Durham E-Theses Family Ties: Women, their Friendships, and Intellectual Kinship in Early Modern France ALLEN, JESSICA How to cite: ALLEN, JESSICA (2018) Family Ties: Women, their Friendships, and Intellectual Kinship in Early Modern France, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12524/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail:
[email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Abstract This thesis begins with a brief account of recent developments in scholarship pertaining to early modern friendship and gender, before shifting in focus to intellectual kinship, an area of friendship studies about which there is relatively little material in comparison to other areas of the field. I then introduce the authors on which my argument focuses, Madeleine (1520 – 1587) and Catherine des Roches (1542 – 1587) and Marie de Gournay (1565 – 1645). My overarching argument reveals how these three figures adapted aspects of the male-dominated friendship tradition in their writing in order to forge a place for themselves in learned culture and to form relationships with other writers and intellectuals.