Women’s writing of her life (France, XVI-XVIII centuries)

Abstract

In 1987, Michelle Perrot mentioned the low presence of women in our public and private archives: "In the theatre of memory, women are light shadows".

Today, thanks to the important work done recently by historians to inventory personal writings, the estimate of female pen-taking has fortunately been reassessed. Women’s writing is highly hybrid, from the media to the content, from the forgotten paper on a table to the thickest diary. As far as possible, we will observe here all women, even the most discreet, writers without quality who have left only a fragile trace of their tiny lives.

We will first mention the diversity of their writings and observe that women do not forbid themselves any mode of expression, even if their presence is rare in some cases. We will then focus more precisely on what makes their writing so special. In doing so, we will observe that a forest of female writers is probably still hiding in our archives and deserves to be discovered.