A Mother's Love

Crafting Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France

Lesley H. Walker

2008
251 pages
ISBN 9781611482867
Bucknell Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture

A Mother's Love: Crafting Feminine Virtue in Enlightenment France chronicles the emergence of an idealized mother figure whose reforming zeal sought to make French society more just. Lesley H. Walker contends that this attempt during the eighteenth century to 'rewrite' social relations in terms of greater social equality represents an important but overlooked strand of Enlightenment thought. During this period, popular domestic novels, the ever-raging debates about women's social roles, and highly sought-after genre paintings produced a remarkable image of motherhood. Through a focus on feminine virtue, Walker studies female writers and artists to argue that these women theorize the domestic sphere as a site of significant social and ethical productivity.

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About the author:

Lesley H. Walker has a PhD from the University of Minnesota in Comparative Literature and is an Associate Professor of French and Chair of the Department of World Language Studies at Indiana University South Bend.

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