Madeleine de Scudéry

French writer and poet

• Born: November 15, 1607
• Birthplace: Le Havre, France
• Died: June 2, 1701
• Place of death: Paris, France

Scudéry, the preeminent novelist of the seventeenth century, wrote multivolume novels that were famous for their depictions of noted social and political figures and for their elaborate plots; she was a leading member of the précieux movement. Her other writings, such as letters, conversations, and moral essays, illustrated good manners, worthy conversations, appropriate behaviors, and other mores for schoolchildren as well as adults.

Early Life

Madeleine de Scudéry (mahd-lihn deh skew-day-ree), the only surviving daughter of Georges de Scudéry and Madeleine de Martel de Goutemesnil, was born in Le Havre, where her father was captain of the port. She and her elder brother Georges were orphaned in 1613 and then raised by an uncle in Rouen. This uncle had been a courtier to three different kings and was neighbor to a founder of the Académie Française (French Academy), writer Valentin Conrart. Being under their uncle’s care broadened the children’s cultural exposure.

Madeleine, in particular, benefited from her uncle’s attention. He took particular care with her education, ensuring she received the education that was typical for a young woman of the lower gentry. Most young ladies were taught how to write, draw, spell, paint, and dance. However, Madeleine also learned Italian and Spanish, read the ancient histories of figures such as Herodotus, and learned about contemporary art and literature. Conrart has credited her also with knowledge of agriculture, illness, remedies, cooking, gardening, and running a household. Material for her novels came out of these diverse educational achievements; various characters and backgrounds are drawn from her extensive reading.

Scudéry moved to Paris in 1637 to join her brother. He had left the military a few years before, and in 1635, he published a play that earned him some celebrity as a playwright. This celebrity ensured his acceptance into the Parisian salons, and in turn it ensured that his sister would be accepted as well. The most famous of these salons was the Hôtel de Rambouillet, hosted by the marquise de Rambouillet. Shortly after Scudéry’s arrival, she became a regular participant there, and its culture proved beneficial for her writings. She developed characters based on the lives of the well-known people who participated in the salons, also praising or deploring the social customs of the time.

Life’s Work

In 1641, Scudéry’s first novel, Ibrahim: Ou, L’Illustre Bassa , was published in four volumes under her brother’s name; it was translated into English in 1652 as Ibrahim: Or, The Illustrious Bassa. Publishing under Georges’s name, or anonymously, became Scudéry’s practice. Her authorship, even though it was not claimed in print, was an open secret, especially among her friends within the salons. Her other novels include Artamène: Ou, Les Grand Cyrus (ten volumes, pb. 1649-1653; Artamenes: Or, The Grand Cyrus , 1653-1655) and Clélie: Histoire romaine (ten volumes, pb. 1654-1661; Clelia: An Excellent New Romance , 1678). The last volume of Artamenes contains her story “L’Histoire de Sapho” (The Story of Sapho , 2003). Her other short stories, or nouvelles, include “Célinte, Nouvelle première” (1661, published anonymously), “Mathilde d’Aguilar” (1667, published anonymously), “La Promenade de Versailles” (published 1669), “Les Bains des Thermopyles” (published 1680, in volume 2 of Conversations sur divers sujets [Conversations upon Several Subjects , 1683], and “L’Histoire du Comte d’Albe” (1684, in Conversations).

Scudéry also published essays and is credited with the following: “Les Femmes illustres: Ou, Les Harangues héroiques” (published under the name of Georges, 1642; Les Femmes illustres: Or, Twenty Heroick Harangues of the Most Illustrious Women of Antiquity , 1693), “Discours de la gloire,” “Les Conversations morales,” Conversations sur divers sujets (1680), and Conversations nouvelle sur divers sujets (1684). The Conversations were used as textbooks of manners and decorum for gently bred girls in seventeenth century schools. The works were influential for more than a century, and as late as the end of the eighteenth century, didactic educator and religious writer Hannah More (1745-1833) criticized their portrayal of précieux (refined) culture.

The work of the novels, and then the nouvelles and the moral essays, exceeds Scudéry’s knack for sensing French literary tastes; they also serve as extraordinary depictions of the principles of salon culture. For her contemporary audience, she provided models of the kinds of behavior that would lead to a pleasant social life and would allow people to approximate précieux culture for themselves. For modern readers, she provides a glimpse of the cultural moment of King Louis XIV . In addition, her works are filled with portrayals of well-known contemporaries, such as Madame de Sévigné. These portrayals provided, in the opinion of literary critic Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux , one of the chief reasons for the popularity of Scudéry’s works.

Her poetry is not collected in its entirety because much of it no longer exists. She wrote most of her poems extemporaneously, often part of impromptu poetry-writing games at salon gatherings. Her poetry that does exist is available mainly because it was quoted in surviving correspondence or memoirs. Of her two best-known impromptu works, one was dedicated to Louis XIV and the other to the Great Condé, who led the Fronde (Wars of the Fronde) uprising. Her published general writings also contain some poetry; Clélie contains an elegy on love, and the Conversations include more didactic poems.

Scudéry not only illustrated salon life but also led a salon. Before the Fronde, the best-known salon was the Hôtel de Rambouillet, which continued after the Fronde. Around this time as well, Scudéry began her own salon, known as the Samedi (French for “Saturday”), the day the salon met. She held the gatherings at her home in the Marais section of Paris, where she lived for about fifty years. Like the other salons, her salons gathered for amusement. Guests would participate in extemporaneous poetry contests or arrange trips to interesting places in Paris or pay surprise visits to friends in the country. The Samedi was known to be popular with the bourgeoisie, which gives the impression that it was a gathering of the “mediocre.” Rather, at the time, “bourgeoisie” was a term for society’s elite.

In 1671, she won the prize for “eloquence” from the French Academy, the first year the prize was offered. At the time, she was sixty-four years old and had been hearing impaired for about a decade. Scudéry died in 1701 in Paris, at the age of ninety-three.

Significance

Scudéry was the most popular European novelist of the seventeenth century. She supported herself, and her brother while they lived together, with the proceeds from her writings and the patronage that rewarded her writing and conversation. Her works have been translated into Italian, English, German, Spanish, and Arabic.

Contemporary writers across Europe were familiar with her novels and used them as cultural references in their own works, making the works understandable to their readers. Near the end of the 1660’s, as literary tastes about the novel, especially, changed, Scudéry’s literature was criticized for its lengthiness and immorality and for its futile attempts to portray the spirit of seventeenth century France through characters set in antiquity.

With the acceleration of changes in literary taste, critics of the eighteenth century and later have judged her novels to be unreadable, judgments that had exiled into obscurity Scudéry’s life and work. However, in the early twenty-first century, she has been receiving critical attention. Because she was one of the earliest of the female novelists, as well as an early popular novelist, her fiction writing is being reexamined. In addition, her writings reveal a theory of rhetoric based on conversation, placing her among the earliest modern female rhetoricians.

Bibliography

Aronson, Nicole. Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Translated by Stuart R. Aronson. Twayne’s World Author Series: A Survey of the World’s Literature 441. Boston: Twayne-G. K. Hall, 1978. A comprehensive reevaluation of Scudéry’s life and work, with synopses of her novels and other writings.

Donawerth, Jane, ed. Rhetorical Theory by Women Before 1900. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. This anthology places Scudéry within the early tradition of women developing rhetorical theory. In particular, Scudéry is placed among other seventeenth century women who published strong arguments in favor of women’s voices, such as Margaret Fell and Bathsua Makin.

Donawerth, Jane, and Julie Strongson, trans. and eds. Madeleine de Scudéry: Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical Dialogues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. This work, part of the Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series, provides four translations of twenty orations from “Les Femmes illustres,” analyzing and illuminating Scudéry’s rhetorical theory. The selections represent Scudéry’s thoughts on conversation across several of her writings, from the speeches through the letters. The annotations help convey both the breadth of her learning and the depth of her wit, especially puns.

Merrick, Jeffrey, and Michael Sibalis, eds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2001. The chapter “Female Friendship as the Foundation of Love in Madeleine de Scudéry’s ’L’Histoire de Sapho,” by Leonard Hinds, discusses how the poet Sappho was interpreted in the literature of seventeenth century France and how Scudéry approached the topic of friendship and love in her own work. Includes bibliography and index.

Sainte-Beuve, C. A. Portraits of the Seventeenth Century: Historic and Literary. Translated by Katharine P. Wormeley. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1964. The author, Sainte-Beuve, a nineteenth century literary scholar and critic, highlights the lives of literary and historical figures. The essay about Scudéry is notable because it was written at a time when her literary reputation was low. In his portrait, Sainte-Beuve shows Scudéry to be a woman of great learning, but his discussion of her work is charitable only.

Scudéry, Madeleine de. The Story of Sappho. Translated and introduced by Karen Newman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Part of the Other Voice in Early Modern Europe Series, a translation of Scudéry’s “L’Histoire de Sapho.” Includes bibliographical references.