Madame De Lafayette

From the pages of Madame de Lafayette’s 1678 French novel, La Princesse de Cleves, one can ascertain that life within the royal court was much different than the life, which was portrayed publicly. The binary oppositions of reveal and conceal as well as the difficulty and importance of sincerity between a man and a woman are integral parts of this French “love” story. Madame de Lafayette’s expertise in describing the personal anguish and feelings of futility experienced by the Princess, while engaging in an “adulterous” relationship, are at the least, wonderfully articulated. Mme Lafayette also describes the princess’s attitudes regarding courtly life and all that it encompasses with an unequaled style during the period in which her novel was written. Many of the events within the text directly coincide with events, which took place in the life of Madame de Lafayette herself. Did Madame de Lafayette intentionally juxtapose her life and the life of the Princess or was it t...