Women’s Stories in Le Mercure Galant (1672-1710)

Feminine Fictions in an Early French Periodical
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-94-6372-618-4
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 26, 222 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Gendering the Late Medieval and Early Modern World

What do women want to read? Jean Donneau de Visé, the founder and editor in chief of Le Mercure Galant, one of France’s first newspapers, was arguably the first journalist to ask this question and to recognize and capitalize upon the influence of female readers and their social networks. By including “custom content” and performing the act of listening to women, Le Mercure Galant situates itself as an intermediary, using the nouvelle as a vehicle to amplify women’s voices. These fictions, presented as true stories, depict incidents and situations that women often bore silently in real life: domestic violence, romantic betrayal, dishonor, or simply loneliness. By publishing these stories alongside its chronicle of historic events, the Mercure lends credence and prestige to depictions of the private life of anonymous individuals, exploiting the ostensibly anodyne genre of “women’s fiction” to disseminate modern ideas about women’s agency.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Steinberger, Deborah

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Galanterieand the Art of Listening

Chapter 1: What Women Want

Chapter 2: Befriending the Female Reader: Tales of Female Friendship in Le Mercure Galant

Chapter 3: Girls with Guns: Women Soldiers’ Stories in Le Mercure Galant

Chapter 4: True Crime? Women and Violence in Le Mercure Galant

Chapter 5: Obstinate Women and Sleeping Beauties in the Kingdom of Miracles: Conversion Stories in Le Mercure Galant’s Anti-Protestant Propaganda

Epilogue: Buying In or Selling Out? Reading Le Mercure Galant Today

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Steinberger, Deborah
Deborah Steinberger is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Delaware. She specializes in French seventeenth-century literature. Her previous publications include critical editions of epistolary and dramatic works by Françoise Pascal, as well as articles on Molière, Donneau de Visé, and Le Mercure Galant.