The space of appearance emerges from the practice of speech and action in the presence of others. Although it predates the public sphere as a formal construction, it exists in the context of a particular place. With the transformation of the ancien regime and the emergence of the bourgeois public sphere, the meaning of public and private was obscured by the rise of the 'social.' The public realm was transformed from a space of disclosure to a realm defined by the necessities of survival---a process by which speech and action lost much of their former power. In the spectacular relations of the ancien regime, public ritual revolved around the royal bed. Through the analogy of language and architecture, seventeenth-century aristocratic women defined new patterns of social practice. In the convergence of the spectacular relations of the court and the world of letters, a space of appearance arose. At the turn of the century, Salon discourse moved from the daybed to the sofa of Rococo salons. Responding to emerging dichotomies, discourse, architecture and Salon practice took on gendered implications. Its decline as a space of appearance coincided with the emergence of the boudoir. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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Cette these cherche a analyser le contenu litteraire de La Princesse de Montpensier et de La Princesse de Cleves de Madame de Lafayette en fonction de leur valeur comme des documents qui refletent le contexte socio-historique de leur epoque. Ainsi, on reconnait chez l'auteur la qualite de temoin astucieux qui imbue ses ecrits d'elements importants contribuant a une meilleure appreciation de la condition feminine au dix-septieme siecle. L'auteur de ces deux romans met au point le genre du roman historique afin de l'employer comme canevas sur lequel elle impose sa vision perspicace des elements sociaux qui influencent plusieurs aspects de la vie de la femme noble depuis sa jeunesse jusqu'ci sa mort. Afin de profiter de cette structure, ce travail s'organise en trois chapitres suivant la chronologie de cette vie. Commengant avec les representations de l'education de la jeune fille, on passe a sa formation visee au mariage et a une analyse detaillee du statut de la femme mariee. Finalement, on abdrde la question du statut de la veuve. En considerant tous ces elements a la lumiere des ecrits critiques et historiques qui ont paru pendant trois siecles, on ressort une richesse de renseignements portant sur les exigences d'ordre moral et pratique qui delerminent la quality du statut de la femme au dix-septieme siecle. Les observations evoquees par Madame de Lafayette nous aident a preciser les influences, les transformations, les conflits et surtout les contradictions et les paradoxes qui parcourent la vie de la femme noble pendant l'age classique.

Cette these cherche a analyser le contenu litteraire de La Princesse de Montpensier et de La Princesse de Cleves de Madame de Lafayette en fonction de leur valeur comme des documents qui refletent le contexte socio-historique de leur epoque. Ainsi, on reconnait chez l'auteur la qualite de temoin astucieux qui imbue ses ecrits d'elements importants contribuant a une meilleure appreciation de la condition feminine au dix-septieme siecle. L'auteur de ces deux romans met au point le genre du roman historique afin de l'employer comme canevas sur lequel elle impose sa vision perspicace des elements sociaux qui influencent plusieurs aspects de la vie de la femme noble depuis sa jeunesse jusqu'ci sa mort. Afin de profiter de cette structure, ce travail s'organise en trois chapitres suivant la chronologie de cette vie. Commengant avec les representations de l'education de la jeune fille, on passe a sa formation visee au mariage et a une analyse detaillee du statut de la femme mariee. Finalement, on abdrde la question du statut de la veuve. En considerant tous ces elements a la lumiere des ecrits critiques et historiques qui ont paru pendant trois siecles, on ressort une richesse de renseignements portant sur les exigences d'ordre moral et pratique qui delerminent la quality du statut de la femme au dix-septieme siecle. Les observations evoquees par Madame de Lafayette nous aident a preciser les influences, les transformations, les conflits et surtout les contradictions et les paradoxes qui parcourent la vie de la femme noble pendant l'age classique. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Twelfth century French feudal culture witnesses the codification of new marriage laws and a rapid rise in popularity of the Cult of the Virgin Mary, with correspondingly renewed attention being paid to women by ecclesiastical intellectuals of all sects. Of particular interest to these churchmen was the duty of the medieval wife to bear children. The Lais of Marie de France, a late twelfth-century text, often focus explicitly on motherhood (both biological and symbolic) and therefore allow a deeper examination of the new cultural representations of women in the dual role of spouse and mother. The Lais further highlight the symbolic role of the child as guarantor both of a woman's social value and of the validity of the love relationship based on the tenets of fin'amors instead of formal marriage. / by Danielle Firmino Palazzolo. / Abstract in English. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Twentieth-century scholars have extensively studied how Rousseau's domestic discourse impacted the patriarchal ideology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and contributed to women's exclusion from the public sphere. Joan Landes, Lynn Hunt, and many others, argued that the French Revolution excluded women from the public sphere and confined them to the domestic realm. Joan Landes also argued that the patriarchal discourse was a mere reflection of social reality. In The Other Enlightenment, Carla Hesse argues for the women's presence in the public sphere. One of the goals of this dissertation is to contribute to the debate by analyzing the content of the counter-discourse of selected women authors during the revolutionary era and examine how they challenged and subverted the patriarchal discourse. In the second chapter, I reconstruct the patriarchal discourse. I first examine the official (or legal) discourse in crucial works which remain absent from major modern sources: Jean Domat's Loix civiles dans leur order naturel and Louis de Héricourt's Loix eccleésiastiques de France dans leur order naturel. Then I look at how scientists like Monroe, Roussel, Lignac, Venel, and Robert used discoveries regarding woman's physiology to create a medical discourse that justifies woman's inferiority so as to confine them into the domestic/private sphere. I examine how intellectuals such as Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, Coyer and Laclos, reinforced women's domesticity. In chapter 3, I examine women's participation in the early stage of the Revolution and the overt attempt by some women to claim their place in the public sphere and to challenge and subvert the oppressive patriarchal discourse through their writings. Chapter 4 focuses on Olympe de Gouges's theater and a specific example of subversion of the patriarchal discourse: I compare the father figure in Diderot's La Religieuse and de Gouges's play Le Couvent, ou les Voeux forcés. Finally chapter 5 examines women's involvement in the French Revolution after 1794 and Constance de Salm's attack on patriarchy.

Bibliography: leaves [20-31] / 316, [31] leaves : ill ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of History, 1991