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- Title
Betrayals.
- Authors
ZINSSER, JUDITH P.
- Abstract
The career and writings of the philosophe Emilie Du Châtelet (1706-49) have recently been accorded their proper significance in the historical narratives of eighteenth-century philosophy and science. However, despite the best efforts of historians and biographers, the contrary image of the marquise as Voltaire's promiscuous mistress and a dabbler in physics and mathematics remains seductively popular, and Nancy Mitford's 1957 Voltaire in Love and Elisabeth Badinter's Emilie, Emilie: L'ambition féminine au XVIIIe siècle of 1983 continue to be recommended as the most authoritative accounts of Du Châtelet's life. This article gives a brief historiography of writings on the marquise into the twentieth century and then considers Mitford's and Badinter's sexualized portrayals. It also speculates on the reasons for the continuing popularity of these outdated, skewed interpretations.
- Subjects
FRANCE; DU Chatelet, Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise, 1706-1749; ENLIGHTENMENT; FEMINISM; VOLTAIRE in Love (Book); EMILIE, Emilie: L'ambition feminine au XVIIIe siecle (Book); MITFORD, Nancy, 1904-1973; BADINTER, Elisabeth; HISTORY
- Publication
French Historical Studies, 2016, Vol 39, Issue 1, p3
- ISSN
0016-1071
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1215/00161071-3323421