Gender, Rhetoric, and Print Culture in French Renaissance Writing: 63 (Cambridge Studies in French, Series Number 63) - Hardcover

Gray, Floyd

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052177327X ISBN 13: 9780521773270

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2000

Synopsis

In this book Floyd Gray explores how the treatment of controversial subjects in French Renaissance writing was affected both by rhetorical conventions and by the commercial requirements of an expanding publishing industry. Focusing on a wide range of discourses on gender issues - misogynist, feminist, autobiographical, homosexual and medical - Gray reveals the extent to which these marginalized texts reflect literary concerns rather than social reality. He then moves from a close analysis of the rhetorical factor in the Querelle des femmes to consider ways in which writing, as a textual phenomenon, inscribes its own, sometimes ambiguous, meaning. Gray offers richly detailed readings of writing by Rabelais, Jean Flore, Montaigne, Louise Labé, Pernette du Guillet and Marie de Gournay among others, challenging the inherent anachronism of those forms of criticism that fail to take account of the rhetorical and cultural conditions of the period.

About this title

Review

"...thought-provoking contribution to early modern French scholarship..." SubStance

Book Description

In this book Floyd Gray explores how the treatment of controversial subjects in French Renaissance writing was affected by rhetorical conventions and the commercial requirements of an expanding publishing industry. Gray offers new readings of a wide range of discourses on gender issues - misogynist, feminist, autobiographical, homosexual and medical.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052177327X
• ISBN 13: 9780521773270
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240