Marguerite de Navarre's Shifting Gaze

Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron, composed in the 1540s and first published posthumously in 1558 and 1559, has long been an interpretive puzzle.De Navarre (1492-1549), sister of King Francis I of France, was a controversial figure in her lifetime. Her evangelical activities and proximity to the Crown placed her at the epicenter of her country's internecine strife and societal unrest. Yet her short stories appear to offer few traces of the sociopolitical turbulence that surrounded her.In Marguerite de Navarre's Shifting Gaze, however, Elizabeth Zegura argues that the Heptaméron's innocuous appearance camouflages its serious insights into patriarchy and gender, social class, and early modern French politics, which emerge from an analysis of the text's shifting perspectives.

Elizabeth Chesney Zegura is Associate Professor (Emerita) of French and Italian at the University of Arizona, USA.