Les Missives (review)

With the publication of Les Missives (Letters) of Madeleine and Catherine des Roches, Anne Larsen concludes the project of editing the complete works of the noted mother and daughter from Poitiers—pioneers as women humanists, poets, and salon hostesses. Representing the third volume that the Des Roches offered to the public—following the Œuvres (1578) and Secondes Œuvres (1583)—Les Missives (1586) constitute the first collection of private correspondence published by women in France. While a small number of letters like those to the publisher Abel Langelier supply valuable documentary evidence (a response to his declining to take on a work; apologies for the lateness of a manuscript), most are of a more general nature. Their most salient characteristics are concision and an elegance that relies on wit and a well-turned phrase; with their opening address and conclusion excised, they stand as examples of the kind of civil exchange described in numerous epistolary manuals of the time. Occasionally accompanied by gifts or other objects, their aim was generally to compliment, to ingratiate, to request a service, express an obligation—or not, as in the case of an importunate suitor. As a vital means for the maintenance of the whole gamut of early modern social relationships—familial, friendly, professional, etc.—the interest of such letters, for the modern reader, lies less in their specific subject matter than in the insight they offer into a central cultural practice, and its material, formal, and rhetorical underpinnings.

Accompanying the letters are a number of verse compositions comprising "responses," that function like the "missives" themselves, epitaphs, and, in the case of Catherine des Roches, several poems inspired by classical models, most notably an ambitious translation into 1480 alexandrins of the late Latin poet Claudian's unfinished epic, De raptu Proserpinae. While, by modern standards, many Renaissance translations are rather free adaptations, it is significant that Catherine elaborates two aspects in particular: the violence of the abduction of the innocent young victim, and the pain and anger of Proserpina's mother, Ceres, at her separation from her daughter.

As in her two previous editions of the works of the Des Roches, Professor Larsen offers the reader an informative introduction and generous notes, marked equally by sound erudition and sensitivity to the text. Among the early modern women writers to enjoy greater critical attention in recent years, the Dames des Roches figure prominently. It is fitting, therefore, that the present volume should conclude with a series of tributes to the learned mother and daughter published under the Old Regime. Modern scholars of the period can only be grateful that they now have access to their complete works in such fine editions.