Teaching French Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation
- Editor: Colette H. Winn
- Pages: vii & 434 pp.
- Published: 2011
- ISBN: 9781603290906 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603290890 (Hardcover)
“This work will facilitate course design, supplement existing units on sixteenth-century literature, and ultimately lead to new avenues of enquiry. In sum, this volume is a welcome addition to the existing scholarship as it contains myriad new possibilities for guiding students through their own explorations of early modern women writers.”
—Modern Language Review
Teaching French Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation considers the issues critical to teaching recently rediscovered writers, such as Hélisenne de Crenne, Pernette Du Guillet, and Louise Labé, who have enriched the literary canon by offering alternative perspectives on the social, political, and religious issues of early modern France. Addressing topics from law and medicine to motherhood and aesthetics, these women wrote in nearly every genre, and their works include several literary firsts: the first book of Christian emblems ever published by a woman (Georgette de Montenay), the first published collection of private letters between women in French (the Dames Des Roches), and the first full-length memoir by a woman in French (Margaret of Valois).
The volume considers techniques for reading women’s writing alongside the texts of their male contemporaries and offers guidance on incorporating a range of resources into the classroom. Essays in part 1 explore the background and contexts so crucial for helping students understand how these writers negotiated their entry into the public world of writing. In part 2, contributors discuss specific genres. Part 3 describes critical methodologies that are useful in the classroom and demonstrates the benefits of teaching certain pairings of texts and authors. The fourth and final part recommends a range of electronic and print resources.
Cécile Alduy
Jean-Philippe Beaulieu
Edith Joyce Benkov
Laura B. Bergman
Susan Broomhall
Leah Chang
Jane Couchman
Gary Ferguson
Carla Freccero
Nancy Frelick
Zeina Hakim
Karen Simroth James
Ann Rosalind Jones
Carrie F. Klaus
Claude La Charité
Anne R. Larsen
Deborah Lesko Baker
Mary B. McKinley
Leslie Zarker Morgan
Dora E. Polachek
Graziella Postolache
François Rigolot
Brigitte Roussel
Danielle Trudeau
Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier
Diane S. Wood
Carla Zecher
Introduction (1)
Part I: Background and Contexts
Nicole Estienne’s Les misères de la femme mariée and the Marriage Controversy in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century (25)
Picturing Great Ladies of the Renaissance Who Helped Pave the Literary Way (34)
Jeanne de Jussie, the Convent of Saint Clare, and the Reformation of Geneva (56)
Humanism and Women’s Writing: The Case of Hélisenne de Crenne (66)
Production and Reproduction: Contextualizing Women’s Writing as Labor (73)
The Invention of Female Authorship in Early Modern France (84)
Brantôme’s Women: Revising the Masculine Point of Reference (94)
Pernette Du Guillet among the Néoplatoniciennes of Her Time: Private Conversation Meant to Be Overheard (105)
Part II: Authors,Works, Genres
Louise Labé’s Elegies; or, The Assuming of a Borrowed Voice (123)
A Case Study in Close Reading: Pernette Du Guillet’s Chanson 7 (132)
Gender and Genres: Teaching Women and the Epistolary Genre (143)
Georgette de Montenay’s Emblemes, ou devises chrestiennes: Material Object, Digital Subject (153)
The Pasquin and Political Commentary: The Case of Anne de Marquets (161)
Feminine Authorial Ethos: The Use of Marie de Gournay’s Discours sur ce livre as an Introduction to Her Collected Works (170)
Part III: Critical Concerns
Approaches and Methodologies
Louise Labé and Italian in Sixteenth-Century Lyon (181)
Reading the Heptameron: Feminist and Queer Approaches (191)
Reading Hélisenne with Transference (206)
The Anatomy of Gender: Decoding Petrarchan Lyrics (Labé, Scève, Ronsard) (218)
How Should Sixteenth-Century Feminine Poetry Be Taught? The Exemplary Case of Marie de Romieu (230)
The Cross-Dressed Text: Reading Men Writing as Women in Sixteenth-Century France (242)
Comparative Contexts and Strategies
Teaching the Influence of Renaissance Women Writers on One Another: The Case of Catherine Des Roches (254)
Women’s Writing, Anne de Marquets, and the Priory of Poissy (264)
Marie Dentière’s Epistle to Marguerite de Navarre and the Heptameron (273)
Variations on the Same Tune: The Love Lyrics of Louise Labé and Gabrielle de Coignard (285)
Teaching Louise Labé’s Prose in Translation: The Dedicatory Letter and the Debate of Folly and Love (302)
Part IV: Current Resources
Print Resources for Teaching and Further Study (317)
Professional Resources and Activities (339)
Online Resources (349)
Rare Books and Web Pages (363)
Notes on Contributors (371)
Works Cited (377)
Index of Names (421)
“An excellent volume of essays on an increasingly important topic of research and instruction.”
—Edwin M. Duval, Yale University
“[A]n inspiring collection of articles that provide a solid foundation for anyone wanting to develop a course or enhance an existing one on French women writers of the Renaissance and Reformation.”
—French Review
“With its rich selection of varied approaches to teaching the women writers featured, this collection will be of use to scholars and teachers of early modern French literature, as well as to those interested in women’s literary history in general. With the current wealth of translations available, it will also be of interest to anyone teaching early modern literature in English translation, be it in a literary or historical context.”
—H-France Review
