Key areas of interest

1. the ambivalent aspects of Sévigné’s approach to motherhood and its relevance to the wider topic of Life Lines: Family Culture in Seventeenth Century France.

2. Key areas of interest • Family Background. • Insecurity and Intensity. • The Relationship Between Mother and Daughter. • Other Points to Consider.

3. Family background • Orphaned – no relationship with mother or father. • Closest relationships while growing up with male relatives – daughter closest female relationship. • Widowed at 26 – substituting marital passion with passion for daughter.

4. Insecurity and intensity • Trying to impress people in the salon – embellishing for publication, audience extends beyond her daughter. • Looking for reassurance about her writing style. • Authoritarian tone to overcome insecurities.

5. The relationship between mother and daughter • Jealousy – daughter has what mother never had. • Control vs. Care – to what extent? • Sévigné – mother and father?

6. Other points to consider • We only have one half of the correspondence. • Werther and Wilhelm. • “She loves her as an elderly man loves a young mistress who tortures him. It was a passion that was twisted and morbid.” Virginia Woolf.

7. Useful links • http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/sevigne.html --> for biographical information. • http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chapter8.html --> Virginia Woolf essay on Madame de Sévigné. • http://www.lynetteabel.org/Report-Aesthetic-Realism-Mme-de-Sevigne.html an essay on intensity in the Sévigné correspondence. • http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/historical/TheWomenoftheFrenchSalons/toc.html --> an online text ‘The Women of the French Salons’. • http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=cKWFFKsJ6V4&feature=related and for one man’s interpretation of the Sévigné correspondence...

8. Reading list • ‘Il fautque je vousconte’, Barnwell, T.H., ‘Fact into Fiction in the Letters of Madame de Sévigné’, Seventeenth-Century French Studies, 19 (1997), pp. 109-124. • “Women and the politics of self representation in 17th century France” – Patricia Francis Cholakian • “Mother Daughter Mirroring in Mme de Sevigne’s letters: Identity confusion and the Lure of intimacy”- Jensen, K.A., Esprit Créatur 44 (2004), pp. 108-120. • “Centuries of Childhood” – P. Aries • “Parents and Children in History” – D. Hunt

9. Glossary of key words • Intensity. • Maternal. • Authoritarian. • Insecurity. • Ambiguity.

10. Any questions?