Y a-t-il des femmes des Lumières dans le roman du 18e siècle ?

Abstract

We cannot say what an Enlightenment novel actually is, but can one ascertain what an Enlightenment woman is in such a novel ? One needs to look for an ideological fellowship relating to committed philosophical complexity in particu¬ lar in three major fields : a defence of the individual's right to self-determination in love and in the choice of a religious or worldly life, a defence of women's moral and social rights and that of an intellectual equality of both sexes. From such a view point, fictional heroines are not particularly well placed to be philosophers. We will take care in our study not to confuse the novelist's ideologi¬ cal intentions with the role of his heroine(s). It seems to us that the latter are, in the fullest sense, women of the Enlightenment on condition that they are conscious of at least one of the causes defended in its name, involved, in thought or in deed, in the fight which defends its principles and, finally, perceived, within the novel, to be not purely abstract characters, but believable in the contemporary social universe. Many feminine figures are thus only partly Enlightenment women.