The Belle Époque of Women Novelists

Abstract

The article deals with the growing presence of women novelists in late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a fact which changed the literary landscape of the Belle Époque in France. This change surprised and angered some men of letters, who reacted by criticizing such women, often stereotypically affirming the absence of creative power in their work. Besides pointing out the visibility gained by these women writers, the author compares the way they presented female characters and the relations between the sexes to the manner in which the male novelists of the times built their narratives. In the Belle Époque, the growth of female readership brought about by increased literacy among women and by new educational opportunities, together with feminist activism, seems to have created an environment which allowed a large number of women to abandon old male pseudonyms and take up female pseudonyms or even to write under their own names.