ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with an analysis of how Marie Jeanne Riccoboni’s poetics of voice manifests itself in her 1767 Lettres d’Adélaïde de Dammartin. Marijn S. Kaplan then focuses on the 1772 Lettres de Sophie de Vallière, analyzing what she terms Riccoboni’s “epistolary feminism,” epistolarity used to promote proto-feminism. Taking the opinion of contemporary male reviewers as a starting point, Kaplan demonstrates how in this novel, Riccoboni perfects the epistolary feminism from her previous novels concerning both the male and the female voices, marriage, friendship among women, the role of widows, etc. The “mariage blanc” (unconsummated marriage) based on friendship between the sexes is presented as giving the female voice ultimate authority.
