A 'Belle Epoque'? Women in French Society and Culture, 1890-1914 ed. by Diana Holmes and Carrie Tarr (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews147 illustrent cette « errance » sous les traits d'un personnage féminin, en partant des ouvrages de Colette pour arriver aux dernières configurations du corpus d'Amélie Nothomb ou encore à de nombreux écrits des femmes francophones comme MalikaMokeddemouAssiaDjebar. Quoi qu'il en soit, ces mentions nonexhaustives n'ôtent rien au projet de Lafemme errante, qui « localise » et se concentre sur ce phénomène important de la littérature contemporaine, et nous incite à d'autres lectures et à d'autres compréhensions des femmes mobiles qui peuplent de plus en plus de romans de nos jours. Le propos de Karin Schwerdtner s'élance ainsi comme une sorte de « point de départ » pour des explorations — voire pour des errances — textuelles à venir. Alison RiceUniversity of Notre Dame French Culture Holmes, Diana and Carrie Tarr, eds. A 'Belle Epoque'? Women in French Society and Culture, 1890-1914. Polygons: Cultural Diversities and Intersections 9. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Pp 360. ISBN 1-84545021 -3. $75.00. Diana Holmes' and Carrie Tarr's recent volume devoted to the Belle Epoque unites over twenty essays on the period, focusing specifically on women in French society from 1890 to 1914. The collection takes its title from the Seventh International Conference ofWomen in French UK, held in Leeds in 2002. Divided into five parts, A 'Belle Epoque ' offers a thorough look at the feminist movement and in particular women writers and artists during a period fraught with conflicting and shifting national ideologies. Ultimately, howwomen navigate, uphold, and transgress these changing ideological patterns provides the unifying narrative thread for this study. Part I of the collection, entitled "Feminism and Feminists," introduces both the topic and many ofthe famous personalities associated with the Belle Epoque. Diana Holmes and Carrie Tarr situate the Belle Epoque historically and politically in their essay "New Republic, New Women? Feminism and Modernity at the Belle Epoque," providing a necessary and insightful introduction to the readings that follow. Part I also includes essays on Marguerite Durand and her famous feminist newspaperLa Fronde as well as on Doctor Madeleine Pelletier. Melanie Hawthorne's analysis of the cartoon "Le Salon de l'Amazone" in "Clans and Chronologies: The Salon ofNatalie Barney" maps outthe meetings and crossings ofvarious women in the salon ofNatalie Clifford Barney from 1910-1930. Her study ofthe changing nature ofBarney's salon disputes the notion ofan international salon united in sisterhood. Instead, the author presents a convincing argument for a more fragmented and fluid salon, one that blurred gender and national boundaries. Part ?, "New Technologies, New Women?" includes discussions of the metro, advertising, lighting and electricity, and cinema. Siân Reynolds' essay "Vélo- 148Women in French Studies Métro-Auto: Women's Mobility in Belle Epoque Paris" explores notions of movement and mobility for women in Paris from 1 880 to 1914. She reminds us of the specific parameters that class differences imposed upon women's movement about the city. Her consideration of the two-wheeled bicycle, the metro, and the gas-powered motor car points to new modes oftransportation as primarily reserved for those "who already possessed social, material or cultural capital" (93). Ruth Iskin, in her article "Popularising New Women in Belle Epoque Advertising Posters," explains how advertising posters of the Belle Epoque disseminated these same images ofbourgeois women discussed above. Iskin suggests that "some Belle Epoque advertising posters depicting women . . . flourished by popularising the new woman as a desirable icon. By disseminating such images they themselves helped shape the changing images and identities of modern women" (96). Her analysis extends to images of working class women, from the domestic worker to the office clerk and typist, thus crossing class boundaries and repositioning the female gaze. Part III, "Women and Spectacle," and Part IV, "Women, Writing, and Reception," are devoted to women writers and artists of the Belle Epoque. These two sections in particular situate women in the sometimes conflicting ideologies ofthe period as new visions and opportunities for women collided with more conservative, traditional lifestyle choices. Juliette Roger's "Feminist Discourse in Women's Novels of Professional Development" discusses just this conundrum in the context ofthe novel ofprofessional development, a subgenre ofthe bildungsroman. Likewise, Angela Ryan's...