 | The Ravishment of Persephone: Epistolary Lyric in the Siecle des Lumieres Subjects: Epistolary fiction French -- History and criticism; French prose literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; French prose literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism; This study delineates a theory of epistolary lyric that refutes historical notions of a siecle sans poesie . Julia De Pree argues that monophonic, epistolary texts written during the Ancien Regime both reflect and resist the Classical legacy and at the same time anticipate the nineteenth-century prose poem. De Pree illustrates her theory of epistolary lyric through readings in the historical canon (Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Laclos) but emphasizes the contributions of the epistoliere : Francoise de Graffigny, Isabelle de Charriere, and Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni. She argues that through their relatively short length, their incorporation of blank space, and their monophonic voice, female-authored letter-texts articulate epistolary lyric at the intersection of narrative, theatrical, and poetic codes. De Pree concludes that as a plural and protean form, epistolary lyric anticipates the so-called poetic revolution(s) that transformed nineteenth-century French lyric. |
