Take No for An Answer.
Reclaiming the French Canon through the Female Gaze

In this communication I will investigate how the “male gaze” prevailed in establishing the French classics and their reception. By selecting authors deemed essential to our literary heritage (patrimoine culturel) and by erasing the works of women writers, the patriarchal gaze also undervalued female agency in well-known works of fiction such as Andromaque, La Princesse de Clèves or Little Red Riding Hood. My close reading of early modern memoirs, fairy tales, novels, and plays reveals that many female refusals (be they historical or fictional) remain obscured. My study also unveils women’s resistance at a time when galanterie was at once a means of seduction and an ideal shaped by both men and women. If nowadays galanterie is under attack and if the #MeToo movement has brought questions of female agency and consent to the fore, this book retraces an “archive of refusal” as a possible source of inspiration to invigorate feminist discourse and change our reception of the French canon. Surprisingly, heroines of the Grand Siècle can empower us with accounts of their struggle and help us reclaim an undervalued literary matrimoine.