University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2012 Outlandish Fictions: The Eighteenth-Century French Novel and Marriage on Women's Terms Ekaterina R. Alexandrova University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, and the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons Recommended Citation Alexandrova, Ekaterina R., "Outlandish Fictions: The Eighteenth-Century French Novel and Marriage on Women's Terms" (2012). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 487. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/487 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/487 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Outlandish Fictions: The Eighteenth-Century French Novel and Marriage on Women's Terms Abstract ABSTRACT OUTLANDISH FICTIONS: THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTRY FRENCH NOVEL AND MARRIAGE ON WOMEN'S TERMS Ekaterina R. Alexandrova Joan DeJean Focusing on plots that depict life after marriage, this dissertation studies the novel as a medium for imagining a spousal relationship transformed to promote new positive social, political, and familial roles and possibilities for women. I re-establish these fictions' thrust as primarily concerned with individual freedom and fulfillment, atherr than with affection in marriage. I begin by exploring the relationship between the rising appeal of conjugal sentiment and the novel, situating the genre within the general context of social and political shift in eighteenth-century France. Viewing emergent subversive marriage plots in light of the founding seventeenth-century tradition tying the novel genre to women's interests, I suggest that attempts to contain fictions deemed outlandish" " may have warped our present vision of the "heroine's plot," or the range of roles and experiences imagined for women by Enlightenment novelists. Chapter 1 examines how specific changes in marital legislation wrought by the centralizing French state progressively limited women's legal and social prerogatives, showing that the novel of marriage engaged with these concerns from the outset through a study of Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves (1678). Subsequent chapters consider novels that envision marriage as a platform for societal transformation. In Chapter 2, I compare fictional utopian communities created through the heroine's conjugal union: the contained patriarchal autarky of Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761) and the expanding matriarchy of Le Prince de Beaumont's La Nouvelle Clarice (1767). Chapter 3 analyzes Riccoboni's portrayal of the platonic marriage of M. and Mme de Monglas in Lettres de Vallière (1772), an explicitly aristocratic vision of the ideal matrimonial relationship that insists on the fundamental importance of women's control of their body and their sexuality by privileging friendship and arranged marriage over the destructive forces of romantic passion. Finally, the mise-en-abîme of reading's effect on the conjugal relationship of the heroines of Charrière's Lettres de Mistriss Henley (1784) and Montolieu's Caroline de Lichtfield (1786), interrogates the genre's potential influence on marriage. The dissertation draws attention to eighteenth-century novels that have to date been understudied, and proposes new readings of prominent Enlightenment fictions that foreground questions of authority, the evolution of family relations, and women's roles in the private and public sphere. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Romance Languages First Advisor Joan DeJean Keywords Eighteenth century, France, Marriage, Novel, Women Subject Categories English Language and Literature | European Languages and Societies | Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/487 OUTLANDISH FICTIONS: THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH NOVEL AND MARRIAGE ON WOMEN’S TERMS Ekaterina R. Alexandrova A DISSERTATION in Romance Languages Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 Supervisor of Dissertation ____________________________________ Joan DeJean, Professor, Romance Languages Graduate Group Chairperson ____________________________________! Kevin Brownlee, Professor, Romance Languages Dissertation Committee Lance Donaldson-Evans, Professor, Romance Languages Gerald Prince, Professor, Romance Languages OUTLANDISH FICTIONS: THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH NOVEL AND MARRIAGE ON WOMEN’S TERMS © 2012 Ekaterina R. Alexandrova ! """! To Rudolf Alexandrovich Alexandrov ! "#! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been exceptionally fortunate to enjoy the moral and intellectual support of many individuals during the long process of thinking and writing this dissertation. My advisor and mentor, Joan DeJean, invariably provided thoughtful readings and much- needed insight at every stage of the evolving project. I am truly grateful for her time and example, and her insistence that I demand nothing but the very best of myself. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to the other members of my committee— Lance Donaldson-Evans and Gerald Prince—as well as to my graduate group chair, Kevin Brownlee—for their kindness, enthusiasm, and invaluable guidance. Many thanks are also due to the faculty and staff of the Romance Languages Department, as well as to the staff of the libraries at Penn’s Rare Books and the Bibliothèque nationale and the Arsénal in Paris. The confidence and support of my former professors has also sustained me in this endeavor: I am grateful to Lisa Baglione, Thomas Donahue, Allen Kerkeslager, Vivian Kogan, John Kopper, Kathleen Wine, and especially Thomas D. Marzik, “The Lion of Justice,” who is much missed. Were I to express detailed thanks to the friends, family, and loved ones in Philadelphia, Paris, Moscow and Orel who provided encouragement, support, and help in various crucial ways at every juncture of this project, the list could take up as many pages as the finished dissertation. Though you may not see your name here, I hope that you all know how much you count. I do, however, want to extend a special (and heartfelt) thank you to my mother Olga, instrumental to the undertaking and completion of this project in both the most ! "! practical and the most profound ways; to my grandparents, Elena and Martin, for their faith and support; and to my sisters, yoga companions, and partners-in-crime Alice and Marianna. To Daniel, without whom none of this would have been possible. And finally to my father Rudolf, my staunchest supporter, who not only brought his six-year-old daughter the first French novel that she ever read (or for that matter, laid eyes on in their small provincial town), but believed in her desire to learn French, sharing his contagious certainty that she would one day pursue graduate study of French literature. This dissertation is dedicated to you—I won’t say in loving memory, for your presence remains constant and alive. ! "#! ABSTRACT OUTLANDISH FICTIONS: THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTRY FRENCH NOVEL AND MARRIAGE ON WOMEN’S TERMS Ekaterina R. Alexandrova Joan DeJean Focusing on plots that depict life after marriage, this dissertation studies the novel as a medium for imagining a spousal relationship transformed to promote new positive social, political, and familial roles and possibilities for women. I re-establish these fictions’ thrust as primarily concerned with individual freedom and fulfillment, rather than with affection in marriage. I begin by exploring the relationship between the rising appeal of conjugal sentiment and the novel, situating the genre within the general context of social and political shift in eighteenth-century France. Viewing emergent subversive marriage plots in light of the founding seventeenth-century tradition tying the novel genre to women’s interests, I suggest that attempts to contain fictions deemed “outlandish” may have warped our present vision of the “heroine’s plot,” or the range of roles and experiences imagined for women by Enlightenment novelists. Chapter 1 examines how specific changes in marital legislation wrought by the centralizing French state progressively limited women’s legal and social prerogatives, showing that the novel of marriage engaged with these concerns from the outset through a study of Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves (1678). Subsequent chapters consider novels that envision marriage as a platform for societal transformation. In Chapter 2, I compare fictional utopian communities created through the heroine’s conjugal union: the ! "##! contained patriarchal autarky of Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761) and the expanding matriarchy of Le Prince de Beaumont’s La Nouvelle Clarice (1767). Chapter 3 analyzes Riccoboni’s portrayal of the platonic marriage of M. and Mme de Monglas in Lettres de Vallière (1772), an explicitly aristocratic vision of the ideal matrimonial relationship that insists on the fundamental importance of women’s control of their body and their sexuality by privileging friendship and arranged marriage over the destructive forces of romantic passion. Finally, the mise-en-abîme of reading’s effect on the conjugal relationship of the heroines of Charrière’s Lettres de Mistriss Henley (1784) and Montolieu’s Caroline de Lichtfield (1786), interrogates