Ecrire les hommes : Personnages masculins et masculinité dans l’œuvre des écrivaines de la Belle Époque ed. by France Grenaudier-Klijn, Elisabeth-Christine Muelsch, Jean Anderson (review)

Écrire les hommes, a collection of eleven essays, covers an important topic in Belle Époque literary studies: the portraits of men as created by women writers during that time. It fills a void in critical studies about literary portraits of masculinity as interpreted by women writers. It also supplements important historical and cultural studies about the crisis of masculinity during the Third Republic (for instance, Annelise Maugue’s L’identité masculine en crise au tournant du siècle, 1871–1914, 1987, Robert Nye’s Masculinity and the Male Codes of Honor in Modern France, 1993, André Rauch’s Le premier sexe : mutations et crise de l’identité masculine, 1789–1914, 2000, and Judith Surkis’s Sexing the Citizen : Morality and Masculinity in France, 1871–1920, 2006). The collection introduces a good variety of fictional portraits of men, with a corresponding variety of styles, genres and approaches to literature through a discussion of nine different authors and over thirty of their novels. Some of the authors represented are well known and have been studied frequently (Rachilde, Colette), while others are only just beginning to make a “comeback” (Marcelle Tinayre, Anna de Noailles, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus), and still others remain almost completely forgotten (Thérèse Bentzon, Daniel Lesueur, George de Peyrebrune, Louise-Marie Compain). Thus the range of authors will provide new and useful information both to newcomers to the field and to those who are already conversant in the area of Belle Époque studies. The quality of the research and the writing (all essays are in French) is top notch throughout, with excellent textual and character analyses in every essay.

For a subject so vast, it is probably not surprising that the multiplicity of male portraits is somewhat overwhelming at times, and the editors do warn us in the introduction that the collection is in no way restricted to a specific approach or methodology: “Conçu dans une perspective délibérément pluraliste laissant libre cours à l’interprétation théorique et pratique des textes choisis, et adoptant donc une multitude de prises méthodologiques” (23). However, there are some unifying features: each chapter focuses on the works of one specific author, except for one chapter that compares the male figure in works by both Rachilde and Colette. Furthermore, each chapter analyzes two to four texts by the author, and each chapter contains a brief social, cultural or historical background for the author and/or the works being discussed. These vary from articles written by the author herself (in the Bentzon piece, for example) or by a critic from the time period (in the Delarue-Mardrus and Rachilde pieces, for example) or by historians from our own time period (in the De Noailles and Lesueur pieces, for example).

The great majority of men discussed fall into one of three categories: fathers, husbands or lovers; yet the essays explain the many variations that we find within these three types: manipulative men, outright misogynists, male objects, reformed men, weak men, and “false” heroes, to name just a few. Some of the more intriguing readings are those that demonstrate a reversal of masculine and feminine roles, such as those explained in Muelsch’s chapter on Tinayre or Bergeron’s chapter on Rachilde. Although and even though we do receive information about the many different portraits of men that these women authors created, we also learn much, perhaps even more, about what women were thinking. How did women’s attitudes toward men change during this period of crisis in masculinity? What were their goals in creating the flawed men and anti-heroes that they did for their works? What effect did their male portraits have on the female characters and on the plot lines of their individual stories? I believe that...