3. Madeleine de Scudery
Born November 15, 1607 in
Lavre
Died June 2, 1701 interred in
the Parisian Church of Saint
Nicholas-des-Champs
4. Madeleine de Scudery
Orphaned by age 6 Scudery
entered in to the care of her
uncle.
An ecclesiastic who provided
her with an extensive
education.
She studied reading, writing,
drawing, painting, music and
dancing.
She received instructions in in
the practical arts of medicine,
agriculture and domestic
economy.
5. Madeleine de Scudery
Her most notable achievement
was mastery of Spanish and
Italian.
Scudery also began her
philosophical initiation with
the reading of Montaigne who
would influence her later
sympathy with skepticism, and
Plutarch who introduced her to
the Stoic philosophy of reason
and virtue.
In 1637 Scudery joined her
brother Georges at his
residence in Paris.
6. Madeleine de Scudery
A burgeoning playwright
Georges introduces his sister
to literary salons of Paris.
During the Rambouillet years
Scudery launched her own
literary career printed under
her brother name Georges, she
published a historical novel,
Ibrahim or the Ilustrious Basa
in 1641 and Illustrious Women
or Heroic Harangues in 1642.
With the publication of
Artamene or the Great Cyrus,
7. Madeleine de Scudery
A novel printed in ten volumes
from 1648 to 1653.
One of the world’s longest
novels, containing more than
two million words, the work
attracted a broad European
reading public still avid for
serial historical romances.
In 1651 she was involved in a
dispute over the relative merit
of Isaac de Benerades sonnet
Job and Vincent Voiture’s
sonnet Urania.
8. Madeleine de Scudery
During the Fronde, (1648-53),
the intermittent civil war
opposing old aristocratic
families and the Parisian
Parliament to the monarchy,
Scudery sided with the throne,
despite her personal
admiration for the women
who led the military resistance
to the Bourdon in certain areas
of the country.
9. Madeleine de Scudery
Conley, John “Madeleine de
Scudery”, The Standford
Encyclopedia Philosophy
(Summer Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
http://plato.standford.edu
/archives/sum2011/entries
/madeleine-scudery.
