Transcription de elodie regnier_31_AF 44_08_MDS00087 Transcripteur Lucile

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Laboratoire Litt&Arts

Texte transcrit

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an author with turbid sensuality, for whom the onlything that counted in life was satisf.satisfaction of her lowerinstincts". WmnWomen are not allowed to have instincts except maternalist.

Can one imagine a literary critic saying sucha thing on about Henry Miller, for instance ? Or pornographywriters which Colette wasnot !

When Colette died in 1953, the Cath.Catholic Churchrefused religious funeral to this old lady of 81who because of her long past reputation.

She was always judged by after her private lifeas if it was the most important topic for a wmnwoman writer.Jean Cocteau was one of the 1rstfirst to consider that Colette was a great author and had done a lot in the way of describingreal feminine nature : "She was the first, he wrote,who dared speak of her belly". And I think hetouched the point : it was not tolerated from a woman to speak of her belly.

François Mauriac wrote : "Through the magic of herstyle, Colette drags us into the sewer."

Had she been a masc.masculin author, she wldwouldhave been judged as a talented writer with anunconventional life. Been a womnwoman, she wasbut a shameless, dissolute person, who hap-pened to write a few books !

That moral judgement has paralyzedmany. Imagne a wmn womanleading Gauguin'slife, or Utrillo's, or Verlaine's ? If a mother of a 4four children had suddenly decided to run awayand live in Tahiti to paint - as did Gauguin -she would have no doubt been brought backhome by the police and if she insisted shut up in an insane asylum ! (happened to Camille )CLAUDEL