A2. The Rustic Novels of George Sand

Celebrated as the writer who paved the way for French feminists such as Colette and Simone de Beauvoir, Amantine Aurore Lucille Dupin (1804-1876) adopted the nom de plume George Sand, so as to facilitate her career at a time when publishing was a male enterprise. Despite considerable popular success, she was sometimes dismissed as an all-too prolific writer whose affairs with famous men were more remarkable than her written work.  Eventually, however, she earned critical praise for inventing a special genre in French fiction, the “rustic novel.” Focusing on the life and culture of peasants in the province of Berry where she grew up, Sand wrote the first of these works in the politically volatile years immediately preceding the Revolution of 1848. Though they may seem to be simple romantic stories, their social significance is noteworthy.

Instructor: Lillian Corti obtained her doctorate from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and went on to teach Italian, French, World Literature, Comparative Drama and Women’s Literature at various institutions including the Foreign Language Institute in New York, Tulsa University, the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and the Athens Center in Greece. 

Required Text:

George Sand, The Devil’s Pool and François the Waif, Everyman’s Library, ed. Ernest Rhys, Great Britain: Hassell Street Press, 1923.

Recommended: