Apart from Lady Murasaki's "The Tale Of Genji" (and a few anonymous works that may have been written by women), "The Princess Of Cleves" is the first piece on "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" by a woman. There will be many more to come.
We can't say much about the differences between men's writing and women's writing based on these few examples, of course, or based on many more examples, perhaps. It is interesting to note, though, that like "Genji," "The Princess Of Cleves" deals with war and politics only as an aside, focusing mostly on love and romance. Whether the concentration on extramarital affairs in these works is the result of the fact that women wrote them would certainly be going too far. If the authors' female state has anything to do with the subject at all, I suppose it may have to do with the fact that during those periods of history, women had little or no participation in politics and war. Which only goes to show that people mostly write about things they personally experience. If you don't participate in politics, you don't write about it, right?
Enough with the speculation. "The Princess Of Cleves" takes place in France during the tail end of Henry II's reign, and we're told that many events described here actually took place. The action occurs in 1558-59, although the novel's publication date is 120 years after that. As the title implies, our protagonist is an aristocrat, although she has spent her life in the country, has never been in love, and isn't familiar with courtly life. Sadly for her innocence, she is remarkably beautiful.
Her mother, unlike some mothers in similar stories, wants to protect her from "gallantry," as it's called – which is really just another name for getting a lot of mistresses. Mom therefore arranges a good match for her with a man who really seems to love her, although she doesn't feel quite the same way. She's fond of him, but shortly after the wedding she meets another man and quickly comes to realize what love feels like. She has the grace to feel guilty about it, realizing that her husband deserves better from her, and as a matter of fact she never acts on her feelings, but circumstances conspire to give her husband the idea that she has done exactly that. In the interim, the Princess, a decent and religious woman, tells him what her feelings are. Hijincks, as you might imagine, ensue.
All these people talk like aristocrats of the 16th Century, of course, and combined with the fact that we're reading a translation from the French, this can make it kind of hard to follow the dialogue – I wish I knew whether that was true in the original. In addition to that, the author (who wrote anonymously – modern scholars attribute this work to the aristocratic Madame de La Fayette) generally refers to her characters by their titles, such as the King, the Queen, the Queen-Dauphin, various Princes and Princesses, Viscounts, Dukes, and so on and so forth. Keeping track of who these people are can be a little tricky, especially when they go haring off for various weddings and peace negotiations and stuff like that. I assume that 17th century readers had some sense of what went on during these events, but not so much these days.
When we get to the doings of our main characters, on the other hand, the writing is surprisingly moving. By today's standards they speak in a terribly formal way, which doesn't always allow for passion to come through in literature, but it does here. Madame de La Fayette is very good at describing what these folks feel and do while talking like a bunch of stiffs – I'd be very interested in finding out how she learned to do that, but however she did, it works.
I can't call this a particularly happy story, which I doubt will surprise anybody who's read my review this far, but it's certainly very romantic. I suspect that was what the author intended all along.
Benshlomo says, Language changes – stories are eternal.
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