Abstract
This article asks how storytelling, when part of a project of literary nation building, can function in a recuperative manner, such that military failure can be reformulated as divinely ordained Victory. The particular case studied here is that of a short epic written by Étienne Dolet (1509–1546) for the king Francis I (r. 1515–1547), first published in Latin as the Fata (or Destinies) and then in a self-authored French translation published under the title Les Gestes (The Great Deeds). To study Dolet's storytelling strategies and following a contextualizing introduction, this article focuses first on how Dolet narrates French victory at the Battle of Marignano (1515) and then on the tale of French defeat at Pavia (1525), which led to the king's humiliating capture and imprisonment in Madrid. Similar storytelling techniques are deployed in both circumstances, and it is suggested that this very transferability is what allows Dolet's storytelling to be (potentially) so successful.
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