The Intersexed Intertext: Du Bellay’s Appropriation of Bradamante’s Lyric Laments

In a study of Pierre de Ronsard and Pontus de Tyard, Cathy Yandell considers why a male author might adopt a female poetic voice by seeking to answer the question, “To what extent are these created females typical of contemporaneous women?” (66). She explores Ronsard’s and Tyard’s poems by “examining the extent to which Ronsard and Tyard succeed in creating convincing female narrators” (67). Yandell thus prepares an engaging yet precarious venture into social inquiry. Who is a convincing female narrator? What are our expectations of an “authentic” female voice? Moreover, do any sixteenth-century poets—male or female—succeed in representing their speakers as contemporary women? Do they even attempt to fashion such poetic personae? In order to define what constitutes a convincing female narrator, Yandell departs from the familiar definition of écriture féminine. She adopts instead one of the six criteria stipulated by Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani in her definition of l’écriture du féminin—the quality of reciprocity—and adds that the author must be a woman and acknowledge her status as female.¹

According to this final criterion, Ronsard and Tyard would seem to be excluded a priori from l’écriture du féminin, but this theoretical impasse is resolved by substituting the sex of the poetic persona for that of the author:

Only two of the categories, 2) reciprocity and 7) an acknowledgment of the author’s status as female, apply emphatically to these poems. … Both Ronsard’s and Tyard’s speakers acknowledge their status as female within the poems.

(Yandell 67, my emphasis)

Yandell then examines in greater detail the requirement of reciprocity, illustrating how both Ronsard and Tyard succeed initially in maintaining a “feminine” rhetoric of shared passion with the beloved. She proceeds to argue, however, that the authors’ displays of classical erudition ultimately undermine convincing lyric transvestism. When the male poets hide behind Latin sources, rather than fashioning voices that reflect those of contemporary women, they reveal the true theme of their works — poetic competition between male authors.

Yandell’s observation that Ronsard and Tyard are primarily interested in exhibilitng their poetic prowess is astute. However, I am reluctant to exclude women writers from participation in this literary phenomenon. Evocations and resonances of classical topoi abound in the works of Renaissance women poets. Female authors also frequently conflate their amorous and poetic superiority in order to assert preeminence in both domains. In Elégie 2, for example, Labé’s female speaker famously reminds her absent beloved that if he has betrayed her by falling in love with another woman, this other woman will never love him as much as she does, nor will she be able to bring him as much glory and honor by association:

Si toutefois pour estre enamouréEn autre lieu, tu as tant demeuré,Si say je bien que t’amie nouvelleA peine aura le renom d’estre telle,Soit en beauté, vertu, grace et faconde,Comme plusieurs gens savans par le mondeM’ont fait à tort, ce croy je, estre estimee.Mais qui pourra garder la renommee?Non seulement en France suis flatee,Et beaucoup plus, que ne veux, exaltee. La terre aussi que Calpe et PyreneeAvec la mer tiennent environnee,Du large Rhin les roulantes areines,Le beau païs auquel or’te promeines,Ont entendu (tu me l’as fait à croire)Que gens d’esprit me donnent quelque gloire.… jamais femme ne t’aymera,Ne plus que moy d’honneur te portera.

(55–68, 73–74, my emphasis)²

Like Ronsard’s and Tyard’s female personae, Labé’s speaker in Elégie 2 also unequivocally declares that her love triumphs over all others. Indeed, the female poet’s repeated evocations of her illustrious reputation ultimately overshadow the importance of her own sentiments. The insistence upon her renowned talents is particularly emphasized in lines 59–62 where the final syllables of each line highlight her fame: estimee, renommee, flatee, exaltee. Although she occasionally employs a modesty topos, claiming that she is simply repeating what others have told her...