Women’s Novels and Pictorial Works: The Bestiary and the Onset of the Age of Enlightenment
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In the 18th century, women took advantage of the lack of interest, even scorn on the part men toward the novel as a genre in order to invest in that branch of literature. They quickly seized all the advantages they could derive from a form whose flexibility allowed them to express their views on matters dear to them and to deliver moral lectures to their readers in a pleasant manner. In the novelistic production of women writers during the Age of Enlightenment, the existence of a bestiary is especially noticeable. This bestiary is both a narrative tool and a novelistic theme that gives us information about the customs and aesthetics of the period as well as the ethical rules advocated by these writers. The exploitation of this theme in the various topics tackled in the novels is part of a wider contemporary artistic production. Numerous and well-known examples exist in painting, which echo the texts and are full of vignettes written in such a way that one is necessarily reminded of pictorial art.
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