Women's Writing in Nineteenth-Century France by Alison Finch (review)

Book Reviews1 1 7 stopped reading when Chopin died), the book is a broad mural of Parisian manners, preferences, interests, preoccupations, and dreams in this period. This portrait of an era contains many curious little known facts. How many Americans realize that, before inventing the telegraph, Samuel F.B. Morse was an art student in Paris or that he, along with James Fenimore Cooper, helped Lafayette to raise money for displaced Poles after the fall of Warsaw to the Russians in 183 1? How many French people know that both Hector Berlioz and Alfred de Musset were destined for medical careers and abandoned them when faced with the horror of the dissecting room? This work shows evidence of being carefully researched from many sources, and one suspects that quite a few of the chapters could stand alone as an introduction to opera, theatre, or art, etc. in the nineteenth century. The only unifying theme for the disparate essays is the presence ofChopin in their midst. Nevertheless, the book is quite enjoyable and permits one to image s/ he is actually living in the Paris ofthe nineteenth century. Lucy M. SchwartzBuffalo State College (SUNY) Alison Finch. Women's Writing in Nineteenth-Century France. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0-521-63186-6. Pp. 316. $57.47. Alison Finch's Women s Writing in Nineteenth-Century France is breathtaking in scope and impressive for the depth of analysis and synthesis the author brings to this vast subject. Finch's survey encompasses more than ninety women writers and a wide range of literary genres including not only novels, drama, and poetry but also politics,journalism, history, travel, children's literature and life-writing. By providing such an extensive overview, Finch hopes to "give a sense of what women writers were doing in the century as a whole" that will serve as a background and complement to more specialized studies focusing on individual authors, themes, genres, or periods (1). While demonstrating how these women established "a distinct female tradition," Finch is also concerned with "repositioning" them in other traditions, such as socialist theory and life-writing (23 1). In her first two chapters, Finch discusses the conditions that these women writers faced, the prejudices that have led to their omission from the literary canon, and the continuing need for a reassessment of their contribution to French literature. Following these introductory chapters, the book is divided chronologically into three sections, each preceded by an overview of the period: "The Early Nineteenth Century: The Age ofNapoleon and the Aftermath ofRevolution (1 800-1 829)"; "Mid-Century: George Sand and Her Contemporaries (1830-1 869)"; and "Naturalism and Symbolism: The Beginnings of a New Era (1870-1899)." Within each section, chapters are most often organized around figures who are representative of certain genres or themes, for example, "Rank and race: Claire de Duras" and "Adventure and travel: Flora Tristan and Léonie d'Aunet." 1 1 8 Women in French Studies In her selection of authors to highlight, Finch has chosen "those who seemed most likely to give a sense of both general currents and the variety of individual temperaments" (2). In some cases, these are well-known authors such as Germaine de Staël, George Sand, Marceline DesbordesValmore , Louise Michel and Rachilde. In other cases lesser-known writers are highlighted, such as Henriette de La Tour du Pin (1770-1853) whose memoirs were not published until 1906 but who provides an example of women's approaches to history as well as how women all too often "having produced obviously talented work . . . leave it unpublished or complete" (40). Likewise, in a chapter dealing with "Confidence and the woman writer," Finch focuses on two mid-century authors who depict societal pressures on women to abandon literary achievement: Amable Tastu in her poem "L'Ange gardien" and Sophie Ulliac-Trémadeure in her novels Valérie ou le jeune artiste (\ 836) and Emilie ou la jeune fille auteur (1837). A chapter on naturalism and symbolism highlights the contributions of Marie Krysinska, one of the innovators of free verse and "the woman writer most successfully air-brushed from the literary history of nineteenth-century France," (189). Finch also includes...