Home > ECF > Vol. 7 > Iss. 2 (1995)
Abstract
Sophie Cottin's story, little known to modem readers on either side of the Atlantic, may nevertheless be a perfect case study in gender role conflict and a woman's coming to writing in post-revolutionary France. Out of her struggle to reconcile Rousseauian notions of femininity and the realities of her own infertility arose a novel, Claire d'Albe (1799), condemned by at least one prominent female contemporary for its "immoralité révoltante." The novel inscribed both Cottin's anguish as a barren woman in a pronatalistic culture which valorized women according to their fertility and productivity, and the difficulty she faced in constructing a counter-identity for herself and women like her.
Recommended Citation
Call, Michael J.
(1995)
"Measuring Up: Infertility and 'Plénitude' in Sophie Cottin's Claire d'Albe,"
Eighteenth-Century Fiction:
Vol. 7:
Iss.
2, Article 1.
Available at:
http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/ecf/vol7/iss2/1