Earthly Treasures: Material Culture and Metaphysics in the Heptameron and Evangelical Narrative

Notes

Notes 291 Introduction Objects of Desire: Reading the Material World Metaphysically in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron 1. This chapter in an earlier form first appeared in the journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association Quidditas 19 (2001): 163–95. 2. Similarly, there is a lot going on in this study. Diverse disciplines offer tools with which to explore these cultural phenomena. Among them are textual materialist criticism; the venues of fine and decorative arts; evangelical thought, both Calvinist and Lutheran; and the technique of explication de texte. Textured hybrids result from such pluridisciplinary influences, and various colleagues provide models for discussion of them: Patricia Fumerton and her work on miniatures and other early modern material representations of ideology; Gérard Defaux’s work on sixteenth-century French evangelicalism; Roberto Campo’s deft exploration of the intersections between Renaissance painting and Ronsard’s poetry; Peter Stallybrass’s examination of artifacts and early modern oddities such as costumes and theatrical props; Mary McKinley’s thesis that the Heptaméron is the product of collaborative construction; and numerous others. 3. It is legitimate to use the term metaphysics in reference to Marguerite ; William Tyndall used it, for instance, in 1528 in the Oxford English Dictionary. 4. She nonetheless distinguishes herself from them, and from Lefèvre d’Étaples in particular. D’Étaples still held to a doctrine of “double justi fication” (faith coupled with works), while Marguerite is more explicitly evangelical in denying the efficacy of the latter. 5. McKeon 41. 6. Abel Lefranc’s 1896 article, “Les idées religieuses de Marguerite de Navarre,” already provided an état présent of the subject, then demonstrated that Marguerite’s poetry was penned by an author convinced by the dogma and spirit of the Reformation. 7. She differs from Boccaccio, a certain influence as Donald Stone has already shown, in that ambiguities persist in Boccaccio’s text concerning the moral dimensions of worldliness and materiality. Marguerite is clear that both are suspect; not prey to such ambivalence, she uses these elements dialectically, in tension with her vision of an ideal, spiritualized universe. See Donald Stone, From Tales to Truths: Essays on French Fiction in the Sixteenth Century. 8. Similar precursor and contemporary projects, which both influenced and probably were influenced by the Heptaméron, include Bonaventure Des Périers’s Nouvelles récréations et joyeux devis (1558), in which the author, like Marguerite, expounds at length, and digressively, on the etymology of 292 deviser, and Noël Du Fail’s Propos rustiques (1547) and Baliverneries (1548). These texts are discussed further on in the present study as examples of the new genre of evangelical narratives. 9. W. G. Moore, Henri Heller, and Gérard Defaux all identified distinctly evangelical aspects of Marguerite’s work, although none has situated it in reference to other cultural productions, such as artistic media, as the present study will do. Gary Ferguson’s study, Mirroring Belief: Marguerite de Navarre’s Devotional Poetry, also identifies evangelical elements in Marguerite de Navarre’s poetry. Ferguson shows that Marguerite evolves away from her traditional Catholicism toward a pronounced sympathy for certain Reformed perspectives: an evangelical Catholicism. He demonstrates that, even in her early works, Marguerite employs many of the ideas and images emphasized by the Reformers and, in particular, by Luther. Such borrowing is especially apparent in discussions of the problem of sin and in articulating ideas about fallen man. 10. See, notably, Henri Heller, “Marguerite de Navarre and the Reformers of Meaux.” Heller examines the evangelical position of other reformers such as Briçonnet and Roussel, as well. 11. Heller 273. Particularly concerning justification—whether by faith (Calvin and Luther’s perspective: sola fidei) or through works (the Catholic stance)—Marguerite took some time to move from the customary reliance on saints, intercession, and works of charity to a Reformed reliance on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as sufficient and absolute atonement for all sins and proof of salvation. Nonetheless, shift she eventually did. 12. Heller 273. “[Vive foy] is [an expression] associated primarily with the evangelicals, and though not eschewed by certain Catholics, it yet comes to be linked more and more firmly with Protestant writers.” 13. Gérard Defaux’s research and publication in theologo-literary interpretation of Marguerite’s Heptaméron supports my thesis. See his “De la Bonne Nouvelle aux nouvelles: Remarques sur la structure de l’Heptaméron,” French Forum 2001...