Approaches to Teaching Marguerite De Navarre's 'Heptaméron' by Colette H. Winn

Abstract

196 Reviews century up to the 1960S between the polarized extremes of a role as saviour of humanity or its villainous destroyer. The history of thedevelopment of theatomicbomb iswell known,butSmith adds a further dimensionto thestory by showing hownuclear warwas imagined infiction as soonas radioactivity was discovered. His discussionincludes relatively unknown worksoffiction suchasFrankStockton's TheGreat War Syndicate (1889) andRoyNorton'sTheVanishing Fleets(1907); inthelatter, battleships aredestroyed bythe'most deadlyengineeverconceived'.Indeedthegenreoffuture-wars fiction, an important subsetof sciencefiction, emergedin thisperiodand novelsoffered ameans ofvisualizingtheimplementation ofnewmilitarytechnology. Not only that: novelssometimes suggested newpossibilities. Leo Szilard'snotionofanuclear chainreaction was partly suggested byThe WorldSetFree,and thehotline between Washingtonand Moscowwas taken from Peter George'sRedAlert(1958),the novel onwhichKubrickbasedDr. Strangelove. Theultimate superweapon, the'dirty' nuclearbomb, was first discussedin1950, theyear aftertheSovietUnion detonatedtheirfirst atomicdevice.This is the period when thearmsracebegan toaccelerate visibly, a process whichwas satirized in manyworks,including Bernard Wolfe'sneglected blackcomedyLimbo (1952). Smith shows that control in every sense lay at the heart of thepursuit of the super weapon, but he rather understates thenature of the arms race,which tomany at the time seemedtobe running at its own momentum. His subtitle promises a revelation of whowas therealStrangelove, butofcoursethere was no single prototype. Kubrick devisedhimas a compositefigure, embodying a technological militarism divorced from humanity. Leo Szilard would not fitsince he was a Hungarian Jewish refugee fromNazism who by the late 1950s had begun to express his guilt over the atom bomb insciencefiction stories. Other possiblecandidatesincludeJohn vonNeu mann,HermanKahn (whosestudy On Thermonuclear War influenced Kubrick), or EdwardTeller, who issatirized inBurdickand Wheeler's 1962nuclearthriller Fail Safe.This isnot reallythepoint,however. Kubrick was demonstrating an unholy alliancebetweenthe US military, the politicalestablishment, and scientists, includ ingthose Nazis broughtto Americaunder OperationPaperclip.Inhiscoda Smith notesthattheSoviet Union did indeeddevisea doomsday weapons system similar tothat described byStrangelove. What, onewonders,happenedtothat system after thecollapseofCommunism? UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL DAVID SEED ApproachestoTeaching MargueritedeNavarre's 'Heptame'ron'. Ed. byCOLETTE H. WINN. New York: Modern LanguageAssociationofAmerica. 2007. xv+ 247 pp. $19.75. ISBN 978-o-87352-592-3. Despite itsapparent accessibility, MargueritedeNavarre's Heptame'ron isa decep tively complextext:itspolyvocality and narrativeintricacy is coupledwith the slipperiness of itsnarrator. Moreover,thefrequently bewildering behaviour of the MLR, 104.1, 2009 197 characters inthestories servestoproblematize whatatfirst appearstobe a relatively clearsetof moral tales, directly recounted through a female'authorial' voice.In the light ofsuchcomplexity, this newvolumeof twenty-seven essays, dividedintofour parts,servestwovery welcome roles:tosuggest awide range of entry-points for teachers intothis pluraltext; and toindicate (bothtoteachers and to more experi encedstudents) how theprocessofscholarship, insometimes unfamiliar areas,can enhanceourunderstanding of the work.In thefirst setofessaystheimportance of the historical andcultural backgroundisemphasized. An initiation intocontextual issues willbeofparticular importance for novicestudents, whomaybeginbystudy ingthetextinexcerpts. Marguerite'sclose involvement with thedevelopment of Christian humanisminFrance,theinfluences of theconductliterature of thetime, and thelegacy ofcourtly loveareall indicated as dimensions which 'setthescene' fora study of the work.One particularly relevant teaching approach,suggested by SusanBroomhall,is toconsiderthepublishing history of thetext,inwhich the bookwas made more 'suitable' to thegeneralreaderthrough male intervention. Thisapproach,like manyothersinthevolume,emphasizesthefactthat no text can come to itsreaderina pure,unmediatedform. A further valuablecontribution to ourunderstanding ofthetext's background isPhilipFord'sessayon sexualequality andevangelical Neoplatonism. For the modern reader, itisoften difficult toviewthe relationships between characters inthe bookotherthan negatively. However, Ford's essayindicates amore positive message,namelythat men andwomen can achieve fulfilment inlove, and thatlovecanhaveanennobling aswell asdebasingeffect. The second set of essays offersa variety of 'critical tools' thatmay be used when teaching theHeptame'ron: these include a focus on the text's narratology; an awareness of its relationship withothergenressuchas the'histoire tragique'; thetheme ofcomedy and laughter; and the work'sconnection with intertexts suchasErasmus'sGodly Feast.This setof essaysalso providesfurther illuminating reflections on gender issues, such as theway inwhich female consciousness is narrated during the Re naissance periodand theimportance ofmale relationships inconstructing thetext. FranSois Rigolot'sessay, inparticular, indicates howaneclectic approachtoreading Story xxxii,through the application ofaesthetic, ethical, historical, andpoliticalap proaches, addsmultifarious layers and shadesof meaningtoanapparently straight forward allegory, thereby militating againstsimplistic symbolic interpretations. The third set of essays is useful for those wishing to use other texts byMarguerite de Navarre,suchasherletters, poetry, and theatre, aswellearly manuscripts ofthe Hep tameron and illustrated worksby Marguerite. Taken together, thesecontributions support theview that far frombeing an anomaly in Marguerite's literaryenterprise, theHeptameron is fully in keeping with the ideology and artistic procedures of...