Discusses the legal, social, and religious position of women in the Greco-Roman world, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, and modern era.

Discusses the legal, social, and religious position of women in the Greco-Roman world, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, and modern era.

Volume III of A History of Women draws a richly detailed picture of women in early modern Europe, considering them in a context of work, marriage, and family. At the heart of this volume is "woman" as she appears in a wealth of representations, from simple woodcuts and popular literature to master paintings; and as the focal point of a debate--sometimes humorous, sometimes acrimonious--conducted in every field: letters, arts, philosophy, the sciences, and medicine. Against oppressive experience, confining laws, and repetitious claims about female "nature," women took initiative by quiet maneuvers and outright dissidence. In conformity and resistance, in image and reality, women from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries emerge from these pages in remarkable diversity.

This is the most complete critical survey to date of women's literature in nineteenth-century France. Alison Finch's wide-ranging analysis of some 60 writers reflects the rich diversity of a century that begins with Mme de Staël's cosmopolitanism and ends with Rachilde's perverse eroticism. Finch's study brings out the contribution not only of major figures like George Sand but also of many other talented and important writers who have been unjustly rejected, including Flora Tristan, Claire de Duras and Delphine de Girardin. Her account opens new perspectives on the interchange between male and female authors and on women's literary traditions during the period. She discusses popular and serious writing: fiction, verse, drama, memoirs, journalism, feminist polemic, historiography, travelogues, children's tales, religious and political thought - often brave, innovative texts linked to women's social and legal status in an oppressive society. Extensive reference features include bibliographical guides to texts and writers.

Volume 3 has some references to homosexuality and lesbianism in the index. -- dm.