Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette
-
Standard Name: Lafayette, Marie-Madeleine de
Birth Name: Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne
Married Name: Marie-Madeleine Lafayette
MML
, writing in France in the late seventeenth century, originated there the new form of the novel: shorter, less diffuse, more vigorous in its emotional effect than the long, many-storied, courtly romances. She was chiefly admired in England for La princesse de Clèves, 1678.
Her close friends included the fiction-writers Madeleine de Scudéry
and Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette
(both of whom created literary portraits of her) and the royal mistress, Madame de Maintenon
.
Williams, Charles G. S. Madame de Sévigné. Twayne, 1981.
35-7
Friends, Associates
Madeleine de Scudéry
Her friends and associates included novelist Marie Madeleine de Lafayette
, letter-writer Marie de Sévigné
, and maxim-writer La Rochefoucauld
.
Intertextuality and Influence
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Her choice of genres came from her reading in French, not English, fiction, though Louisa (one of two survivors from a cycle of tales set at the court of Louis XIV
of France) also...
Intertextuality and Influence
Amelia Bristow
The Maniac deals with the effects of the Irish Rebellion. The narrator, Albert, has gone mad after returning home to find his house sacked and wife and children murdered. His sister, Emma, also dies and...
Intertextuality and Influence
Jane Gardam
The title given these stories may sound sentimental, but in fact it comes from a kind of cake made by a character who, when asked about her health, always replies that this is only one...
Publishing
Harriet Taylor
HT
's reviews include an appraisal of Sarah Austin
's translation Tour of a German Prince, which appeared in May 1832.
Taylor, Harriet. The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill. Editors Jacobs, Jo Ellen and Paula Harms Payne, Indiana University Press, 1998.
179n39
Hayek, Friedrich Augustus von et al. John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor; Their Correspondence [i.e. Friendship] and Subsequent Marriage. University of Chicago Press, 1951.
40
A harsh review of Frances Trollope
's Domestic Manners of the...
EG
's collection recovers fiction of an earlier style than her own. It incorporates material from three English texts (besides the Behn
, they are Penelope Aubin
's The Noble Slaves, and some of...
Textual Features
Julia Kavanagh
JK
successfully blends scholarly knowledge with popular style. Her historical and critical opinions are still well worth reading. On the great length of Scudéry
's romances, she cites a contemporary reader who had reached page...
Textual Features
Sophia Lee
An Advertisement claims that The Recess is a version, in modernised English, of a manuscript memoir from the reign of Elizabeth I
. It breaks new ground for the English novel in various ways: it...
Textual Production
Cecily Mackworth
When Nathalie Sarraute
argued that the novel is a dead form,CM
thought of three examples to prove her wrong:Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette
's La Princesse de Clèves, Samuel Richardson
's Clarissa, and the novels of Ivy Compton-Burnett
.
Mackworth, Cecily. Ends of the World. Carcanet, 1987.
113
Textual Production
Nancy Mitford
NM
translated Marie de Lafayette
's La Princesse de Clèves.
Mitford, Nancy. “Critical Materials”. Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford, edited by Charlotte Mosley, Hodder and Stoughton, 1993, p. various pages.
xxi
Mitford, Nancy. Love from Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford. Editor Mosley, Charlotte, Hodder and Stoughton, 1993.
Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. “Foreword and Editorial Materials”. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton, edited by Eva Mary Bell, Macmillan, 1930, p. vii - viii; various pages.
JP
did not aim to provide a record of the Sun King's public life for statesmen and politicians; she hoped instead to depict his private humanity as it was portrayed in the personal memoirs of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Julia Kavanagh
In her preface JK
explains her interest in the rise of the novel and argues that novels have become the teachers for good or for evil of many; their power can be exalted or deplored—it...
Timeline
1678: This year saw several landmark appearances...
Building item
1678
This year saw several landmark appearances in France: Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette
's La princesse de Clèves, the journal Le Mercure galant, and a new garment for women called the manteau.
ASECS (American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies), and Isobel Grundy. Email to Isobel Grundy. 11 May 2006.
Probably September 1680: Nathaniel Lee's tragedy The Princess of Cleve...
Writing climate item
Probably September 1680
Nathaniel Lee
's tragedy The Princess of Cleve was first performed.
Watson, George, and Ian Roy Wilson, editors. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1969, 5 vols., http://U of A, HSS Ruth N Flr 1 Ref.
Texts
Lafayette, Marie-Madeleine de. Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre. Michel Charles le Cene, 1720.
Lafayette, Marie-Madeleine de. La princesse de Clèves. Barbin, 1678.
Lafayette, Marie-Madeleine de. La princesse de Montpensier. Thomas Jolly, 1662.
Lafayette, Marie-Madeleine de. The Princess of Clèves. Translator Mitford, Nancy, Euphorion Press, 1950.
Lafayette, Marie-Madeleine de, and Pierre-Daniel Huet. Zayde. Barbin, 1671, 2 vols.
