Colette, Beauvoir, and Duras Age and Women
Writers by
Bethany Ladimer In a pioneering study of the three best-known French women writers of the 20th century, Bethany Ladimer examines the ways in which the aging process shaped their creativity and their lives. Simone de Beauvoir, Colette, and Marguerite Duras all lived long lives and were prolific writers until the end. Bethany Ladimer's developmental approach to their creativity takes into account literary analysis but also discusses their work and lives from the standpoint of history and the social sciences, a three-way conjunction that considers age, gender, and a culture that depends on the ideas of sexual difference for its national identity. She incorporates the work of Betty Friedan, Carolyn Heilbrun, and Margaret Gulette, among others, into her study.
Asking how a French woman's heritage affects the way she
writes when she has gone beyond the age when women are
usually considered sexually desirable, Ladimer examines
the problems and resolutions that face aging women in
France. The light she sheds on the question illuminates
the relationship between femininity and aging in all
Western societies.
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"A sophisticated
and well-informed work of literary criticism . . . .
Represents the new scholarship on women and aging at its
best."--Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of
English at Lehman College and the Graduate Center, City
University of New York
Titles of Related Interest: Women's Spiritual Autobiography in
Colonial Spanish America, Novels from Reagan's America, American Literary Mentors, The Fiction of Ellen Gilchrist, Jewett and Her Contemporaries, Ronsard, Petrarch, and the
Amours, Arms Akimbo, |
