Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 03-29-08
Marie le Jars de Gournay (1565-1645)
=======================================================================
"...TO HAVE WHAT YOU SAY BELIEVED, OR AT LEAST LISTENED
TO."
=======================================================================
Marie le Jars was born in Paris, the eldest of six children. When she was three years old, her father purchased the rights to an estate, Gournay-sur-Aronde, in Picardy, and to the title that accompanied it. In 1577 her father died; a few years later her mother took the children to Gournay to avoid the expense of living in Paris.
Her brothers were soon sent away to be educated, so Marie was unable to do what upper-class girls interested in learning usually did --- study under a brother's tutor. Instead, she taught herself by voracious reading. She read modern as well as ancient writers; she became devoted to the poetry of Pierre Ronsard and the other poets of the Pleiade. When she was about 19, she read the recently published second edition of Michel de Montaigne's Essais, and in Montaigne she found the father and teacher she needed.
On a 1588 visit to Paris the 23-year-old Gournay met the 55-year-old Montaigne; later that year he came to Picardy for about two months, and Gournay was able to spend some time with him. Both apparently came to consider her a kind of daughter by adoption, his "fille d'alliance." When Montaigne returned to Gascony, Gournay sent him a short novel that she had written after his departure.
Gournay continued her studies and began to correspond with scholars abroad. In 1591, however, her mother died, leaving her eldest daughter with the responsibility for the education of her two brothers and the marriage of one sister. Over the next few years, Gournay spent much of her time and almost all of her family's wealth fulfilling these obligations.
In 1594, Gournay heard of Montaigne's death over a year before, and she received from his widow his notes for a new edition of his Essais, entrusted to her for publication. While preparing the Essais, she published the 1588 novel as Le Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne, par sa fille d'alliance (M. de Montaigne's walkway, by his adoptive daughter), including with it a translation from the Aeneid, and some poems honoring his family. In the next year, she published the new edition of the Essais, introducing them with a lengthy Preface..., sa fille d'alliance. Over the next 40 years, Gournay would produce at least seven more editions of the Essais, with various versions of her own Preface.
By the end of 1595, Gournay had settled her brothers and her sister, and, although always short of funds, was free to travel and to live where she liked. She visited Montaigne's family in Gascony and went to the Netherlands where she was welcomed in literary circles. By 1600 she had published a revised version of Proumenoir and had settled permanently in Paris.
For the next 35 years, Gournay's life followed a pattern. She was a part of Paris' literary life but not always an accepted part: she was a single woman without high rank or formal education; she defended groups like the no- longer fashionable Pleiade poets and the unpopular Jesuits; and her writing style was frequently aggressive rather than conciliatory. Gournay always sought patronage (and pensions) from members of the royal family, but those who would help her either died or didn't give enough; as a result, she spent years in near poverty.
Through all of this, Gournay kept writing: praise of possible patrons, translations of her beloved Latin classics, treatises on poetry and translation, and assertions of women's equality. In 1622 she published, using her own name for the first time, Egalite des hommes et des femmes (Of the equality of men and women); this work spread quickly throughout Europe, cited by contemporary writers defending women. In 1626, at the age of 61, she published what she probably thought would be her final work, L'Ombre de la Damoiselle de Gournay (The shadow of...), a collection of revised versions of all of her previous writings and of three new works, Grief des dames (Complaint of women), Apologie pour celle qui escrit (Apologie for she who writes), and Peincture de moeurs (Character portrait).
In the last decade of her life, things appear to have become easier for Gournay. In 1634 she received a pension from Cardinal Richelieu that allowed her to live in some comfort. In the same year, she was involved in the foundation of the Academie Francaise, and so recognized as a leading literary figure. Also in that year she published a new and revised edition of her works, now titled Les Advis ou les presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay (The offerings or presents of...). 1641 saw another edition of Les Advis, which included a brief sketch of her early life, La Copie de la vie de la Demoiselle de Gournay (Imitation of the life of...), that had been written 25 years earlier.
Despite her very real handicaps --- her gender, her lack of formal education, her ability to make and keep enemies --- Gournay kept writing and revising (everything was revised at one time or another, sometimes substantially) in order to say what she wanted to say and to get others to listen to her words.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print:
Preface sur les Essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne
Le Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne
Egalite des hommes et des femmes
Grief des dames
Apologie pour celle qui escrit
La Copie de la vie de la Demoiselle de GournayInformation about secondary sources.
=======================================================================
1. In English:
(a) In this alphabetical list, click on "M" and go to Richard L. Regosin's 1996 study, Montaigne's Unruly Brood: Textual Engendering and the Challenge to Paternal Authority; there see Chapter 2, "Montaigne's Dutiful Daughter." Regosin discusses and gives his translations (and the originals) of parts of Gournay's 1595 and 1598 Prefaces and of Montaigne's description of Gournay found in the 1595 version of his essay, "On Presumption." (At another site, a review by Elaine M. Ancekewicz of Regosin's book.)
(b) Excerpts from Maja Bijvoet's introduction to and from her translations of the 1622 Egalite des hommes et des femmes and of the 1626 Grief des dames, from the anthology, Women Writers of the Seventeenth Century (for information on the book, see below, under "In print").
(c) Other passages, these from the 1641 Egalite, translated by Richard Hillman and Colette Quesnel.
(d) Use your browser's search function to go to "Gournay" for brief passages from the 1622 Egalite, Grief des dames, and Proumenoir, translated by Marjorie Henry Ilsley (for information on Ilsley's 1963 study of Gournay, A Daughter of the Renaissance, see "Secondary sources").
2. In French:
(a) A digital facsimile of the 1595 edition of Montaigne's Essais; Gournay's Preface is given on pp. 18-35.
(b) Links to the originals of Egalite des hommes et des femmes (1622), of Grief des dames (1626), and of the verse self-portrait, Peincture de moeurs (1626).
(c) A link to the text of Mario Schiff's 1910 La fille d'alliance de Montaigne, Marie de Gournay, an essay followed by the 1622 Egalite and the 1626 Grief des dames, both available just above but here each followed by a list of variants in the later editions of the work; appendices include Peincture de moeurs and a poem addressed to Anna Maria van Schurman. You can also download Schiff's book as a PDF file.
(d) Again, the 1622 Egalite, but here clicking on underlined words and phrases will bring you their English translation.
(e) Half-way down the page, a passage from the 1626 edition of Le Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne, which quotes Catullus' adaptation of a poem by Sappho.
(f) The complete Preface sur les essais de Michel, Seigneur De Montaigne, from the 1635 edition.
(g) From the 1641 Les Advis ou les presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay, Gournay's translation of Book 6 of Virgil's Aeneid.
3. Essays, etc.:
(a) Click on "Traduction" for a translation of an 2003 biographical essay by Jean-Claude Arnould on Gournay, followed by a bibliography of her writing (valuable for identifying the contents of her collections, such as the 1626 L'Ombre de la Demoiselle de Gournay).
(b) A 2003 convocation address by Natalie Zemon Davis on Montaigne and Gournay.
(c) A English-language review by Katharine J. Lualdi of a 2004 French-language study by Michele Fogel, Marie de Gournay: Itineraires d'une femme savante; Lualdi's description provides a detailed account, based on recent research, of Gournay's working life. Elsewhere, another review of the same study, by Orest Ranum, which discusses what can be known of Gournay's views.
4. Other reviews (for excerpts from the translation, see "In print"; for information on the collection's treatment of Gournay, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Michelle Marshman on Hillman's and Quesnel's 2002 translation of four of Gournay's works, Apology for the Woman Writing and Other Works.
(b) Robert W. Haynes on the 2004 essay collection, Printed Voices: The Renaissance Culture of Dialogue.
5. Portraits:
(a) An engraving by Jean Mathieu, from the 1641 Les Advis ou les presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay.
(b) An 1800s lithograph that some scholars believe to be based on a contemporary portrait; also shown is the title page of the 1626 L'Ombre de la Damoiselle de Gournay.
6. At the end of the essay on "Presumption" from his translation, The Essays of Montaigne, John Florio's 1603 version of Montaigne's description of Gournay, whose "minde shal one day be capable of many notable things."
=======================================================================
Preface sur les Essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne
[Richard Hillman and Colette Quesnel have translated Gournay's 1595 Preface to her edition of Montaigne's Essais; the French original is given on facing pages (and detailed notes are given in both languages). Hillman's introduction relates this early work to the later writings and discusses earlier critics' views on Gournay. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Preface to the Essays of Michel de Montaigne / by his adoptive
daughter, Marie Le Jars de Gournay; translated, with supplementary
annotation, by Richard Hillman & Colette Quesnel from the
edition prepared by François Rigolot (Medieval & Renaissance
texts & studies; v. 193). Tempe, Az.: Medieval & Renaissance
Texts & Studies, 1998. (109 p.)
LC#: PQ1643 .G63; ISBN: 0866982353
Includes bibliographical references (p. [105]-109).
------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Essays have always served me as a touchstone."
------------------------------------------------------------------
[For Gournay, Montaigne's writing was not to be judged, but rather was to be the standard by which others were judged:]
The Essays have always served me as a touchstone for testing intellects, and I have asked person after person to instruct me as to what I should think of them, so that I might be instructed, according to what degree of worth others saw in them, as to what worth I should see in others. [p.31]
------------------------------------------------------------
"To him I grant the right to correct my opinion."
------------------------------------------------------------
["The Censors" were those who had dared to criticize Montaigne's writing; Gournay challenged them to prove the depth of their own scholarship:]
Would you like to have the pleasure of seeing the Censors amusingly stewed in their own juice? Put them on to the ancient books---not, I mean, to ask them if Plutarch and Seneca are great authors, for reputation will set them straight on that point, but in order to know in what quality that greatness chiefly consists: whether it lies in judgment or intellect....
Then have our Censors work out a comparison between these writers and others with regard to the usefulness of their teaching, and, finally, have them sort out from all writers those whom they would most wish to be like, and to differ from. Whoever will know how to respond fitly on these points---to him I grant the right to correct my opinion of the Essays. [pp.33-35]
----------------------------------------------
"...with a smile, a nod, or some jest."
----------------------------------------------
[In the 1595 Preface, the following excerpt came immediately after the one above. It was removed from later editions, but reappeared in the 1626 Grief des dames:]
Blessed indeed are you, Reader, if you are not of a sex that has been forbidden all possessions, is forbidden liberty, has even been forbidden all the virtues, being denied the power (from which these are formed) of exercising moderation in experience---all for the sake of establishing, as its sole virtue and happiness, ignorance and suffering.
Blessed indeed are you, who can be wise without committing a crime, since your sex accords you the privilege of every proper action and speech, as well as the favor to have what you say believed, or at least listened to.
As for me, if I wish to put my auditors to the sort of examination that involves, it is said, strings that female fingers cannot touch..., there is no one so much a weakling that he will not rebuke me, to the grave approbation of the company present, with a smile, a nod, or some jest, which will have the effect of saying, "It's a woman speaking." [p.35]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...someone who would not be seeking love in the place of
friendship."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[After defending Montaigne against charges of linguistic innovation and immorality, Gournay spoke of her own early attraction to him --- and of the innocence of that attraction:]
What well-tempered mind would not entrust his purse and his secret to Plato, having merely read his books? Out of this consideration, I disdained the accusation of imprudence and caprice leveled against me when I valued him on the basis of his Essays before having seen or visited him.
Every friendship... is founded poorly if not on the sufficiency and virtue of the person in question. Now if sufficiency does not merely appear in that book but appears in such measure, not only can vice not come into it but, consequently, it would serve no purpose to put off liking him until an interview for someone who would not be seeking love in the place of friendship, or who would not be ashamed to have it said that his reason exerted more strength than his senses in forming a bond and that he could do it well if he had his eyes closed. [p.59]
-------------------------------------------------
"...the fencing that sharpens judgment."
-------------------------------------------------
[Gournay most admired in Montaigne the sharpness she would use in her own work:]
The true touchstone of intellects is the examination of a new work.... He who sees a work and does not honor the author---either the author is a poseur, or he himself....
All others, and even the ancients, have as their goal the
exercise of intellect; that of judgment is a matter of chance.
He, on the contrary, has as his design the fencing that sharpens
judgment, and perhaps intellect, the perpetual scourge of common
errors. The others teach wisdom; he un-teaches foolishness. [p.83]
=======================================================================
Le Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne, Egalite des hommes et des femmes, Grief des dames, Apologie pour celle qui escrit
[Hillman and Quesnel have also translated four other works of Gournay: the 1594 Proumenoir, and the 1641 versions of Egalite, of Grief, and of Apologie. (For information on translations of earlier, and slightly different, versions of Egalite and of Grief, see below.) Hillman's introductions are thorough, and the detailed notes point out differences from other versions. The bibliography includes secondary sources through 2000. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Apology for the woman writing and other works / Marie de Gournay;
edited and translated by Richard Hillman and Colette Quesnel;
general and section introductions by Richard Hillman (The other
voice in early modern Europe). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2002. (xxviii, 176 p.)
LC#: PQ1799.G65 A238 2002; ISBN: 0226305554, 0226305562
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Le Proumenoir de Monsieur de Montaigne
----------------------------------------
"I name this your promenade."
----------------------------------------
[The opening of the dedicatory epistle addressed to Montaigne and dated 1588:]
You well understand, Father, that I name this your promenade because, when we were strolling only three days ago, I told you the story that follows, as suggested to me by the reading that we had just done of a variation on the same theme (it was the vicissitudes of love, in Petrarch). [p.29]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Love and he so skillfully hunted down a naive soul...."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
[Gournay identifies one of her purposes in telling the story as "warning women to be on their guard" (p.30). The heroine of the novel, Alinda, was virtuous but naive, and so listened to a young man, Leontin, who caused her to betray her father and abandon her loyalty to her king:]
No doubt... she failed to observe that Leontin was pitying her troubles only to multiply them.... Leontin... had too much art and intelligence for the simple goodness of that young woman....
...Love and he so skillfully hunted down a naive soul that he reduced her to agreeing to follow him, as her her new husband, wherever he might wish to lead her in disguise. [pp.40-41]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"...there are still more of those who promise like fools."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
[Leontin soon transferred his affections from his wife to another woman. Gournay tells her readers to be moderate in their judgment of him: most men are less villainous than foolish:]
...[L]adies are quite wrong to accuse men generally of deceit, when they find their promises of love broken. Indeed, there are some who promise like cheaters, having no desire to keep faith, but there are still more of those who promise like fools, without, I say, being aware to what degree the weakness of their minds is incapable of that great virtue of constancy. [p.47]
-----------------------------------------------
"...those admirable ancient intellects."
-----------------------------------------------
[For Gournay, Alinda would have been less naive if she had been better educated in the classical authors:]
Ladies... will discover in books that whoever knows men better distrusts them more and that the most trustworthy of those who promise constancy is the one who cannot keep his promise because of the inconstancy of human nature. They will derive from books a contempt for thousands and thousands of lovers whom ignorant women would admire, and the sort that would be bliss for the latter would be a penance for them.
So if their misfortune will have it that they meet someone capable of wounding them, the resolution and austerity they have acquired in their dealings with those admirable ancient intellects will thereby prevent that passion from tyrannizing over them as strongly as it would tyrannize over another.... [pp.53-54]
Egalite des hommes et des femmes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...not at all out of contempt but rather, indeed, only
for fear...."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Because Egalite des hommes et des femmes cites biblical as well as classical sources to defend her thesis that men and women are equal, Gournay eventually has to come to grips with perhaps the chief source of Christian misogyny, Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians:]
And if St. Paul, to follow my trail of testimonies from the saints, forbids them [women] the ministry and commands them to keep silence in church? It is plain that this is not at all out of contempt but rather, indeed, only for fear lest they should arouse temptations by that display, so plain and public, that must be made in the course of ministering and teaching, since they are of greater grace and beauty than men. [p.89]
-------------------------------------------------------
"...the equality---let us even say the unity..."
-------------------------------------------------------
[And, near the end of the work, again dealing with Paul and 1st Corinthians:]
Finally, if Scripture has declared the husband the head of the wife, the greatest folly that men can commit is to take that as a license conferred by their worthiness. For in view of the instances, authorities, and reasons noted in this discourse, by which is proved the equality --- let us even say the unity --- of graces and favors on the part of God toward the two sexes, and in view of the fact that God declares, "The two shall be but one," and then declares, "The man shall leave mother and father and give himself to his wife," it appears that this declaration of the gospel is made solely for the express need of fostering peace in marriage. [p.95]
Grief des dames
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...without stooping to amuse themselves by reading them."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Grief des dames develops at greater length a passage (given above) from Gournay's Preface to her 1595 edition of Montaigne's essays. She repeats her objection to foolish men who discount women's conversation, but she then goes on to criticize even the learned:]
Let us note in this discourse that not only the vulgar among the literati stumble in this error against the female sex, but among those, living and dead, who have acquired a certain name in letters in our age --- sometimes, I declare, decked out in serious robes --- some have been known who had absolute contempt for the works of women, without stooping to amuse themselves by reading them, so as to know what stuff they were made of, or to accept opinions or advice that they might encounter in them, and without first wishing to be informed if they themselves could produce some that would merit reading by all sorts of women. [p.103]
Apologie pour celle qui escrit
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"They make of her a stew of extravagances and chimeras."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
[Apologie pour celle qui escrit is a defense against those who had criticized Gournay for financial extravagance and so had kept her from receiving the level of royal patronage she deserved. Again, Gournay saw herself attacked by both the unlearned and the learned. The "vulgar" attacked her love of learning:]
All things considered, isn't the condition of lovers of learning if they are not of the church or of the law, a particular target of cacklers in our climate? There is nothing as foolish or ridiculous for them, after poverty, as being clear-sighted and learned; how much more so to be a clear-sighted and learned woman, or simply, like me, to have desired to make oneself so?
Among our vulgar class, they make of her a stew of extravagances and chimeras, and they say in general, without bothering with exceptions and distinctions, that such women are shaped in that mold. [p.124]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...a woman pretending to learning without formal schooling."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[And the learned mocked her for not having a formal education:]
...[W]hy won't they let me profit from the passport of ignorance? For it is a fact that either I know nothing..., or what I do know is so little identified, recognized, and practiced as being learning in our time that every day my ignorance serves as an object of ridicule for the high-spirited among the learned, as my knowledge does for the others.
Why would they not laugh, such people, if they came across a woman pretending to learning without formal schooling, because she instructed herself in Latin by rote..., and who therefore would not dare to speak the language for fear of making a false step..., a learned woman without Greek, without Hebrew..., without manuscripts, without Logic, without Physics or Metaphysics, mathematics or the rest? [p.126]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...women, who cannot cause themselves to be... recognized
by means of their activities."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[After giving a detailed account of her expenditures in the study of alchemy --- used by her opponents as the ultimate example of her foolish extravagance --- Gournay describes establishing a salon in her first years in Paris:]
I had the idea... of attracting visitors by a certain expenditure at once honorable and restrained, insofar as one in necessity can be restrained, and by means of such visitation to make myself known to those who are close to Their Majesties, so that they might report to the latter that I worthily deserved sustenance at their hands....
My mode of proceeding was acceptable on the grounds of its necessity since it is true that expenditure is the sole unhappy and foolish means of making oneself frequented, known, and valued in France, and, more precisely, it is so for women, who cannot cause themselves to be observed or recognized by means of their activities. [pp.142-43]
---------------------------------------------------------------
"...to try as best I could to make a means of rising."
---------------------------------------------------------------
[Near the end, Gournay moves to the present tense, describing her efforts in 1626 (when the work was first published) to get continued patronage from Louis XIII and his mother, Anne of Austria:]
...[I]f success is denied it, if I have to be poor, I prefer to suffer, having acted prudently to try as best I could to make a means of rising from the little I had, rather than not having done so. And I owe this testimony to the generous bounty and liberality of the King and the Queen, his mother---that they have lent a certain praiseworthy beginning to that success.... [pp.149-50]
=======================================================================
Translations of the 1622 Egalite and the 1626 Grief
[Eva Sartori's article provides, on facing pages, both the original and her translations of the first versions of Egalite des hommes et des femmes and of Grief des dames. Sartori's introduction briefly discusses the two essays:]
Sartori, Eva. Marie de Gournay. Allegorica 9 (1987),
135-63.
LC#: PN 661 .A4; ISSN: 0363-2377
-------------------------
[This anthology contains Barbara Perry's translation of the early Egalite and of Grief. Therese Boos Dykeman's introduction to the translations is a useful general introduction to Gournay as a literary theoretician and philosopher; a chronology of Gournay's life and useful notes are also given. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The neglected canon: nine women philosophers, first to the
twentieth century / edited by Therese Boos Dykeman. Dordrecht;
Boston: Kluwer Academic, c1999.
(xvi, 366 p.)
LC#:B105.W6 N44 1999; ISBN: 0792359569
Includes bibliographical references and index
------------------------
[Another anthology also includes the first Egalite and Grief, here translated by Maja Bijvoet. Bijvoet's introduction and notes are detailed. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women writers of the seventeenth century / edited by Katharina
M. Wilson and Frank J. Warnke. Athens: University of Georgia
Press, c1989. (xxiii, 545 p.)
LC#: PN471 .W57 1989; ISBN: 0820311111, 082031112X
Includes bibliographies and index
=======================================================================
La Copie de la vie de la Demoiselle de Gournay
[This anthology contains Elyane Dezon-Jones' translation of La Copie..., a brief autobiographical sketch written in 1616 in response to a hoax, but published in the 1641 edition of Les Advis ou les presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay. Dezon-Jones' introduction summarizes the life and work. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Writings by pre-revolutionary French women: from Marie de
France to Elizabeth Vigee-Le Brun / Anne R. Larsen and Colette
H. Winn, editors (Garland reference library of the humanities;
v. 2111. Women writers of the world; v. 2). New York: Garland
Pub., 2000. (xxiii, 592 p.: ill., facsims.)
LC#: PQ1113 .W75 2000; ISBN: 0815331908
Includes bibliographical references and index
------------------------------------------------------------------
"...a remote place far from any facilities for learning."
------------------------------------------------------------------
[At the age of 46, in a brief third-person sketch she wrongly believed would be included in a published collection to be presented to King James I of England, Gournay had described her early life. Here she speaks of the difficulties involved in educating herself:]
She studied the humanities by herself, during mostly stolen hours, and even learned Latin, without a grammar book or assistance, by comparing French translations with the originals. She was compelled to conceal her studies, both because of the aversion her mother showed for such things and because of the fact that, following her father's death, this maternal authority took her suddenly to Gournay, a remote place far from any facilities for learning the sciences through either teaching or conversation. [p.239]
=======================================================================
[One chapter in Emily Butterworth's study, "Marie de Gournay and the Abuse of Mockery," describes Gournay's treatment of the problem of a woman writer's need to establish a reputation and to gain acceptance in a society suspicious of learned women. Butterworth focuses on Gournay's essay on slander first published in 1626, "De la mesdisance." Quoted passages from the work are not translated but are generally made clear in the discussion.:]
Butterworth, Emily. Poisoned words: slander and satire in
early modern France (Research monographs in French studies; 2).
London: Legenda, 2006. (112 p.: ill.; 26 cm)
LC#: PQ239 .B88 2006; ISBN: 190435078X
Includes bibliographical references (p. [97]-109) and index
-------------------
[Dorothea Heitsch"s essay in this collection, "From
Dialogue to Conversation: The Place of Marie de Gournay,"
describes the changing role of conversation in French society
during Gournay's working life, and then considers Gournay's presentation
in her early works of her interactions with Montaigne and with
her reader. Quoted passages are given in Heitsch's translation. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Printed voices: the Renaissance culture of dialogue / edited
by Dorothea Heitsch and Jean-François Vallee. Toronto;
Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, c2004. (xxiii, 291 p.)
LC#: PN1551 .P75 2004; ISBN: 080208706X
Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-273) and index
-------------------
[This article by Douglas Lewis discusses the argumentative strategies
used in Egalite des hommes et des femmes (e.g., the appeal
to male authorities). Lewis defends Gournay's method as rhetorically
necessary. He also shows how Gournay's writings can be used in
a course on modern European philosophy. (Near
the bottom of the page, see the issue's table of contents online.):]
Lewis, Douglas. Marie de Gournay and the engendering of equality.
Teaching Philosophy, 22:1 (1999), 53-76.
LC#: B52 .T37; ISSN: 0145-5788
--------------------
[Mary McKinley's article discusses the as-yet-untranslated 1617
Preface, a revision of the 1595 version. McKinley's focus
is on the changes made in the new version and on what they reveal
of the mature Gournay. The article is followed by the French
of the later Preface. (See
the issue's table of contents online.):]
McKinley, Mary. An editorial revival: Gournay's 1617 Preface
to the Essais. Montaigne Studies, 8 (1996), 193-201.
LC#:PQ1643 .A2 M66; ISSN: 1049-2917
---------------------
[In another article in the same issue of Montaigne Studies, Patricia Francis Cholakian looks first at what critics have seen as Gournay's erotic attraction to Montaigne and then at what Gournay says in Proumenoir, in the 1595 Preface, and in 1593-96 letters. Cholakian sees not erotic desire, but the determination to use Montaigne's name to gain recognition in the literary world:]
Cholakian, Patricia Francis. Reading the daughter's desire.
Montaigne Studies, 8 (1996), 145-158.
LC#:PQ1643 .A2 M66; ISSN: 1049-2917
----------------------
[An earlier article by Cholakian analyzes the 1634 version of Apologie; she sees its digressive form as an imitation of Montaigne's style and its purpose as a disagreement with the view expressed in his essay, "Of Friendship" that women were incapable of true friendship. (At the bottom of the page, see the issue's table of contents online.):]
Cholakian, Patricia Francis. The economics of friendship:
Gournay's Apologie pour celle qui escrit. Journal of Medieval
and Renaissance Studies, 25 (1995), 407-417.
LC#:CB351 .J78; ISSN: 0047-2573
----------------------
[In the same issue of Journal of Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, Cathleen M. Bauschatz' article describes Gournay's
use of feminine images (e.g., the Muses, La Langue) in essays
on poetry and translation that were published in the 1626 L'Ombre
de la Damoiselle de Gournay (essays not yet available in English).
Bauschatz does not translate quoted passages, but their meaning
is usually made clear in the discussion:]
Bauschatz, Cathleen M. Marie de Gournay's gendered images for
language and poetry. The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, 25 (1995), 489-500..
LC#: PB10 .N415; ISSN: 0028-3754
---------------------
[This collection includes Bauschatz' essay, "'Les Puissance de Vostre Empire': Changing Power Relations in Marie de Gournay's Le Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne from 1594 to 1626," which discusses the substantial changes made in the later versions, changes in both the introductory material and the novel itself. Bauschatz sees the changes reflecting both a new audience for the work (from Montaigne to general readers, including women) and Gournay's increasing confidence in her own power as a writer and thinker:]
Renaissance women writers: French texts, American contexts
/ edited with an introduction by Anne R. Larsen and Colette H.
Winn. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, c1994. (242 p.:
ill.)
LC#: PQ239 .R46 1994; ISBN: 0814324738
Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-232) and index
----------------------
[Thomas Worcester's article deals chiefly with the defense of the Jesuits in Gournay's 1610 work, Adieu de l'Ame du Roy de France et de Navarre Henry le Grand, avec la Defence des Peres Jesuites, which was published shortly after the assassination of Henry IV. Worcester discusses the historical background, summarizes the work, and presents it as similar to the later Egalite des hommes et des femmes in its willingness to support those who needed it. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
Worcester, Thomas, Defending Women and Jesuits: Marie de Gournay.
Seventeenth-Century French Studies, 18 (1996),59-72.
LC#: DC33.4 .S48; ISSN: 0377-3515
----------------------
[This study by Tilde Sankovitch includes a chapter, "Marie le Jars de Gournay: The Self-Portrait of an Androgynous Hero," which focuses on the verse epistle Peincture de moeurs (not yet available in English) and provides paraphrases and quotations translated by the author. Sankovitch sees the work as Gournay's creation of herself as a mythic hero, unlimited by gender roles:]
Sankovitch, Tilde. French women writers and the book: myths
of access and desire. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,
1988. ([ix], 165 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ149 .S26 1988; ISBN: 081562431X
----------------------
[Cholakian's substantial introduction to this reproduction of the 1594 Proumenoir shows how the novel differs from its source (a tale in an 1553 essay by Claude de Taillemont) and analyzes the digressions that make up the most original parts of the work and change its focus. Cholakian gives her translation of a number of passages:]
Gournay, Marie Le Jars de, 1565-1645. Le proumenoir de Monsieur
de Montaigne (1594) / by Marie Le Jars de Gournay; a facsimile
reproduction with an introduction by Patricia Francis Cholakian.
Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1985. (53,
65 p.)
LC#:PQ1625.G5 A7 1985; ISBN: 0820114081
French text with commentary in English. Bibliography: p. 52-53
----------------------
[Although some details have been made outdated by later research, Marjorie Henry Ilsley's 1963 biography and study of Gournay provides thorough coverage of her life. Perhaps most helpfully, Ilsley gives detailed paraphrases and translates quite a few quotations from the works, including those not yet available in English. Unfortunately, the book has no index. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Ilsley, Marjorie Henry. A daughter of the Renaissance: Marie
le Jars de Gournay, her life and works. The Hague: Mouton, 1963.
(317 p., [1] leaf of plates: port.)
LC#:PQ1799.G65 Z7
Bibliography: p.[299]-317
=======================================================================
Updated 03-29-08