Jeunes filles en serre chaude explained

French: Jeunes filles en serre chaude (Young girls in a hothouse) is a 1934 novel by the French author Jeanne Galzy. Its protagonists are young women at the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles in Sèvres, a suburb of Paris, at the time a girls-only school. The school, which Galzy herself attended, trained girls especially as teachers for the secondary education system.^[1] The background for the events in the novel is the 50th anniversary of the secondary school system for women;^[2] it is one of many French novels and other (autobiographical) texts of the period in which authors' school and university experiences were recounted.^[3]

Following Burnt Offering (1929) and Les Démons de la solitude (1931), it is the third novel by Galzy (this one with a "seductive title"^[4]) to explore lesbian desire.^{[5] [6]} The intergenerational love in the novel (between a teacher, Gladys Benz, and a student, Isabelle, told from Isabelle's point of view) is likewise a reflection of Galzy's own experiences.^[7] The school was reputed to be a "breeding ground of homosexual relationship", and had earlier been the subject of a novel exploring same-sex desire, Les Sévriennes (1900) by Gabrielle Reval.^[8]

Like most of Galzy's novels, French: Jeunes filles is neglected by modern readers,^{[2] [7]} though it did attract some attention at the time of publication. A French reviewer remarked that the novel shows that "overworked brains" sometimes fall prey to "dangerous aberrations".^[9] A brief note in The Modern Language Journal remarked that "trivial but intensely human emotional reactions are realistically depicted",^[10] and the 1935 New International Year Book warned that the students depicted in the book have a "strong emotional reaction of an undesirable nature".^[11] The book is no longer in print; passages from it were anthologized in a 1985 collection of erotic women's literature.^[12]

Notes and References

1. Book: Fox, Robert. The Savant and the State: Science and Cultural Politics in Nineteenth-Century France. 2012. JHU Press. 9781421405223. 288.
2. Book: Milligan, Jennifer E.. The Forgotten Generation: French Women Writers of the Inter-war Period. 1996. Berg. 9781859731185. 97–98.
3. Gerbod. Paul. 1954. L'Université et la littérature en France de 1919 a 1939. Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine. 25. 1. 129–44. 20528445. French. 10.3406/rhmc.1978.1009.
4. Book: Paul, Harry W.. Henri de Rothschild, 1872-1947: Medicine and Theater. 2011. Ashgate. 9781409405153. 47 n.47.
5. Book: Waelti-Walters, Jennifer R.. Damned women: lesbians in French novels, 1796-1996. 2000. McGill-Queen's Press. 978-0-7735-2110-0. 99–102.
6. Book: Tamagne, Florence. Histoire de l'homosexualité en Europe: Berlin, Londres, Paris, 1919-1939. 2000. Éd. du Seuil. French. 9782020348843. 14 June 2013.
7. Book: Hawthorne, Melanie C.. Melanie C. Hawthorne. Contingent Loves: Simone De Beauvoir and Sexuality. https://books.google.com/books?id=luqj3g6S0RYC&pg=PA70. 2000. University of Virginia Press. 9780813919744. 55–83. Leçon de Philo/Lesson in Love: Simone de Beauvoir's Intellectual Passion and the Mobilization of Desire. 14 June 2013. registration.
8. Book: Tamagne, Florence. A history of homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris, 1919-1939. 2006. Algora. 978-0-87586-355-9. 139.
9. Schinz. Albert. 1935. L'Année littéraire mil neuf cent trente-quatre. The Modern Language Journal. 19. 8. 561–70. 315370. French. Ce sont les étudiantes de l'École de Sèvres dont les cerveaux surmenés causent parfois des aberrations dangereuses.. 10.2307/315370.
10. 1935. Recent French Books. The Modern Language Journal. 20. 1. 45–50. 315502. 10.1111/j.1540-4781.1935.tb02653.x.
11. Book: The New International Year Book. 1935. Dodd, Mead and Company. 255.
12. Book: Brécourt-Villars. Claudine. Ecrire d'amour: anthologie de textes érotiques féminins, 1799-1984. 1985. Éd. Ramsay. 9782859564292.