"This collection of essays provides a major reassessment of those literary figures from the later Enlightenment to the beginnings of Modernism who are most studied on French and German courses in Britain and around the world today." "By investigating the works of these canonical male French and German writers through the optic of feminist criticism, the contributors lay bare some of the fundamental aesthetic questions raised by these works: the function of art and of the artist; the limits of Realism; the relation of gender and genre. Readers new to French and German can study one author in depth or engage in comparative analysis, while specialists will find much to stimulate their critical thinking."--Jacket.