Women's Deliberation: The Heroine in Early Modern French Women's Theater (1650–1750) by Theresa Varney Kennedy (review)

in la poétique (1639), the French dramatic theorist and playwright La Mesnardiére wrote that women on stage should not be portrayed as heroic or clever, since these characteristics contradicted the rules of vraisemblance or verisimilitude (qtd. in Kennedy 2). But, as Theresa Varney Kennedy demonstrates, women playwrights often did not follow his recommendations. Continuing the work of scholars such as Perry Gethner, Nathalie Grande, and Erica Harth, Kennedy focuses on heroines in plays by women from 1637 to 1761. Kennedy is particularly interested in rationality as a possibility for women and the ways in which this theme is developed in plays by women in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

After a brief introduction, Kennedy launches into four chapters, each of which features one of four heroine types: irrational, dutiful, bold and brazen, and deliberative. In chapter 1, Kennedy analyzes the irrational heroine who derives from Jean Racine's female characters, particularly Phédre, but the irrational heroines in the plays that Kennedy includes are not all from tragedies, and not all of them are homicidal or suicidal or both. Also, the irrational actions of each are accompanied by an element of self-awareness, although these characters remain "one-dimensional" (46). Unlike the emblematic Phédre, Kennedy's irrational heroines are "free agents" (18) who wield authority usurped from the patriarchy (44) and, in the end, acknowledge their treacherous motives and take responsibility for their actions (45). For example, Tomyris—the female character penned by playwright Marie-Anne Barbier—fulfills the stereotype that women are unstable and, for that reason, should not wield political power. She also prioritizes her lustful desires over the security of her kingdom. Unlike Phédre, however, her "final violent act"—the execution of Cyrus—"does allow her to reestablish dignity and honor" (44, 30).

Dutiful heroines, whose emblematic model is Pierre Corneille's Chiméne (55–56), are explored in chapter 2. Unlike Chiméne, who plays a secondary role in Le Cid, the dutiful heroines that Kennedy analyzes are the main characters in their respective plays. They also exhibit intelligence and "leadership skills" (57). Yet, while they "challenge the norms and behavior traditionally associated with early modern women," the outcomes of the plays "reinforce patriarchal institutions" (91). For example, Théonise, in Françoise de Graffigny's La Fille d'Aristide (composed in 1758), stoically holds fast to her duty to marry a man she does not love; however, when she sells herself into slavery to save her beloved, the latter buys her from the slave trader and obtains her release from the man to whom she is betrothed so that the two can marry. Kennedy points out that "despite her show of independence and heroic sacrifice, Théonise still remains a commodity—an object of exchange between men" (90).

Kennedy turns to bold and brazen heroines in chapter 3. The female leads in this chapter are studied together because they "act upon their emotions, especiallyin the name of romance" (128). All five of the plays that Kennedy analyzes in this chapter were either not performed at all or appeared in productions in "the salon, the théátres de société, and other venues outside Paris" (99). Whereas the irrational heroines of chapter 1 act impulsively out of "lust and vengeance," the bold and brazen heroines are motivated by love and desire (100). The results of their valiant actions are mixed. Triphine, in Françoise Pascal's Agathonphile martyr (published in 1655), defies the patriarchal system by refusing to marry the man chosen for her by her father and is executed (114). Even when things do work out well, as in the case of the Countess, who appears in Le Caprice de l'Amour by Mademoiselle Huau (also known as Madame La Grange de Richebourg), a play that was performed at the French Comedy in The Hague in 1739, not only does the play reinforce...