Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• SCOTT, MARIA C.

Titel

Stendhal's Heroines: Escaping History Through History

Ist Teil von

• Nineteenth-century French studies, 2009-03, Vol.37 (3/4), p.214-226

Ort / Verlag

Lincoln, NE: The University of Nebraska Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2009

Quelle

Project MUSE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This article argues that Stendhal saw historical insight as offering nineteenth-century French women the means of understanding their present condition, of deriving a maximum of happiness from it, and ultimately of moving beyond its limitations. While the author's own interest in history was central to his practice as a writer, his letters to his sister suggest why he considered the study of history to be an especially important component of women's education. The particular interest in historical reading that is evinced by many of Stendhal's fictional heroines, as well as their tendency to emulate strong, often female role models from the past, is shown in his work to have potentially dangerous consequences, but also subversive and self-liberating possibilities.