The politics of seeing ghosts in Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis

Author(s)

  • Lesley H. Walker

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18352/relief.852

Keywords:

Genlis, Chevaliers du Cygne, Terror, Charlemagne, ghosts

Abstract

Through an analysis of the 1795 and 1805 editions of Les Chevaliers du Cygne ou la cour de Charlemagne as well as its historical reception, this essay examines the shifting sands of the entredeux moment—a time of contingency when the end was not yet in sight. With the novel, Madame de Genlis sought to intervene in the cultural politics of 1793-95 by looking backward to a glorious past in order to move forward, beyond the Terror. By 1805, however, the urgency had receded; and ghosts no longer demanded to be seen.

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Author Biography

  • Lesley H. Walker
    Lesley H. Walker is Professor of French at Indiana University South Bend. She is the author of A Mother’s Love : Crafting Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France, Bucknell, 2008. She is currently working on a book on early nineteenth-century women writers and modernity.

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Published

2013-09-20

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2013): Madame de Genlis and enlightenment thought

Section

Articles - thematic dossier

License

All articles published in RELIEF appear in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). Under this licence, authors retain ownership of the copyright of their article, but they allow its unrestricted use, provided it is properly cited.

How to Cite

Walker, L.H. (2013) “The politics of seeing ghosts in Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis”, RELIEF - REVUE ÉLECTRONIQUE DE LITTÉRATURE FRANÇAISE, 7(1), pp. 90–105. doi:10.18352/relief.852.