This course will deal with the notion of the woman as author in modern critics, the characteristics of feminine writing, the reception of women’s works and other subjects linked to gender studies and literature but applied to the Medieval and Early Modern period in France. In the 16^th century, the Reformation and the Counter Reformation will induced deep changes in the education of women and as a result the number of women writers will dramatically increase compared to the Middle Ages. We’ll discuss the specificity of the feminine writing in the Renaissance and the 17^th century through the work of Marie de France’s Lais, Christine de Pisan’s City of the Ladies, the Heptameron (72 novels) by Marguerite de Navarre, Marguerite de Valois’Memoirs, Madame de La Fayette’s Princess of Clèves, Madame de Sévigné’s Letters, Madame d’Aulnoy, Tales of Mother Goose.