Marguerite de Navarre: A Critical Companion. By Emily Butterworth

Abstract

This book amply fulfils the aims stated on its cover: ‘to offer a guide to the critical tradition on Marguerite’s work along with new readings of her texts, revealing both the historical specificity of her writing and its continuing relevance’. Distinguishing itself from the Brill Companion to Marguerite de Navarre (2013), which comprises a series of studies by different scholars of particular works, this single-authored volume is organized thematically. Emily Butterworth devotes most attention to the short-story collection, L’Heptaméron, which is brought into fruitful dialogue with other texts — plays, poems of diverse genres, and letters — discussed in relation to five major topics and in terms of historical realities and imaginary creations. Chapter 1, ‘Communities’, examines Marguerite in the contexts of family, court, and the writers in her circle, but also the communities figured in the Heptaméron and projected with a view to be enacted in her theatre. Chapter 2, ‘Religion’, discusses the ideological and political context of the Reformation and Marguerite’s support of the group known as Evangelicals, before turning to her first publication, the Miroir de l’âme pécheresse, and the all-important notion of ‘cuyder’ [false pride] that runs throughout her entire œuvre. Chapter 3, ‘Politics’, deals with Marguerite’s 1525 embassy to Madrid as represented in correspondence; the politics of royal marriages; the Heptaméron’s treatment of justice and authority; and the portrayal of the author in that work as ‘an ideal overlord: the last resort of the oppressed, a conduit of justice, and a defender of the vulnerable’ (p. 96). Chapters 4, 5, and 6 focus in particular on the Heptaméron, discussed in relation to ‘Women and Men’, ‘Desire’, and ‘Form and Technique’. They offer illuminating readings of a number of tales, drawing on a range of critics and approaches — notably psychoanalytic — and an overview of relevant genres or literary modes, such as dialogue, conversation, nouvelle, and histoire. While inaccuracies are few, the storyteller Longarine is presented as the beloved of Dagoucin (p. 126) and Saffredent (p. 172). In fact, one of these men is the serviteur of Longarine, the other of Parlemente; the particular relationships are never specified. It is Parlemente who has two serviteurs, Dagoucin or Saffredent and Simontault. Moreover, while critics often state that the Miroir de l’âme pécheresse was ‘censured’ (p. 20) or ‘momentarily condemned’ (p. 53), the facts remain nebulous. No formal censure, it seems, was ever formulated, although, had François Ier not intervened, this might perhaps have ensued. The correct date of the second, Gruget edition of the Heptaméron is 1559 (p. 196) not 1558 (p. 177). Butterworth’s style is engaging, as numerous well-turned phrases attest: the Heptaméron is ‘life-affirming, open-ended, quarrelsome, yet conciliatory’ (p. 52). The consistent explanation of literary-historical terms — from ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Reformation’ to ‘direct/indirect discourse’ and ‘frame narrative’ — ensures the book’s appeal to a broad audience. Useful to specialists, it also offers the undergraduate or general reader with limited background knowledge an excellent introduction, scholarly yet accessible, concise yet comprehensive.