Lecture notes
Nineteenth Century Poets who happen to be women
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- University Of Oxford
Notes on a lecture about attitudes towards French women's poetry in the nineteenth century, as well as attitudes towards them as writers.
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Paper VIII LecturesNineteenth Century Poets who happen to be women
- How we talk about female poets in French, misogynistic language > poétesse =
diminutive, femme-poète = PC, but distinctions with masculine (which = norm)
even though not subjugating. Une poéte (woke) ou un.e poète (French writers not
like).
- Canon has little room for successful women > Nochlin > not because lack of talent
or hormones > structural impediments in women’s experiences + education. Only
women with “male attributes” can be successful because positive associations. But
there are huge amounts not investigated ones. Women writing = part of a struggle
with patriarchy.
- Marceline Desbordes-Valmore > 50y poetry career, = actor post death husband,
then poet, leading romantic Poetin 1820s, less popular 1830s > poignant “tradi-
tional” themes > one of first to treat themes of maternity and death etc. Mastery of
the vers impair > favourite of Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire. Ste Beuve says “un
poète” > says = outside of classification, high praise. But Virey says women can’t
create > only pro-create > pseudo-science of female weakness and stupidity.
- Not traditional women poets in 19C > women poets think about poetry in relation
to how male poets think about poetry. Women poets not inherit Valmore for them
to situate own writing by, have to situate in male dominated world. But misogyny ≠
just in scientific discourse > Daumier, Les Bas-Bleus (educated women) > women
waste time with poetry when being a mother = more important. Schopenhauer >
women incapable of creating things of artistic value. But 1830s > ouvrières poètes
> struggles of working class women > Blanchecotte > Les Larmes > seems typical
Romantic poem, not seem Revolutionary. Recognition outpouring emotion, desire
to move beyond.
- Goncourt brothers call women writers hermaphrodites > “Une femme de génie est
un homme” > Valmore responds in posthumously published poem.
- Barbey d’Aurevilly > pseudo scientific sexism too.
- Louisa Seifert > very popular + prolific in Lyon, does young but work in Parnasse
contemporain > lots different formes fixes, mastery. Asselineau still says poetry =
men’s art in preface to Siefert but says Rayons Perdus = good + sincere (but virile
language praised because less vague than female). Siefert passion + anxiety in po-
etic writing > Je suis comme la biche > separation of intimacy of writing and public
nature of publishing > traditional nature of sonnet = Parnassian, but less free in
style.
- Ackermann (1813-1890 > husband not want her to write, thinks writing = exposing
self. Poems addressed to women but negative about them. Intellectual women ele-
vated, sees self as philosopher more than Romantic poet (ref 18c).
- Allais > mocks women poets who persevere.
- Krysinska > majority in 1880s-1890s formal innovation : vers libre, plays fixed
forms because has background in music, but misses explosion of vers libre because
honeymoon, gets brushed to side, spends life trying to reclaim “mater vers libre”.
Influences that force Vers libre : xenophobia, tension Dreyfus affair. Focus on
synesthesia, publishes 3 volumes poetry, publishes until death in 1908. Interesting
because proto-feminist, like Parnassians > return to mythology to escape moder-
nity of own time > Hélène > repetitions but not quite a refrain, phrases, images >
set pieces come back over and over > variation on theme > granular assonance.
Helen = far from battle, she = unperturbed by war > she = light and free, despite
fighting in her name > repositioning on story. + brings in ornementation > gen-
dered reading. Beth Gordon > broach = functional + ornate > passage = func-
tional and ornate too (in verse). Decoration women’s body linked deco on verse
(formal innovation) > art deco but with sonority. Text carries markers, but not yet
écriture féminine > almost French feminism. Feminist journalism from 1881 > La
Fronde from 1897-1905. > v. Influential, Krysinska + Durand contributed. But
women writers not see selves as part of feminine writing tradition, distance from
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