The Heptameron

Assessing the relationship between the emergence of modern French literary culture and the ideological debates that marked Renaissance France, Timothy Hampton explores the role of literary form in shaping national identity.

The foundational texts of modern French literature were produced during a period of unprecedented struggle over the meaning of community. In the face of heresy, threats from abroad, and new forms of diversity, Renaissance French culture confronted, in new and urgent ways, the question of what it means to be "French". Hampton's analysis of works by Rabelais, Montaigne, Du Bellay, and Marguerite de Navarre, as well as writings by lesser-known poets, pamphleteers, and political philosophers, shows that the vulnerability of France and the instability of French identity were pervasive cultural themes during this period.

Contemporary scholarship on nation-building in early modern Europe has emphasized the importance of centralized power and the rise of absolute monarchy. Hamptonoffers a counterargument, demonstrating that national identity in Renaissance France was defined against the non-French -- the foreigner, the intruder, the stranger. He provides both a methodological challenge to traditional cultural history and a new consideration of the role of literature in the definition of the nation.

The aim of this book is to introduce the modern student to readings of French Renaissance literature, drawing on the perspectives of contemporary literary theories. The volume is organized by paired readings of five major sixteenth-century French writers, with interpretations covering, among others, structuralism, semiotics, feminism and psychoanalysis. Linking these interpretations is a constant interest in problems such as the role of the reader, the nature of the text and the question of gender. The Introduction contextualizes the encounter between literary theory and Renaissance texts by using the contributions as pivotal points in the development of critical thinking about this period in early modern literature. All foreign language quotations are translated into English, and the book is intended to be of practical interest to a wide range of readers, from modern linguists to those studying critical theory, comparative literature or cultural history.

Floyd Gray explores how the treatment of controversial subjects in French Renaissance writing was affected by rhetorical conventions and the commercial requirements of an expanding publishing industry. Focusing on a wide range of discourses on gender issues--misogynist, feminist, autobiographical, homosexual and medical--Gray reveals the extent to which these marginalized texts reflect literary concerns rather than social reality. His new readings of Rabelais, Montaigne, Louise Labé and others, challenge the inherent anachronism of criticism that fails to take account of the cultural context of the period.

Fifty-one essays cover the lives and works of the most important women writers in the history of French literature with an emphasis on their experiences as writers, a discussion of their major themes, and brief surveys of critical reactions. Each essay is followed by a bibliography of primary works, a list of titles translated into English, and a selection of critical studies. An additional essay describes the trobairitz, the women troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries. The volume ends with a chronology featuring the dates of events and trends of special significance to French women.