A Transparent Veil: The Secret as Tragic Spectacle in Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron (1559)

A Transparent Veil: The Secret as Tragic Spectacle in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron (1559) This essay begins by exploring the fundamentally triangular system of power relationships and rhetorical strategies proposed by Andreas Capellanus's De Amore (1186) and Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier (1528). While both authors recognize the need for secrecy, their theoretical constructs contain fundamental ambiguities and contradictions, which authors such as Marguerite de Navarre exploit to full effect. The essay thus turns to the novella 70 of the Heptaméron (1559) as a case-study of how Navarre manipulates the triangular construct of secrecy to maximize the pathos of her tragic tale revealing an authorial stance akin to sprezzatura.