SOURCE: Conroy, Derval. “Gender, Power and Authority in Alexandre le Grand and Athalie.” In Racine: The Power and the Pleasure, edited by Edric Calidcott and Derval Conroy, pp. 55-74. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2001.

In the following essay, Conroy examines the dynamic between gender, power, and sovereign authority in Alexandre le Grand and Athalie.

Attitudes towards women in power and women in authority permeate all forms of seventeenth-century discourse. While the debate concerning female sovereignty and female regency was at its most heated in the latter half of the sixteenth century, the reality of women in public government was kept very alive throughout the grand siècle both by the regencies of Marie de Médicis (1610-31) and Anne d'Autriche (1643-61),¹ and by the reign of the neighbouring Christine de Suède (1632-54). Furthermore the issue of female governance was continually fuelled by the ongoing querelle des femmes...