Scudéry, Madeleine de | Elizabeth C. Goldsmith (essay date 1986)
Elizabeth C. Goldsmith (essay date 1986)
SOURCE: “‘L'art de detourner les choses’: Sociability as Euphoria in Madeleine de Scudéry's Conversations,” in Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, Vol. XIII, No. 24, 1986, pp. 17-24.
[In the following essay, Goldsmith examines Scudéry's Conversations in light of modern theories of sociability. She argues that, by establishing in this work a utopian arena for conversation set apart from social limitations, Scudéry enabled the creation of a conversational model that could be a new standard for society.]
The writings of Madeleine de Scudéry are often cited as textual enactments of seventeenth-century codes of politesse and sociability. Her novels, writes Magendie, gave their original readers “a wordly education” by depicting an elaborate idealized vision of aristocratic social life.1 Sainte-Beuve describes her as “une des institutrices de la...
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