UCIECZKA Z MROCZNEGO KOSZMARU, CZYLI DROGA DO WOLNOŚCI KSIĘŻNEJ C***
Escape from a Tenebrous Nightmare or the Duchess of C***’s Road to Freedom

Author(s): Łukasz Szkopiński
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, French Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Stéphanie Félicité de Genlis; Gothic novel; French literature; imprisonment; women’s writing
Summary/Abstract: Histoire intéressante de Madame la Duchesse de C*** (1783) by Stéphanie Félicité de Genlis, previously published as a part of Adèle et Théodore, ou Lettres sur l’éducation (1782), tells the story of an Italian aristocrat imprisoned for nine years in a castle dungeon by her jealous husband who had faked her death. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the way in which the author describes the Duchess’s long struggle in her prison, with a special emphasis put on the particularly meaningful motifs of light and darkness. The second part of the article focuses on the consequences which this traumatic experience had on the victim and her approach towards life as well as on her thoughts concerning her turbulent past, her relationship with her husband and her own mistakes.

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