Madeleine de Scudéry (; 15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701), often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry (), was a French writer.

Her works demonstrate such comprehensive knowledge of ancient history that it is suspected she had received instruction in Greek and Latin. Madeleine and her brother Georges de Scudéry were placed in the care of an uncle who cared for them very well. These figures were often disguised as Persian, Greek, and Roman warriors and maidens.

Les Femmes Illustres (1642) addresses itself to women and defends education, rather than the beauty or cosmetic, as a means of social mobility for women.

Scudéry was a skilled conversationalist; several volumes purporting to report her conversations upon various topics were published during her lifetime. She had a distinct vocation as a pedagogue.

thumbnail|left|The Carte de Tendre was "conceived as a social game during the Winter of 1653–1654" by Madeleine de Scudery, and a printed copy was "later incorporated into the first volume of her coded novel, Clelie." (Reitinger 1999, 109).

Later years

Madeleine survived her brother by more than thirty years, and in her later days published numerous volumes of conversations, to a great extent extracted from her novels, thus forming a kind of anthology of her work. Scudéry was deaf for the last 40 years of her life. She outlived her vogue to some extent, but retained a circle of friends, like Marie Dupré, to whom she was always the "incomparable Sapho."

Her Life and Correspondence was published at Paris by MM. Rathery and Boutron in 1873.

Legacy

Madeleine de Scudéry was part of a movement in the late Renaissance in England and France where women used classical rhetorical theory for their own.

The 19th century German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote what is usually referred to as the first German-language detective story, featuring Scudéry as the central figure. "Das Fräulein von Scuderi" (Mademoiselle de Scudery) is still widely read today, and is the origin of the "Cardillac syndrome" in psychology.

thumb|right|200px|An older Madeleine de Scudéry

Mademoiselle de Scudéry is also featured prominently in Madeleine: One of Love's Jansenists, a novel published in 1919 by modernist writer Hope Mirrlees. The novel is set in and around the literary circles of the 17th Century Précieuses. The protagonist, a young woman named Madeleine Troqueville, becomes enamored of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, who snubs young Madeleine. It has been suggested that the novel is a roman à clef with Natalie Clifford Barney portrayed as Mademoiselle de Scudéry.

Literature

  • Oliver Mallick, "Le héros de toutes les saisons": Herrscherlob und politische Reflexionen in Madeleine de Scudérys Roman "La Promenade de Versailles" (1669), in: Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, vol. 41, no. 4 (2014), p. 619–686.
  • Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, volume IV (Paris, 1857–62)
  • Rathery and Boutron, Mademoiselle de Scudéry: Sa vie et sa correspondance (Paris, 1873)
  • Victor Cousin, La société française au XVII<sup>e</sup> siècle (sixth edition, two volumes, Paris, 1886)
  • André Le Breton, Le roman au XVII<sup>e</sup> siècle (Paris, 1890)
  • AG Mason, The Women of the French Salons (New York, 1891)
  • Georges Mongrédien, Madeleine de Scudéry et son salon: d'après des documents inédits, 1946
  • Dorothy McDougall, Madeleine de Scudéry: her romantic life and death, 1972
  • Alain Niderst, Madeleine de Scudéry, Paul Pellisson et leur monde, 1976

Summaries of the stories and keys to the characters may be found in Heinrich Körting, Geschichte des französischen Romans im 17ten Jahrhundert (second edition, Oppeln, 1891).

References

Citations

Sources

  • The Grand Cyrus, Clelia, and Ibraheem the Illustrious Bassa
  • Project Continua: Biography of Madeleine de Scudéry