Théâtre de Femmes de l'Ancien Régime: XVIe Siècle by Aurore Evain; Perry Gethner;Henriette GoldwynReview by: Bérénice Virginie Le Marchand and James M. OgierThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Summer, 2008), pp. 591-592Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20478978 .

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Book Reviews 591

Gambart's emblems present a multifaceted structure typical of some seventeenth-cen tury emblem books. On the recto pages, the top of the pictura states one of St. Francis's attri butes, followed by the pictura with an inscribed motto in Latin. Under the pictura, the Latin motto is paraphrased by a French distich. Each emblem is followed, in the verso page, by a prose commentary of the emblem (Eclaircissement), and by a set of numbered items titled Fruits et Pratiques (Lessons and Conduct). These numbered items are both spiritual advice to the readers, based on the emblems, and points for action and meditation. The original French edition also contains a set of meditations based on parallels between St. Francis's apostolate and the life of Christ; these texts have not been included in the edition.

Most of Gambart's emblems are reinterpretations of commonplace emblem picturae that have been ascribed a new meaning featuring St. Francis's Christian virtues. By far the

most interesting sections of the book are contained in the Eclaircissements, where Gambart, after explaining the meaning of the emblem, offers examples and comments on specific people and events during the saint's life. These lively vignettes represent an invaluable doc ument for the history of the religious mentality of the French seventeenth century.

This beautiful and carefully produced edition of Gambart's Vie Symbolique de St. Fran

pois de Sales is not only a suitable homage to St. Francis and Salesian spirituality, but a well deserved tribute to Elizabeth Stopp's valuable contribution to Salesian studies.

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Theatre de Femmes de lAncien Regime: XVIe Siecle. Ed. Aurore Evain, Perry Gethner, and Henriette Goldwyn. Saint-Etienne: Universite de Saint-Etienne, 2006. 568 pp. ?10.00. ISBN 978-2-86272-424-9.

REVIEWED BY: Berenice Virginie Le Marchand, San Francisco State University

REVIEW TRANSLATED BY: James M. Ogier, Roanoke College

This anthology on women's theater in the Ancien Regime represents the first of five volumes. It is edited by Aurore Evain, an actress and doctoral candidate who is preparing a dissertation on women theater playwrights in the Ancien Regime; Perry Gethner, professor at Oklahoma State University and specialist on French women dramatists of the Renais sance; and Henriette Goldwyn, professor at NYU, who works on the seventeenth century. This volume, in three parts, presents the dramatic works of Marguerite de Navarre, Louise Labe, and Catherine Des Roches. After a short introduction to the dramatist herself, each play is introduced and placed in its historical and literary context. This collection includes a total of thirteen plays.

In an introduction that is detailed and rich in information, Aurore Evain unfolds for us the history and evolution of the interest shown to women dramatists, and in particular the obstacles to their literary careers, as opposed to those of male dramatists. Criticized or excluded from most universities and intellectual circles, the women dramatists had to bear the domination of masculine authority in this area.

The first-and longest-part of the collection is dedicated to Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549), sister of Francois I and supporter of the Reformation. Eight of her eleven plays are published in this anthology. Having received a solid education, she would be the first Frenchwoman dramatist and the first to have her works printed. Marguerite was influenced in her plays by the medieval heritage of farces, mystery plays, and burlesques. Her plays, the comedies (a term used at the time to designate all kinds of plays) as well as her satires, derive from her religious and moral convictions.

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592 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXIX/2 (2008)

Her farce L'inquisiteur, presumably her first play, composed around 1535, places on stage a doctor of the Sorbonne who, according to himself, knows it all, and a valet who in fact will guide the inquisitor on the path to God. The second play presented here, Le

Malade, is in essence a malade imaginaire before that of Moliere, but one who sees reason and is cured once he decides to follow the advice of the chambermaid by accepting God and penitence. Trop, Prou, Peu, Moins is an allegorical farce, the theme of which is deceptive appearances and in which the personages Trop and Prou, who are rich and proud but inca pable of profiting from their wealth, are juxtaposed with Peu and Moins, who are poor but who can appreciate the meager goods they own. The next play, La Comedie des Quatre Femmes, is reminiscent of Navarre's Heptame'ron (1558), where a social debate takes place on the subject of true love. In the same spirit, La Comedie des Parfaits Amants, shows an old woman who will offer her hat to the best lover. La Comedie de Mont de Marsan (1548) pres ents four categories of women: the woman of the world, the superstitious woman, the wise woman, and the woman possessed by the love of God. One can see that the names are alle gorical and that the play is based on essence and appearances, and the search for divine love. La Nativite is a biblical play based on the Gospel of Luke, with a predominant role assigned to Mary. The last play, Come'die du Desert, is another biblical comedy in which once again

Mary is valorized and represented as the perfect model of womanhood. Louise Labe (ca. 1520-66), called la Belle Cordeliere and well known for her poems

and elegies, also composed a play for the theater, De'bat de Folie et dAmour (ca. 1550). Labe belonged to the Lyon School, which was strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance. Aurore Evain reminds us that Labe's works were republished four times in 1556, but that in the end she did not escape the criticisms of her male contemporaries. Steeped in the tradi tion of Humanist theater, her only play brings to mind Erasmus's Praise of Folly. She places upon the stage Folly incarnate in the form of a woman who wants to fight Love. A debate ensues. Folly blinds Love, and the latter, with the aid of his mother, Venus, seeks revenge at the Court of Jupiter. Apollo and Mercury defend Love and Folly, respectively. After having heard the arguments of the opposing camps, Jupiter rules that "guidera Folie l'aveugle Amour, et le conduira partout ofu bon lui semblera" (Folly will guide blind Love and lead him wherever he likes) (446). Demanding independence of thought and the right to the expression of desire, Labe, in this De'bat, defends the equality of the sexes.

The final part of the volume is devoted to Catherine Des Roches (1542-87). More pro ductive than her mother Madeleine, Catherine was well known to the literary circles of the period, in particular to that of Poitiers. The younger Des Roches decided not to marry, in order to devote herself to writing; however, her works are often colored by the dichotomy between the intellectual world and the domestic world. She attempted a variety of literary genres, and four plays appear in this anthology. The tragicomedy Tobie (1579) presents a young man, Tobie, who encounters Azarie, the angel Raphael, who advises him to ask for the hand of Sarra, even though she has had seven husbands, all of whom died on their wed ding night. The angel promises Tobie to protect him if he shows himself to be "plus aimant de la beaute de l'ame que celle du corps" (more a lover of the beauty of the soul than of that of the body) (463). The pastorale La Bergerie (1580) deals with love through two men and four women, all differing in opinions and thoughts. The last two plays in the volume, Placide et Se'vere and Iris et Pasithee (1581-82), are dramatic dialogues that together form one play. A debate about the education of girls ensues, which cannot help but evoke La Querelle desfemmes. The three women dramatists presented in this volume were pioneers of the dramatic literary genre and through their works they transcribe their message of equality of women and their right to desire, education, and independence.

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