Heptaméron

Heptaméron is an unfinished collection of Nouvelle S written by Marguerite de Navarre.

Foreword

This work poses from the start of the questions: the first relates to the date of its composition. Does early work started in 1516 or work late which would be posterior with 1545 ? The answers according to the authors diverge considerably. Nicole Cazauran shows the stake which results from this: “ One would like more still to know if this complex work results from a slow development and multiple recoveries during a whole life, or if it made made up in few years, with a clear conscience of the comprehensive drawing ”

Then the absence of manuscript autograph and edition published of alive sound makes particularly difficult the precise establishment of a text. Must one speak about a Heptaméron of the News as Claude Gruget proposes it or trust with the words of Parlamente in the Prolog: she points out the Hundred News of Boccace and proposes with the company to reach in ten days the hundred.

The first two editions of Boaistuau ( 1558 ) and Claude Gruget ( 1559 ) are not very reliable: additions, reorganization, censures remarks considered to be too bold. How is it possible, in this difficult context, to risk itself with a meticulous examination of syntax?

Lastly, which bond links this work of fiction with historical reality?

General information

It has as a model the ten days of the Décaméron of Boccace, text translated into France as of 1414 .

But, stopped in 1549 by the death of Marguerite, Heptaméron gathers only 72 news being held in seven days. As in the work of Boccace, the news fits in history-tallies. Ten travellers are brought together in an abbey, whereas a violent one storm cut any communication. To spend time, this company listens to true stories in various registers. The success of this work is due to the fact that it privileges also the conversation, because each news is followed comments held by the whole of the listeners.

Unscrewing

Among the 10 unscrewing which tells the news, are 5 women: Parlamente, Oisille, Longarine, Ennasuite and Nomerfide and 5 men: Hircan, Géburon, Simontaut, Dagoucin and Saffredent.

Analyzes

Parlamente would express the opinion of Marguerite. The love is the principal subject. The narrators men exposing the turns which the women (new 30,35) and the narrators make showing the men of disloyalty, it is difficult to release the thought of the author exactly. One could speak about feminism, evangelism, Neo-Platonism. These dimensions exist, but the polyphony seems to make difficult the appreciation. Michel Jeanneret thus could write: “The indecidability is not due only to the diversity of unscrewing, it is also registered in the multiplicity of the facts, the immense variety of the phenomena. Doesn't a history convince? One tells some another, then another, and who each one illustrates a different truth, so that instead of being supplemented, the news diverges or is contradicted. One inlassablement questions the love, one turns around the same object, in order to build a comprehensive view, but no coherent sight emerges; the constants on which one hoped to establish laws are lacking. The particular event which was to find its place in an order appears finally irreducible, neither typical nor imitable; it falls apart from the epistemological categories and morals: it is extraordinary”.

“an honest beautiful woman is not less virtuous to be liked, by as it face of things which is against its honor” (Longarine in news 19)

“I call perfect lovers, those which seek in what they like some perfection, that is to say beauty, kindness or good grace, always tending to the virtue, and which have the heart so high and so honest that they do not want, to die, to end their the low things that the honor and the conscience reject. ” (Parlamente in news 19).

Note

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