Abstract

At the centre of the traditional medieval pastourelle is a débat amoureux, a spirited and sometimes contentious conversation between a shepherdess and her would-be suitor. The débat amoureux, in an expanded and more complex form, features prominently in Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron, both in the novellas themselves and in the frame story that surrounds them. Although the pastourelle's influence on the Heptaméron has never been described, it is clear that the collection of novellas by the Queen of Navarre inherited substantially from these narrative medieval poems.

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