Partner Gisèle d'Estoc
Marie-Edmée
Pau (November 6, 1845 - May, 1871) became an illustrator and a draftswoman.
She also wrote Histoire de Notre Petite Sour Jeanne d'Arc.
She began a very strong friendly relationship with Gisèle d'Estoc, also an artist, in which the two young women develop their affinity for
Jeanne d'Arc
by exploring
gender identities
[
2
].
Pau died at 26. Her diary was published in 1876 as an
edifying example of a devoted life.
Raised in Nancy in a military environment in which the first sex is overvalued, at a time when the distribution of gender roles was particularly rigid, Marie-Edmée Pau) experiences with painful acuity the constraint that provincial society places on the life and body of young girls and does not recognize itself in its gender identity. In such a context, her diary was the only space of freedom to explore the multiple facets of an ineffable identity. Through metaphors, writing, syntax and punctuation, the diarist develops a true poetics of the genre. If this devout Catholic clings to the utopia of eternal life in which gender difference is finally abolished, she relied on her diary to ensure her physical sustainability here on earth. Thus appears as the symbolic body of the diarist.
My published books:
