Artamène or the Great Cyrus: Scudéry Renames the Hero

Abstract

Madeleine de Scudéry, in her novel Artamène ou ie Grand Cyrus, uses the naming of the hero, the depiction of contemporary figures as characters in this roman à clef, and an authorial pseudonym as strategies to provoke reader reaction and to depart from conventional practices of the time. Seen in the context of preciosity and seventeenth-century women's writings, Scudery used names in Artamène to promote a redefinition of both the hero and contemporary literary practices.