department of french / en 茄子直播 researchers wrap up 40 years of work, ensure legacy of once-renowned author /news/u-t-researchers-wrap-40-years-work-ensure-legacy-once-renowned-author <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">茄子直播 researchers wrap up 40 years of work, ensure legacy of once-renowned author</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>krisha</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2016-08-05T09:36:22-04:00" title="Friday, August 5, 2016 - 09:36" class="datetime">Fri, 08/05/2016 - 09:36</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">茄子直播 French professors David Smith and Penny Arthur are among an international team of researchers who recently celebrated the publication of the 15th and final print volume in the La Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny series (photo by Diana Tyszko)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/sean-bettam" hreflang="en">Sean Bettam</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Sean Bettam</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/global-lens" hreflang="en">Global Lens</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/department-french" hreflang="en">department of french</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/collaboration" hreflang="en">Collaboration</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/international" hreflang="en">International</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Capturing the daily musings of once-renowned 18th century female author, Fran莽oise de Graffigny</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>For more than 40 years, an international group of researchers based in the <a href="http://french.utoronto.ca/">Department of French</a> at the University of Toronto has been reading Fran莽oise de Graffigny鈥檚 mail.</p> <p>Not just reading it, either. They鈥檝e been collecting, transcribing and editing letters she sent and received to create the recently completed <a href="http://french.chass.utoronto.ca/graffigny/"><em>La Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny</em></a>, a 15-volume print collection of more than 2,500 letters, published by the <a href="http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/graffigny/graffigny_index.ssi">Voltaire Foundation</a> in Oxford.</p> <p>Before her death in 1758, Fran莽oise de Graffigny was the world鈥檚 most famous female author, yet she was almost forgotten a century later. The letters reveal her most intimate thoughts as she went from being minor nobility in Lorraine, to a celebrated author and renowned Paris salon hostess. They also offer a glimpse into the intellectual, social and political history of 18th-century France, as well as valuable insights into the condition of women at the time.</p> <p><strong>A fitting tribute to founding editor</strong></p> <p>Work on the <em>La Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny</em> series was started in 1975 by the late Professor <strong>Alan Dainard </strong>(pictured below), who died&nbsp;in December 2014 after devoting almost 40 years as general editor of the project.</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 a bittersweet milestone since Alan did not live to see his project finished,鈥 said Professor Emeritus <strong>David Smith</strong>, who has been on the editorial team from the beginning and served as volume editor for the final volume. 鈥淢adame de Graffigny鈥檚 <em>Correspondance</em> is his monument.鈥</p> <p>Dainard is credited not only with realizing the abundance of historical and social information in the letters, but with building a team to embark on the project.</p> <p>鈥淗e enjoyed the affection, loyalty, respect and admiration of all his fellow editors, his student assistants and his colleagues at the Voltaire Foundation,鈥 said Smith.鈥滺is modesty was legendary and his generosity culminated in his establishment of a trust fund to ensure the continuation of the project after his death.鈥</p> <p>Dainard was succeeded as general editor by English Showalter, Rutgers University professor of French and <a href="http://urwebsrv.rutgers.edu/focus/article/The letters of Madame de Graffigny/458/">renowned Graffigny biographer</a>, for the final print volume. Showalter was also there at the start, having been invited to join the team in 1975 following years of his own research on Mme de Graffigny鈥檚 life and work.</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__1613 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/2016-08-05-french-embed-1.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"></p> <p><strong>Who was Fran莽oise de Graffigny?</strong></p> <p>Mme de Graffigny was born Fran莽oise d鈥橦apponcourt in 1695 and raised in Lorraine, then an independent duchy on the northeast border of France, into a life peppered with emotional and financial turmoil. She was married at 16 to an abusive alcoholic husband and all three of their children died of illnesses while very young. &nbsp;A widow at the age of 30 with few financial resources, she frequented the court of Lorraine, but when the ex-king of Poland became the new duke, she left for Paris, enjoying the hospitality of friends en route.</p> <p>She eventually produced several plays and short stories but her greatest literary achievements came with the instant success of her 1747 novel <em>Lettres d鈥檜ne P茅ruvienne</em> (Letters from a Peruvian Woman) and the very popular 1750 play <em>C茅nie</em>. The novel 鈥 which saw 14 editions within a year of its release, and 133 by a century later 鈥 tells the story of a Peruvian woman living in France who is rejected by her Inca lover, then rejects her French suitor, and ultimately never marries.</p> <p>It鈥檚 been said that the story was inspired by her own relationship with L茅opold Desmarest, a cavalry officer with whom she had a long-term affair and who, after years of philandering and receiving financial support from her, left her for another woman. Though her letters mention one other brief but intense affair with Pierre Valler茅, a lawyer who shared her Paris house and remained a loyal friend, she never remarried.</p> <p><strong>From obscurity to notoriety</strong></p> <p><em>Lettres d鈥檜ne P茅ruvienne</em> 鈥 and Fran莽oise de Graffigny herself 鈥 regained prominence again in the 1960s, especially among feminist critics and historians, and the novel was frequently added to reading lists featuring 18th-century authors. 茄子直播 French professor <strong>Penny Arthur</strong>, another of the team of editors, sees in Graffigny an independent and confident woman who strove to improve her writing and to understand new ideas, despite her lack of formal education.</p> <p>鈥淕raffigny would have called herself a 鈥榝emme d鈥檈sprit鈥 鈥 a woman of wit,鈥 said Arthur, who was volume editor for the 11th and 14th volumes.</p> <p>For many, though, Mme de Graffigny鈥檚 letters to Fran莽ois-Antoine Devaux, a lawyer with literary aspirations who was her closest friend and confidant until her death, are considered her 鈥渕asterpiece鈥.</p> <p>In her correspondence with Devaux she wrote candidly about disparate topics including a three-month stay with writer and philosopher Voltaire and his mistress, aspects of her health, and artistic rivalries. She also described her affair with Valler茅 in detail, about how she was as baffled by his affection and attentiveness as she was by the sexual experience, and how she rejected his efforts to control her life.<br> In the letters, her writing is spontaneous and unrehearsed, providing <a href="http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/graffigny/graffigny_letter.ssi">a magnificent example of everyday language during the period</a>.</p> <p><strong>A digital coda to ensure her legacy</strong></p> <p>The completion of the print edition also brings to an end the fascinating story of Fran莽oise de Graffigny鈥檚 lost papers which began more than 250 years ago. (<em>ED NOTE: see below for full story.</em>) The project will wind down over the next few years with an online-only 16th volume edited by Arthur that will include a cumulative index, additional documents and corrections.</p> <p>鈥淰olume 16 is an integral part of the whole edition and will aim for the same high standards of scholarship shown in the print volumes,鈥 said Arthur. 鈥淭he Voltaire Foundation, like other academic publishers, is moving from print format to digital, and academic libraries are relying more on digital resources. This format lends itself well to indexing, corrections and additions, because it can be continuously updated.鈥</p> <p><em>With files from the Voltaire Foundation, University of Toronto Magazine and Rutgers Focus</em><br> ________________________________________<br> <strong>The Story of Madame de Graffigny鈥檚 Lost Papers</strong></p> <ul> <li>Fran莽ois Devaux inherited all of Fran莽oise de Graffigny鈥檚 papers following her death in 1758.</li> <li>Devaux died in 1796 without publishing them as he had promised years earlier.</li> <li>The letters were kept by Devaux鈥 descendants and eventually sold around 1820, with the majority of them ending up in the hands of English bibliophile Sir Thomas Phillipps.</li> <li>Phillipps鈥 collection resurfaced again at an auction in the 1960s 鈥 long after Phillipps鈥 death 鈥 and were purchased by New York bookseller H.P. Kraus; Kraus sold to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York the letters describing Graffigny鈥檚 stay with Voltaire, and donated the remainder to <a href="http://drs.library.yale.edu/HLTransformer/HLTransServlet?stylename=yul.ead2002.xhtml.xsl&amp;pid=beinecke:graffign&amp;query=&amp;clear-stylesheet-cache=yes&amp;hlon=yes&amp;big=&amp;adv=&amp;filter=&amp;hitPageStart=&amp;sortFields=&amp;view=all">Yale University</a>.</li> <li>Professor English Showalter of Rutgers University, who later joined the editorial team, saw the Graffigny Papers at Yale in 1969, and in 1971 a graduate student in the 茄子直播 Department of French independently discovered in the collection a volume of letters to Graffigny by her niece.</li> <li>Soon after, Alan Dainard made plans to edit the entire collection and began to assemble an editorial team to embark on the project.</li> <li>The first volume in the series was published in 1985.</li> </ul> <p>The first page of Mme de Graffigny鈥檚 December 24, 1743 letter to Fran莽ois-Antoine Devaux is pictured below. Each of her letters to Devaux were three to four pages in length.</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__1614 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="975" src="/sites/default/files/2016-08-05-french-embed-2.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Fri, 05 Aug 2016 13:36:22 +0000 krisha 99618 at