In public space in the seventeenth century, etiquette reigned supreme; it determined the being's seeming. And yet, we can nevertheless see, when we look back, that an interest in interiority developed---however slowly---as the century progressed. In the margins of a saturated social sphere, a process of interiorization began. My dissertation shows that Arlamene ou le Grand Cyrus (1649-1653) by Madeleine de Scudery presents, through the places and spaces that it constructs, an interesting view of interiorization. I aim to shed light on the idea that interiority unveils itself in places that favour its discovery. Drawing on works on topography, on scenography, on rhetoric of the passions, and on the semiotics of the body, my analysis of Grand Cyrus shows the link between spatial interiority and human interiority in a network of real, symbolic, and metaphoric correspondences. The Scuderian subject is obliged, when in the presence of others, to conceal feelings; he or she is not able to indulge these feelings on the public stage. So, instead, this subject holds in, and keeps for him or herself, the secret of his or her reflections. Thus, only isolation and retreat to the margins of the external world seem, to such a subject, favourable to exploration of the inner life---which life is something that distinguishes the self from the other. / I identify, in my thesis, the characteristics, the components, and the role of this particular sphere inhabited by the subject of Grand Cyrus when he or she tries to enjoy a few instants of solitude. Responding to the image of the castle "closet", I show how this sphere is available everywhere, as an extension of public spaces. When necessary, these islets that favour interiority can be imagined in nature as well as in constructed (architectural) space. There, the Scuderian subject is sheltered from the inquisitive gaze, folded in on itself. / While the many heroic romances of the first half of the seventeenth century mainly emphasized events and action, and the second half of the century saw the emergence of the psychological novel, in Scudery's Le Grand Cyrus we see a watershed moment. Located between two points of interest, this work has exterior live with interior, exteriority with interiority, seeming with being.

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In this master's paper, the author studies the written construction of the ethos of the female characters in the essay from Madeleine and Georges de Scudery that was published in 1642 in Paris, Les Femmes illustres ou les harangues heroiques. She demonstrates how the authors refused the usual accepted practices in literature at that time to claim a right for women to develop their intellect in the way men could develop theirs. Therefore, she compares the contents of the essay with two important visions of women in literature: one of a strong women, as exposed in the literature linked to the "Querelle des femmes", and one of a weeping mistress screaming out all of her pain and sorrow, inspired from the Heroides d'Ovide. She shows how the text of the Scudery is different from the ones related to the "Querelle des femmes". She studies the formal characteristics of the harangue and she compares a rhetoric analysis of the scuderian texts with a quick study of the latin epistles. By doing so, the author wants to make the originality emerge out of the female characters of the Femmes illustres. She wants to emphasize the fact that the authors of that essay allowed women to become the subjects rather than the objects of the speeches. They gave them a chance to express their courage, their pride and their ambitions rather than confining them exclusively to family, love and religion matters, breaking out the traditional scope of the female speech.

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