Theatre Chapter Two: Brutus : The Republican Reversal of Patrician Privilege and the Sublimation of Feminist Political Power Chapter Three: Setting the Feminist Stage: Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis’s and Marmontel’s Versions of Belisarius and the Historicism of Revolutionary Politics and Drama in the Future of Empire Chapter Four: Gender and Primogeniture in Racine’s Andromaque: The Politics of Power, Women, and the State Chapter Five: Racine’s Phédre as the Criminalized Femme Fatale: Political Representation and the Disjunctive Female Spectator Chapter Six: Iphigénie: Sacrifice as the Consummation of Dynasty and the Inversion of Female Automnomy Conclusion Bibliography Index Olympe de Gouges and Marie-Joseph Chenier : gender and feminism in tandem with the parabola of revolutionary politics and French theatre Brutus : the Republican reversal of patrician privilege and the sublimation of feminist political power Setting the feminist stage : Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis's and Marmontel's versions of Belisarius and the historicism of revolutionary politics and drama in the future of Empire Gender and primogeniture in Racine's Andromaque : the politics of power, women and the state Racine's Phedre as the criminalized femme fatale : political representation and the disjunctive female spectator Iphigenie : sacrifice as the consummation of dynasty and the inversion of female autonomy.