Bénédicte Monicat, Devoirs d'écriture. Modèles d'histoires pour filles et littérature féminine au XIXe siècle - Novel and Narrative Prose

French Literature Reviews - 2026

Bénédicte Monicat, Devoirs d'écriture. Modèles d'histoires pour filles et littérature féminine au XIXe siècle
Novel and Narrative Prose

Devoirs d'écriture. Modèles d'histoires pour filles et littérature féminine au XIXe siècle

Bénédicte Monicat

Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2006, 20 €

Bénédicte Monicat teaches at the Pennsylvania State University (Associate Professor, Department of French and Women's Studies Program)

Throughout the 19th century, women devoted countless works of fiction to young female readers.
Embracing the educational responsibilities entrusted to them, they made children's and youth literature a privileged domain of female literary activity. Devoirs d'écriture is the first comprehensive critical study dedicated to this largely overlooked facet of literary history—one that deserves attention not only for its ties to the history of education, books, and reading, but above all for what it reveals about women's history and its ongoing transformation.
The book examines the most representative modes of writing within this vast corpus, offering a reflection on the phenomena of gender construction at work in a literary output that was both normative and destabilizing. Robinsonades and imaginary travel narratives reveal the difficulty of keeping heroines confined to domestic spheres. First-person narratives highlight the challenge of giving voice to young girls—and even more so to adolescent girls—without invoking processes of individuation that run counter to prescribed models of female behavior.
Furthermore, tales and novellas bear witness to playful escapes and innovative aesthetic projects. As for novels, constrained by edifying purposes meant to ward off the dangers of reading, they present female readers with limited life trajectories. And yet, as demonstrated by the analysis of Zénaïde Fleuriot's novels that concludes this study, the meandering paths of long-form fiction bring to light the paradoxes and aspirations that shaped women's worlds in the 19th century.
While these works of fiction offer prescriptive writing models, they also cultivate critical detachment through games of representation, the significance of which Devoirs d'écriture highlights for the history of 19th-century women.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ON ADVENTURE

  • In Robinson's Footsteps: A Nature to Cultivate
  • Dramas of Great Voyages: A Threatening Nature
  • Stakes of Small Journeys

IN THE INTIMACY OF THE SUBJECT

  • Memoirs of Beasts and Object Lessons
  • When Dolls Speak
  • Girls Tell Their Stories

REDUCED MODELS: FROM SHORT TALES TO "NOVELLAS"

  • Vignettes and Frozen Images
  • Flights of the Tale
  • (De)moralizing Recipes

GROWING PAINS: DESTINIES OF THE NOVEL

  • A Little Girl Will Grow Up
  • Model Young Ladies for Young Ladies
  • Zénaïde Fleuriot, or an Exemplary Oeuvre

During the nineteenth century, children and youth literature served as a prominent domain for female authors who embraced educational responsibilities through fiction. This literary output intersected closely with the history of education, books, and reading, while illuminating broader questions of women history.

Bénédicte Monicat examines representative modes of writing within this corpus, focusing on genres such as Robinsonades, imaginary travel narratives, first-person accounts, tales, novellas, and novels, including the works of Zénaïde Fleuriot. Readers interested in nineteenth-century French literature, women writing, and the history of gender construction may find this critical study relevant to their inquiries into the intersection of educational mandates and imaginative literature during the period.