Judith Gautier

Isoline and the Serpent-flower Judith Gautier

Judith Gautier (1845-1917) was the daughter of the great Romantic writer, Théophile Gautier. Isoline features an extraordinary heroine and recycles Sleeping Beauty with a sharp ironic edge. The Serpent-Flower deals with guilt and vengeance from beyond the grave. Too Late is a subversive pastiche of hallucinatory erotic obsession. Her Oriental stories, such as The Prince with the Bloody Head and The Boatwoman of the Blue River, are flamboyant reinterpretations of myths and legends. Judith Gautier's works deal with the painful isolation of the individual and the destructive power of love. They commanded a considerable degree of critical respect and represented a refinement of the primitive Orientalism pioneered by early members of the French Romantic Movement. She made a highly significant contribution to the development of a literary Orient that was subsequently exploited by many later writers.