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Abstract
This article argues that the gendered differences present in eighteenth-century French convent literature are put forth by two interconnected factors: (1) the ways in which the author understands and critiques the structure and function of monastic confinement and (2) the mechanism that drives the text forward, namely voice, gaze, or embodiment. Close readings of Olympe de Gouges’s Le Couvent ou les voeux forcés and Denis Diderot’s La Religieuse serve to demonstrate that the authors’ critiques of the convent space are not only present in their plots, but also replicated in the very form of their writing. These Enlightenment texts are juxtaposed with a 2012 theatrical adaptation of Diderot’s La Religieuse staged by French playwright Anne Théron, allowing for an investigation of how the mechanism propelling the work develops or persists when the authorial voice is altered across time and gender.
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No potential competing interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Théron’s play has been recorded and is available on Vimeo. Citations from the play will reference this recording.
2 These adaptations include, most notably, Jacques Rivette’s 1967 controversial film, Suzanne Simonin, La Religieuse de Diderot, and Guillaume Nicloux’s Citation2013 film, La Religieuse. As recently as 2017, director Anaïs Gabay staged a theatrical adaptation of the late eighteenth-century text at the renowned Festival d’Avignon. An in-depth discussion of these adaptations is beyond the scope of this article. Théron’s version, adapted for the stage by a woman director, best triangulates La Religieuse and Le Couvent as it demonstrates how the portrayal of convent life develops or persists when the authorial voice is altered across time and gender.
3 This argument develops previous scholarship on gendered differences in eighteenth-century convent literature including, notably, Karen Sullivan’s article, “Room to Grow: The Convent in Graffigny, Riccoboni, and Gouges,” which aptly concludes that texts favoring sadistic depictions and harsh condemnations tended to be authored by men, whereas the convent literature produced by women during this time represents a wider range of opinions on the convent space, expressing nuanced representations and delicately balanced critiques (161).
4 Riccoboni’s L’histoire d’Aloïse de Livarot (1780) features female characters who flee to the convent instead of from it. Barrin’s La Religieuse en chemise (1683) is infamous for its highly sexualized portrayals of convent life. The protagonist in Graffigny’s Lettres d’une péruvienne (1747) critiques forced vows and the poor education available to women in the convent, but also welcomes the retreat and finds value in some of the religious teachings.
5 While this article analyzes only one masculine and one feminine piece of convent literature from the period in depth, it conceives of these two works as belonging to larger groups. For more on feminine convent writing, see Karen Sullivan’s “Room to Grow: The Convent in Graffigny, Riccoboni, and Gouges,” and for more on masculine convent writing, see Christopher Rivers’s “Safe Sex: The Prophylactic Walls of the Cloister in the French Libertine Convent Novel.” While Rivers’s article focuses on libertine texts in particular, this subset of convent literature serves as an example of masculine writing on the female monastery.
6 See Marie Josephine Diamond’s “The Revolutionary Rhetoric of Olympe de Gouges” for more on Gouges’ writings, including those she would paste publicly on walls (9).
7 Barbara Woshinsky has argued that convent literature depicts the monastic space in one of two lights: either as a prison, or as a refuge (1). This analysis has been informed by Woshinsky’s work but considers her prison/refuge dichotomy instead as a sliding scale.
8 Scholars such as Irene Fizer (95) and Barabara Woshinsky (263-65) have also addressed the relationship between clothing and the convent space in Diderot’s La Religieuse. This article not only connects Diderot’s and other authors’ descriptions of religious garb to their views on confinement, it further relates the two by connecting the sartorial descriptions and monastic critiques to the mechanisms the writers employ to propel their stories. In the case of Diderot, I find that his critique of conventual surveillance is in tension with his use of the habit, as discussed in the following section.
9 In addition to the dungeon scene described previously, there are several other notable examples. Suzanne’s witnessing of a mad nun who escaped from her cell (45), her conversation with Soeur Sainte-Christine when Suzanne is considering leaving the convent (94), and Suzanne’s trial before the grand vicar (111-16) all exemplify this merging of religious clothing with the convent itself as dual symbols of confinement.
10 This narrative frame echoes the context of La Religieuse’s creation. Thirty-six years before the publication of the novel, Diderot duplicitously crafted letters from an escaped nun seeking the help of the real-life Marquis de Croismare, a ruse to try to convince his friend to return to Paris. For more on the epistolary exchange that was the genesis of La Religieuse, see Herbert Dieckmann’s “The Préface-Annexe of La Religieuse.”
11 Alan Singerman summarized the debates surrounding Diderot’s La Religieuse, including “the ambiguities surrounding [Suzanne’s] innocence or guilt, her retrospective knowledge of sexuality, her bonne foi, and the like” (142). Singerman, in his analysis of Rivette’s adaptation, argues that this cinematic version portrays Suzanne as a naïve victim (142). Similarly, Théron’s Suzanne is an unquestionable victim, although one who understands the weight of the abuses done unto her and one who delivers her account of her experiences without reserve.
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Kelly Keenan
Kelly Keenan is a PhD student in Boston University’s Romance Studies Department, where she formerly received her Master’s in French Language and Literature. Previously, she received her BA in French Studies from Loyola University Maryland. Her research focuses on the intersection of representations of gender and religion in French literature, and she is particularly interested in how this relationship develops across rewritings and adaptations.