Vous consultezDe l’espace domestique au récit de soi ? Écrits féminins du for privé

From Domestic Space to Autobiography? Women’s Private Writings (Provence, xvith-xviiith centuries)
For the early modern era there are strikingly few female writings in the provencal “for privé” collection (livres de raison, diaries, memoires). Those that do exist come from women who generally had taken over the writings of a husband, sometimes a father or a brother, who was absent or who had passed away, in order to keep the accounts and record the family memoirs. This article explores, however, the way the daily writing of some thirty women writers provided the possibility for self-development, even though it fit into a norm and a given social role. Through the achievement of the most elementary graphic production to the emergence of individual thinking born of the growing familiarity with one’s own thoughts and the development of personal expression, this writing made a difference. It remains debatable, however, whether such writing for collective purposes within family registers had the capability of fostering individual female subjectivities.

Keywords


women, writing practices, identity development, Provence, early modern era