Madame de Maintenon and the Literary Personality of Madame de Genlis: Creating Fictional, Historical, and Narrative Virtue
Bonnie Arden Robb, University of Delaware
Volume 7, no. 4, juillet 1995
©McMaster University, 2015. All articles published on the Eighteenth-Century Fiction website are protected by copyright held by Eighteenth-Century Fiction, a journal published by the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University.
ABSTRACT
The preoccupation of Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis with virtue has earned her scant praise. Genlis’s contemporaries, noting a discrepancy between her moralizing writings and her worldly life, saw fit to judge, not only her texts, but her personal characteristics and conduct. While absolving her of hypocrisy, more recent criticism has deemed her moralizing works lacking in creativity. Both positions misconstrue the relationship between real and fictional virtue that Genlis established, while pointing nevertheless to its importance. Insight into that relationship, crucial to understanding Genlis’s literary personality and appreciating her creativity, may be attained by examining her predilection for the historical novel and her cultivation of that genre in Madame de Maintenon.
Other ECF articles on the topic of “Genlis” include:
Writing for Charity: Mme de Genlis and Thérésina
by MALCOLM COOK (ECF 17.3, April 2005)
Une nouvelle géographie épistolaire dans quelques romans féminins de l’Émigration
by ÉRIC PAQUIN (ECF 14.1, October 2001)
Destin du conte moral
by HENRI COULET (ECF 13.2-3, January-April 2001)
©McMaster University, 2015. This copyright covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including in electronic forms, reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, or similar. While reading for personal use is encouraged, Eighteenth-Century Fiction articles may not be reproduced, broadcast, published, or re-disseminated without the prior written permission of Eighteenth-Century Fiction at McMaster University. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a web site or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material is not allowed. The copyright in this website includes without limitation the text, computer code, artwork, photographs, images, music, audio, video, and audio-visual material on this website and is owned by McMaster University. ©McMaster University 2015.