FRENCH 303 Long Live the Queen!: Women, Royalty and Power in Literature of the Ancien Régime

This seminar will examine historical, cultural and literary portrayals of female royalty in seventeenth century France. An object of exchange in international relations, a physical "carrier" of the future king, a regent who can rule—but not in her own name—, the queen poses thorny questions for political and artistic representations of power. An analysis of her social, symbolic and politically ambiguous status reveals the paradoxes of a woman exercising sovereignty in a time when the king's body comes to define the State. Reading will include Corneille, Racine, Lafayette, Perrault and Saint-Réal. Prerequisite: Two 200-level units, one of which must be 210 (if taken Fall 2004 or later), or 211 or above.

In a period characterized by the cult of power and masculinity associated with the "absolute" rule of the monarch, scholars have most often focused on the political symbolism of the king's body on the throne. Yet, during the ancien régime three women—Catherine de Medici, Marie de Medici and Anne of Austria—governed the French kingdom as queen mothers. These queens, all of them foreigners, had to negotiate a fine line between demonstrating their effectiveness in the male-dominated sphere of politics and warfare while also retaining a measure of self-effacement and modesty. Salic Law, which denied women the French throne but insisted on the primacy of royal blood, increasingly stressed the importance of the queen's body as a "carrier" of the future king. Furthermore, princesses were crucial objects of exchange in diplomatic alliances between the European monarchies. Building on recent historical research on the queen’s social and symbolic status, we will deepen our understanding of the dynamics of women, power and royalty by examining figures of female sovereignty in the literature and culture of seventeenth-century France.

Our first task will be to familiarize ourselves with the history and historical portrayals of seventeenth-century queens of France. We will explore their role at the French court and in royal ceremonies—the nuptial ceremony in particular—and examine political theories which stressed women's biological incapacity for politics and reason. The practice of regency posed thorny questions of sovereignty which we will consider by reading juridical texts of the period. We will also probe how the queen's ambiguous status disrupted the absolutist fascination with royal symbolism. We will reflect on the paradox that the queen, whose reproductive body enabled fictions of royal immortality, was simultaneously portrayed as the monarchy's most destabilizing figure.

These historical and cultural perspectives will be combined with careful readings of literary texts which center on fictional figures of female power: the strong women of the tragedies of Tristan l'Hermite, Corneille and Racine; the heartbroken and sacrificial princesses of Lafayette's and Saint-Real's novels; the fairy tale princesses of Perrault; the scathing literary portraits of the queen in Retz's and Saint-Simon's memoirs. 

Throughout the course we will consider contemporary images of female political power in France and the United States so as to understand how democratic cultures might still be shaped by vestiges of early modern representations of queens.
 
Assignments will include two papers of three to four pages in length, one oral presentation, a final paper.

Literary Works:
Bussy-Rabutin, Histoire amoureuse des Gaules (excerpts)
Cardinal de Retz, Mémoires "portrait d'Anne d'Autriche"
Corneille, Le Cid, Rodogune
Tristan L'Hermite, La Marianne
Lafayette, Histoire d'Henriette d'Angleterre,
Princesse de Palatine, Lettres (extraits)
Perrault, "Peau d'âne
Racine, Bérénice
Saint-Real, Dom Carlos
Saint-Simon, Mémoires "portrait de la reine."
Selections from the Following Secondary Texts:
Fanny Cosandey, La Reine de France: symbole et pouvoir, XVII-XVIII
Katherine Crawford, Perilous Performances: Gender and Regency in Early Modern France
Eliane Viennot, La France, les femmes et le pouvoir: l'invention de la loi salique
Abby Zanger, Scenes From the Marriage of Louis XIV