Women and the Politics of Self-Representation in Seventeenth-Century France

Abstract

This book is an exploration of six neglected and undervalued self-narratives composed in the period stretching from the reign of Henri IV through Louis XIV. Beginning with the autobiographical text of Henri IV's divorced queen, Marguerite de Valois, it goes on to study the life writings of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, of the Mancini sisters Hortense and Marie, of Madame Guyon, and of the transvestite abbe de Choisy. This book is the first full-length study to concentrate exclusively on seventeenth-century women's autobiographical writings.