Sofia Nilsson Warkander

My research focus is on French 17th century prose and drama, with particular focus on Marie-Catherine Hortense Desjardins or Madame de Villedieu and Madame de Lafayette. I explore literary representations of passionate love under the absolutism of Louis XIV, and the constructive and destructive workings of passionate love in regards to the (moral) development of the individual in the Early Modern period. I read gender and genre as categories of power, and study how literary works respond to the world in which they are written.

Some of my points of focus are different understandings of virtue in relation to the changing role of the aristocracy, the pedagogical aspect of literature, the socializing function of passionate love, and the field of History of Emotions. I analyze questions of gender as well as language and style, particularly questions of dissmulation and ambiguity, such as irony, cross-dressing, and cases of mistaken identity.