Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and the Sorority of Poets

The inclusion of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore within a "fraternity of poets" has resulted in her exceptional status in the canon of nineteenth-century French poetry. This essay examines whether the "sorority of poets" received Desbordes-Valmore any differently. The historical evolution of a sorority of poets, however, underscores the problematic nature of ascertaining a tradition of feminine poetry from the point of view of women poets. If a feminine community took shape during the first decades of the nineteenth century, after 1840 more women poets eschewed identification with a feminine tradition originating with Desbordes-Valmore ;conversely, that very notion of feminine poetic tradition was being shaped by male critics who used it ostensibly to write women poets out of canonical history.