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The Evolution of Hélisenne deCrenne's PersonaDiane S. Wooda

a Texas Tech UniversityPublished online: 02 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Diane S. Wood (1991) The Evolution of Hélisenne de Crenne'sPersona, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, 45:2, 140-151, DOI:10.1080/00397709.1991.10733740

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DIANE S. WOOD

THE EVOLUTION OF uELISENNE DE CRENNE'S PERSONA

THE INNOVATIVE NATURE OF FRANCE'S FIRST SENTIMENTAL NOVEL hasbeen examined during the past few years in numerous doctoral disserta­tions and scholarly articles. The present study is concerned with theauthor's acquisition of writing techniques and traces how Helisenne deCrenne creates her own persona in the reader's mind from a collage ofelements. A multifaceted view of the author/character/narrator/letterwriter evolves gradually during the course of her first two publishedvolumes and becomes more complex as the author gains confidence inher craft. Her self-portrait is genre-specific and intertextual in nature.Contemporary criticism enables the modern reader to codify the differ­ent Helisennes and to distinguish her fiction from autobiography.Helisenne develops from a specially acceptable (i.e., passive youngwoman) to become a much-criticized bas-b/eu, far ahead of her time.Despite social constraints of the sixteenth century, she paints a vivid fic­tional portrait in her prose. Reading her novel, Les Angoyssesdou/oureuses qui procedent d'amours (1538), along with her letter se­quence, Les Epistres familieres et inuectiues (1539), provides the key totracing the depiction of her personal development, culminating in her in­vective letters, wherein she presents her mature visage as defender of lit­erary women and author of bestselling fiction.

The author's use of first-person narration complicates discussion ofhow her persona evolves due to the multiplicity of her separate, con­tiguous selves, all of whom may be referred to as "Helisenne." In orderto distinguish clearly between the various layers of narrators, pro­tagonists, and letter writers, the following appellations will be used:

1. De Crenne = the author2. Helisenne = a global reference to the various Helisennes3. Letter Writer A = the writer of Epistres familieres 1-94. Letter Writer B = the writer of Epistres fami/ieres 10-125. Letter WriterC = the writer of Epistres inuectiues 1-56. Narrator = the narrator of the Angoysses, Part One7. Protagonist A = the protagonist of the Angoysses, Part One8. Protagonist B = the protagonist of the Angoysses, Part Three'

The theoretical constructs for breaking down the components of the

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complex portrait of Helisenne are recent developments. One should keepin mind that dividing her portrait into several letter writers and protagon­ists, as well as distinguishing between author, narrator, and character, ispossible only because of modern narrative theory. Nonetheless, althoughthe sixteenth-century reader did not have this theoretical framework, DeCrenne's strong message was not lost. Narrative theory enhances thetwentieth-century reader's appreciation of the author's technique inpresenting her message: passion leads to personal ruin and women canwrite literature.

The novel and letters are linked by a common plot line. The first nineEpistres familieres fit chronologically into the first chapter of theAngoysses. They establish the nature of Letter Writer A's relationshipsand furnish details about her early life that are absent in the novel. Thenext two letters, which concern the character transformation that occursafter the young woman falls in love, complete Part One of the novel. Thelast two letters refer to the woman's rescue by her beloved and serve as anaddendum to the novel's final episode, in which Protagonist B expressesChristian Neoplatonic ideals. The five Epistres inuectiues present LetterWriter C as the creator of a fictional world. The novel and letters are in­tended to be read together, as complements, receiving privileges onlythirteen months apart-II September 1538 for the Angoy.s:s'es and 18 Oc­tober 1539 for the Epistres (along with her allegorical Songe). The twovolumes were undoubtedly displayed side by side in the shop of their Par­isian imprimeur//ibraire Denys Janot. The complementary nature of thetwo separate works becomes even more obvious in the 1543 edition inwhich the novel, letters, and allegorical dream sequence appear in thesame volume." Subsequent sixteenth-century editions recognize the self­referentiality of the three works by continuing to publish them together.Three modern editions break this basic unity by presenting the novel sep­arately, with two of the editions including only Part One of the novel.'Such a presentation obscures for today's reader the evolution of Heli­senne's persona on several fictional levels.

The narrator of the Angoy.s:s'es creates a psychological portrait of Pro­tagonist A in the reader's mind by describing her inner reality as an in­tense dechirement, the embodiment of angoysse douloureuse. Physicaldescription, on the other hand, plays a relatively small role in DeCrenne's writings (Wood 134-36 and 140-46). The narrator offers only aglimpse of Protagonist A's physical attributes at age thirteen: "J'estoyede forme elegante, & de tout si bien proportionnee que j'excedoye toutesaultres femmes en beaulte de corps; & si j'eusse este aussi accomplye enbeaulte de visage, je m'eusse hardiment ose nommer des plus belles deFrance" (AngoY.s:s'es 7). The relative plainness of her face, as compared

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with her stunning body, deflates the impression that Protagonist A'sbeauty is hyperbolic. This presentation undercuts, to a considerable ex­tent, the reader's perception of the young girl's attractiveness, an estima­tion supported by the general opinion of her peers:

Quand me trouvoye en quelque lieu remply de grand multitude degens, plusieurs venoient entour moy pour me regarder (comme paradmiration) disans tous en general: "Voyez la Ie plus beau corpsque je veis jamais." Puis apres, en me regardant au visaige, dis­oient: "Elle est belle, mais il n'est a accomparer au corps."(AngoY5:S'es 7)

Despite her less-than-perfect face, the narrator states that several ad­mirers, including a king, sought her favor (AngoY5:S'es 7). The negativecomments concerning her features lend verisimilitude to her descriptionof herself, prevent any possible charge of vanity on her part, and are inkeeping with the topos of humilitas, a literary constraint very much inevidence in De Crenne's writings.

Along with physical description, details concerning Protagonist A's at­tire are also scarce. Her clothing is noted on only one occasion when herhusband orders her to dress splendidly ("triumphamment"). Ironically,she takes delight in adorning herself not for her husband but for herbeloved:

Je vestis une cotte de satin blanc & une robe de satin cramoisy;j'aornay mon chef de belles brodures & riches pierres precieuses. Etquand je fuz accoustree, ie commencay a me pourmener, en memirant en mes sumptueulx habillemens, comme Ie paon en sesbelles plumes, pensant plaire aux aultres comme a moy mesmes.(AngoY5:S'es 32-33)

Her use of the male peacock to connote pride in her personal appearanceis particularly striking. This simile is not original to De Crenne, however,but comes directly from Boccacio's Fiammetta, an important source forthe novel." The narrator exploits the peacock's symbolism to make thispejorative comment concerning the vanity of her younger, foolish, andprideful self.

Whereas in the Angoy5:S'es description of the external is often lacking,the novel is replete with the description of both the narrator's and Pro­tagonist A's troubled states of mind. The text is dominated by the over­powering sensual passion on the part of the focal character, who spendscountless sleepless nights yeaming for her beloved. The narrative is alsopunctuated by comments that the narrator relives her pain while writingthe novel: "Ia recente memoire rend ma main debile & tremblante"

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(Angoy.s:s'es 52). Tom Conley explains the function of the narrator'sangoysse as catharsis. In the act of writing, the narrator regains her equi­librium through the process of reliving of her pain (Conley 328). Fromthe time she first catches a glimpse of him, Protagonist A spends count­less sleepless nights troubled by her obsession for her beloved: "monentendement commenca Ii voltiger en composant diverses & nouvellesphantasies, qui me causoit une laborieuse peine, en sorte que ne povoyedormir" (AngoY.s:s'es 25). The narrative continually oscillates betweenProtagonist A's inner turmoil and the remembrance and rekindling ofthis agitation by the narrator. The force of these extreme emotions op­presses the novel and gives it an almost claustrophobic tone, especiallybecause the plot line has been so diminished by the narrow focus on in­tense psychological states (Conley 326).

Repetitive depictions of emotional turmoil reinforce the didacticmessage that passion is dangerous and must be avoided. The narratorpresents herself as a negative model and attempts to teach others fromher own unfortunate experience:" "quand je considere qu'en voyantcomme j'ay este surprise, vous pourrez eviter les dangereulx laqsd'amours, en y resistant du commencement, sans continuer en amour­euses pensees" (AngoY.s:s'es 3). Unbridled passion results in disastrousconsequences, ruins her marriage, and eventually brings about her death.The intense descriptive focus that portrays Protagonist A's inner life mir­rors her total absorption with her passion. The external world seems tocease to exist. She is figuratively imprisoned by her own tumultuousemotions long before her outraged husband finally gives the order tohave her confined to a tower at the end of Part One.

While the impact of external reality is being reduced, Protagonist A isportrayed in the AngoY.s:s'es as having no links with people besides herjealous husband and her beloved. The world of the novel (Part One) islimited to the three members of the love triangle. Other characters fulfillonly minor narrative functions. No character assumes the role of confi­dant and penetrates the isolation of the focal character." This feeling ofbeing cut off from society in the novel contrasts strikingly with the senseof connectedness apparent in the Epistres, where there is a social contextof family, friends, and, later, the literary world.

In the Epistres familieres, Letter Writers A and B present themselvesas confidants and counselors to an extended family system. Whereas thesituation in the novel is dependent on Protagonist A's total involvementin her personal situation, by its very nature, the epistolary genre requiresinteraction and connection with others as part of the letter writing proc­ess (Altman 48). The letters as such could not exist without correspon-

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dents. They would have the form of a diary or confession similar to theAngoy.s:s-es.7 A total of thirteen correspondents are addressed in the Epi­stres. Her personal letters are written to an abbess, two female relatives,three male acquaintances, two female friends, her lover's faithful com­panion, and an enigmatic addressee presumed to be her beloved. Her in­vective letters are destined for her husband, a literary critic, and thecitizens of a town. The number of correspondents implies that she is atthe center of a large network of relationships with friends and relativesboth male and female."

This sense of a social context, of ties to others, is totally lacking in thenovel. Indeed, the Angoy.s:s-es seems to strip Protagonist A of her rela­tionships to focus solely on the intensity of her psychological state. Thelack of social and familial connections in the novel predisposes the maincharacter to develop her love obsession. Her father died when she wasyoung, leaving her mother to see to her education: "rna mere print ungsingulier plaisir a me faire instruyre en bonnes meurs & honnestescoustumes de vivre" (Angoy.s:s-es 6). The novel makes no further mentionof Helisenne's mother who would logically figure as the young girl'smost influential role model as, for instance, Mme de Chartres in LaPrincesse de Cleves. The Angoy.s:s-es introduces an eleven-year-old bride,bereft of companions and married to a man she had never met and wholived far away: "il y avoit grande distance de son pays au mien"(Angoy.s:s-es 6). The novel unfolds with Protagonist A functioning as anisolated individual, interacting in society, but with no friends, no personswith whom she feels at ease. Her imprisonment in a tower by her jealoushusband continues this isolation and, ironically, permits her, as narrator,the "freedom" to write her life story.

By its very title, the Epistres familieres implies the existence of familyconnections. Whereas Protagonist A speaks only briefly of her mother,Letter Writer A is actively engaged in caring for her mother in LettersOne and Two. Duty to her mother dominates these letters. In Letter One,she relates how she had to leave the peaceful atmosphere of the conventbecause of her mother's illness. In the second, she refuses her correspon­dent's kind invitations to a family wedding and to the birth of a child,two important occasions for social interaction in the extended family ofsixteenth-century France, to remain at her mother's bedside. Far frombeing motherless, Letter Writer A portrays herself as a dutiful daughterwho is devoted to her mother, who puts the welfare of her mother beforeherself, and who, in so doing, suppresses her own desires. Without thepressure of filial obligations, she would have stayed in a convent forever.Only familial responsibilities outweigh her desire to lead a contemplativelife. In her letter to an Abbess, she lists the "sainctes coustumes" prac-

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ticed in the convent which she tries to emulate. These practices form thebasis of Letter Writer A's personal value system, an ideal of feminineperfection:

La bonne exemplarite, l'assidue reuerence adieu, les frequentesabstinences, la virginalle continence, les sabres paroUes, l'espargneregard, la continue demeure solitaire, le mesure temps, la dispersecharite, ensemble Ie contempnemet du monde, l'aspre penitece,l'extreme diligece en deuotes oraisons, & la souueraine pacience entoutes affaires obseruees. (Epistres A4v)

The presentation of these admirable qualities fosters the reader's percep­tion of Letter Writer A as a highly moral individual." In the first nine let­ters, she exemplifies these virtuous qualities. Because of her goodness,she is sought as a personal advisor. By her responses to their queries, sheguides those who are having personal difficulties. She counsels patiencethree times: in the face of slander (Letter Three), banishment from court(Letter Four), and loss of personal wealth (Letter Six). She consoles awidower on the death of his young wife (Letter Seven). Three letters dealspecifically with the question of love. Letter Writer A recommends therenouncing of illicit love and admonishes a young girl to be obedientwhen her father choses a husband for her. She has compassion for themisfortunes of others but, at the same time, offers stem advice to womenwho contemplate being unfaithful to their husbands or who are not suffi­ciently compliant to their father's wishes. Her ideal of virtue comes notonly from her convent experience but, also has a secular aspect, inspiredby her reading of the classics. Letter Writer A suggests the example ofDido as a model of female constancy and teUs her correspondent Clarice to"imiter & suyvre vertu" (Epistres D4v). She does not think that Clarice isweak ("pusillanime") but, on the contrary, urges her to model herselfafter the strength in adversity demonstrated by the Queen of Carthage:

Ceste Dido fist grande demonstrance de sa vertu . . . par eUe futconstruicte & edifiee la noble cite de Carthage: laqueUe futtresfameuse & renomee. 0 que selon Ie iugement d'ung chascun eUefut digne d'estre extollee, puis que sa supreme vertu en teUe ex­tremite la rendit costante, (Epistres D5r-v)1O

Dido's virtue and her constancy in loving Sicheus thus serve as modelsfor emulation. Throughout the first nine letters, Letter Writer A servesas a competent advisor who maintains a detached and rational perspec­tive. She speaks out strongly against love and underscores its negativeforce: "Certes amour comme nous lisons, est vng songe plein d'erreur,de folye, temerite & inconsideration" (Epistres B7r-v).

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Letter Ten completely reverses the previous self-description, destroy­ing her persona as a stable and mature personality capable of giving ad­vice to others. After having warned of the dangers of love, she herselffalls victim to passion. Because the first nine letters emphasize andunderscore Letter Writer A's virtue, the irresistible power of love ap­pears all the greater when she succumbs. The simile of green wood,which is difficult to ignite but which bums hotter when finally lit, ex­presses the letter writer's experience with love:

tu vueille [sic] mediter que tout ainsi que le bois vert apeine recoiptla flambe & ardeur du feu: mais apres qu'ill'a receue, la tiet & con­serue plus longuement, rendat plus vehemente chaleur. Pareillemetm'est il aduenu qui au precedent pressee, tentee, & stimulee, auecassidues poursuytes ne fuz vaincue: Mais finablement estat sur­prinse, trop plus que nul aultre amour feruete & fidelle: ie obser­ueray ce que manifestemet ie demonstre: Car il n'ya peril quim'espouete: il n'y a accident qui me retire, ne prison qui me re­tienne. (Epistres E3r)

Thus, Letter Writer A's initial portrayal of herself as virtuous may beseen as part of her strategy to demonstrate the overpowering negativeforce of passion. If even she can succumb, others likewise willdo so. Hermention of "assidues poursuytes" that she had successfully resisted inthe past harkens back to the AngoySS'es, where Protagonist A was soughtafter for her physical attributes. The change in her personality occursrapidly, almost accidentally, but once begun, it proves unstoppable.Logic and virtue cannot prevent her from being overcome ("surprinse").Beginning with Letter Ten, she presents herself differently. No longercan she claim to practice the virtues of convent life or the constancy ofDido. Love has overwhelmed her best intentions just as it once did theQueen of Carthage.

Letter Twelve to the friend of her beloved and Letter Thirteen (incode) to her beloved return to the plot line of the novel and show LetterWriter B dissembling her true feelings. II Dissemblance is a tactic thatLetter Writer A mentions in Letters One, Eight, and Nine. At first, it isused for the noble purpose of concealing from her family the depth ofher despair at leaving the convent. In the later letters, dissemblance isrecommended as an effective strategy for delaying an unwelcome mar­riage. Thematically, it serves to link the letters with the novel, becausedissemblance is a way of life in the AngoySS'es. After she falls into an ex­tramarital love, Protagonist A finds it necessary to mask her true sen­timents in all her dealings with her husband. In a particularly striking

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passage, she relates how she submits to sexual relations with her husbandstrictly for the purpose of hiding her true feelings:

it s'esveilla & me print entre ses bras pour me penser resjouyr &retirer a son amour. Mais, it estoit merveilleusement abuse, carmon cueur avoit desja faict divorce & repudiation totale d'avec luy;parquoy, tous ses faictz me commencerent adesplaire; & n'eussenteste contraincte je n'eusse couche avec luy. Mais, pour couvrir &donner umbre amon inicque vouloir, me convenoit user de dissim­ulation. (Angoyss-es 30)

Dissemblance becomes a way of coping when her true feelings are notaligned with a virtuous way of life, especially when revealing the truthmight provoke physical abuse from her husband.

In the Epistres inuectiues, Letter Writer C's portrayal of herself hasmade the transition from that of a character in the narrative to its creator(Kauffman 25). No longer a family counselor, in these letters she be­comes an author who defends first herself, then womankind, all womenauthors, and, finally, her own literary technique." The first three letterspresent a heated exchange between Letter Writer C and her husband. Thetheme of dissemblance, which was woven throughout the Lettres fami­lieres, reappears, because she claims her motivation to write stems fromthe virtuous necessity to avoid idleness and not, as her husband main­tains, to record illicit love: "tu as estime cela (que pour euiter ociositei'ay escript) eust este par moy copose; pour faire perpetuelle com­memoration d'une amour impudicque (G5v). Her husband's reply in theSecond Invective, with its misogynistic distrust of all women, permits athird letter wherein Letter Writer C catalogues exemplary womenthroughout the ages. This three-letter exchange accomplishes what wasnever possible in the novel. Letter Writer C verbally masters her formerdominator. By permitting herself two letters to his one, she overshadowshis arguments and gives herself the final word. Her calm logic triumphsover his accusations. In the novel, Protagonist A is totally under her hus­band's domination to the point of being physically restrained, beaten,and, finally, imprisoned. As Letter Writer C, she avenges herself by mas­tering him verbally.

In the Fourth Invective, she energetically replies to Elenot, an out­spoken adversary of women authors. The introductory precis summar­izes the arguments of this letter:

Epistre exhibe par rna dame Helisenne a Elenot, lequel excite depresumption temeraire, assiduelement conternnoit les dames qui ausolacieux exercice litteraire se veulent occuper: mais pour le diuertir

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de sa folie, Icy est faict commemoratio des spledides & gentilzesperitz, d'aulcuns dames illustres. (Epistres K4r)

Letter Writer C presents herself as an able and eloquent speaker on be­half of her sex, a theme that is expanded in her allegorical Songe. Shelists many women from antiquity, as well as her contemporary Margue­rite de Navarre, whom she praises at great length." As was the case withher husband in the previous letter, Elenot is overpowered by the force ofHelisenne's arguments, her display of erudition, and her logic. She con­demns him for being motivated by "presumption temeraire" and callshis point of view "folie." By extension, Helisenne presents her ownviews as reasonable. Elenot is given no voice and his foolish objections towomen writers are quickly silenced.

The Epistres inuectiues thus signal the final stage in the developmentof Helisenne's persona. She proves in the letters that she has gained hermature voice as an author, a voice that will continue, in her Songe andher Eneydes, to express literary opinions and experiment with writingtechniques. Reading the letters as autobiographical, Paule Demats seesthe Third and Fourth Invective Letters as the real ending of Helisenne'sdrama: "Decue par I'amour, impuissante aprouver son innocence, ellecherche dans la litterature une consolation et un moyen de satisfaire sonbesoin d'activite vengeresse" (xxxviii), Demats's appraisal of the two let­ters as personal vengeance does not, however, explain Invective Five,wherein the author's reproach is the most vehement. A comparison ofthe endings of the four letters written by Letter Writer C demonstratesthat her hostile tone culminates with the final letter in the series, not withthe fourth. Three letters close with rather bland comments invokingGod's aid to enlighten her detractors:

Letter One-exorant la supernele bonte quelle se condescende, adetoutes vaines opinions te liberer (H3v-4r).Letter Three-Ie Dieu eternel [i'] exoreray, que par grace especiale,de telle obstinatio te libere. (K3v-4r)Letter Four-exorant Ie souuerain des cieulx, que pour grace espe­ciale vueille ton obfusque entendement illuminer (L3r-v).

The tone of the three endings appears almost mild when compared withInvective Five, which closes with a scathing malediction worthy ofRabelais:

ne voulant plus aultre choses escripre, sinon que te doner certitudede mon desir, que totalemet aspire, que anticque, infirme, aueugle,sourd, muet, indigent, & souffreteux te puisse veoir. Et si pourn'auoir en toy force de telles calamitez tolerer, Atropos te couppe Ie

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fil de ta miserable vie, ie vouldrois qu'apres telle dissolutio, tocorps sans honeur de sepulture, peult demourer: affin qu'il deuetpasture de liepars, loups affamez, lios, Ours, Tigres, & toutesbestes feroces pour aleur exorbitante faim, de ton malheureux corpssatisfaire: & auec ce desir, mettrya [sic] fin a mon epistre: & nevoulant tes compaignons oublier, les aduertis, que ie vouldrois que cequ'il interuint aDathan & Abiron, leur peult aduenir. (L7v-8r)

This imprecation is addressed to the inhabitants of the city of Icuoc (an­agramme of Couey), and especially to the most wicked of them all, aman whom she does not even deign to name. Her vehemence stems fromhis criticism of her as an author. Letter Writer C heaps scorn upon thelatter for slander (detraction) and for criticizing the technique of hernovel as being a roman aclef, which is too easily understood: "que monliure intitule, les Angoysses, estoit trop intelligible: & que ie debuois plusoccultement parler, sans ainsi faire designatios des lieux" (L7r). The in­tensity with which she reacts to the criticism of her novelistic techniquemakes her dispute with her husband and her most vociferous Parisiancritic appear minor.

This final invective letter evokes Letter Writer C as an author of fic­tion and the creator of a fictional world. Whereas the writer twice repu­diates her novel as fiction in other letters, in Invective Five she contra­dicts her earlier statements and treats fictional incidents as having takenplace. This is not to say, however, that she is claiming an autobiographi­cal connection between her novel and her life. On the contrary, she isspeaking solely of events in the lives of her male heroes. In this letter, theevents of the novel are not seen as inventions out of whole cloth to pre­vent idleness but as "lived" situations that occurred and must be de­fended. The question of fiction versus reality becomes all the more diffi­cult to resolve because of the importance that the narrator/protagonist!letter writers have already given to the techniques of dissemblance.Similarly, questions may be asked about veracity of the last two lettresfamilieres. The slippage between various levels of "fiction" adds to,rather than detracts from, the interest of De Crenne's texts by con­tributing an illusive ambiguity.

Whereas the portrait of Letter Writers A, B, and C evolves from idealvirtue to obsessive passion to self-conscious authorship, the depiction ofProtagonists A and B moves from innocent virtue to obsessive passion tosublimation of the sensual. The tensions implicit in such swings of senti­ment augment the nuancing of the portrayal of Helisenne in all her vari­ous facets. Far from a stereotyped creation, she has human frailties with

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ISO SYMPOSIUM Summer 1991

which the reader may identify, as well as a heroic dimension in hertriumph as a literary woman.

Reading the Angoysres along with the Epistres demonstrates the self-ref­erential nature of the author's corpus and offers a view of how the com­posite portrait of the fictive Helisenne evolves: literally how she createsherself in the reader's mind. In the two works she gives us complementaryaspects of herself-a psychological profile in the novel and a sociologicalone in the Epistres familieres. The didactic message is the same in bothworks: love brings moral decline and personal ruin. The elements con­stituting her composite persona are genre-specific. When she gains hervoice as an author in the Epistres inuectiues, she speaks forcefully aboutwomanhood and literature. From a timid beginning, she gradually fmds avoice and uses it in her own defense and in defense of her sex. This is thepersona that she presents in her last two volumes-the mature womanauthor who is confident and contributes to the literary debate of her time.Creating such a voice requires experienceand the courage to break with thesocial convention of her time. Tracing this evolution bears witness to thepainstaking effort that De Crenne exerted to master her craft.

Texas Tech University

l. The protagonist of the Angoy.s:ses, Part Two, is Helisenne's beloved Guenelic,Research for this article began during an NEH Summer Seminar at Princeton with FrancoisRigolot. Special thanks go to Natalie Davis, who rekindled my interest in the Epistres.Subsequent research was supported by an NEH Travel to Collections Grant, Texas StateOrganized Research Funds, and a Faculty Development Leave from Texas Tech University.

2. Printed in Paris by Charles l'Angelier.3. Secor presents the Angoy.s:ses in its entirety. Paule Demats and Jerome Vercruysse

(Paris: Minard, 1968) present only Part One of the novel. Of the modem printings, only the1977Slatkine reprint of the 1560 edition gives the reader the three works in a single volume.

4. See Secor's note 32-33: 75-81, 427.5. This insistence on the personal nature of the experience has encouraged readers to

read the novel as autobiography rather than as fiction.6. The old woman in the tower at the end of Part One is a soundboard for Helisenne's

complaintes rather than a character with whom the protagonist interacts.7. Mustacchi and Archambault note that one of Helisenne's models for her novel, Boc­

caccio's Fiammetta, is itself a long letter-elegy (10). By recounting her story as a novel,Helisenne actively rejects the epistolary genre as appropriate for her first literary endeavor.

8. Such a web of connected relationships is basic to human development, and especiallyto the development of women (Chodorow 43-4 & Gilligan 62).

9. Conley comments on the morality of the first group of letters but does not link sucha moral view to characterization of the letter writer: "the first nine letters appear to have norapport other than one of moralism, a hightening [sic] of the stoical position longed-for inthe Angoy.s:ses" (329). The "moral energy" of the letters echoes the verbal preferences ofthe narrative present in Part One of the novel as quantified by Frautschi (216). If his studywere repeated on the vocabulary of the letters, one might expect less of the pathos thatFrautschi found Helisenne often combined with vocabulary denoting moral energy andgoodness.

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Wood SYMPOSIUM 151

10. De Crenne's presentation of Dido is drawn from Christine de Pisan's Livre de la Citedes Dames (768 & 775). The story of Dido's disastrous love for Aeneas and her subsequentsuicide is not mentioned in the Epistres. That aspect of Dido's legend is explored subse­quently by Helisenne in Les Eneydes, her translation of the first four books of the Aeneid(1541). The Dido mentioned in the Epistres remains virtuous and resists passion.

11. Mustacchi and Archambault term this letter a "coded message" (6). Demats calls it a"cryptogramme pueril" (xxx), Larsen defines dissimulation in the Angoysses (part One)and the Epistres and shows how this tactic can be either a vice or a virtue, depending on thecircumstance (237-39).

12. Larsen summarizes Helisenne's arguments in the Lettres invectiues, discussing themas self-justification, not as part of her technique of self-characterization (240-41).

13. With this catalogue of exemplary women, Helisenne is echoing Christine de Pisan'spraise of women in Le Livre de la Cite des Dames (1405).

WORKS CITED

Altman, Janet G. Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form. Columbus: Ohio UP, 1982.Chodorow, Nancy. "Family Structure and Feminine Personality." Woman, Culture, and

Society. Ed. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere. Stanford: Stanford UP,1974. 43-66.

Conley, Tom. "Feminism, ecriture, and the Closed Room: The Angoysses douloureusesqui procedent d'amours," Symposium 27 (1973): 322-32.

De Crenne, Helisenne. "Les Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d'amours (1538)."Ed. Harry R. Secor. Diss. Yale, 1957.

---, Les Epistresjami/ieres & inuectiues. Paris: Denys Janot, 1539.Demats, Paule. Introduction. Les Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d'amours (1538).

Premiere Partie. By Helisenne de Crenne. Paris: Belles Lettres, 1968. v-xlix.De Pisan, Christine. "Le Livre de la Cite des Dames." Ed. Maureen C. Curnow. Diss.

Vanderbilt, 1975.Frautschi, Richard L. "Narrative Voice in Les Angoysses douloureuses I: The Axe

Present," French Forum (1976): 209-16.Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women's Development.

Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1982.Kauffman, Linda S. Discourse of Desire: Gender, Genre, and Epistolary Fictions. Ithaca:

Cornell UP, 1986.Larsen, Anne R. "The Rhetoric of Self-Defense in Les Angoysses douloureuses qui proce­

dent damours (Part One)." Kentucky Romance Quarterly 29 (1982): 235-43.Mustacchi, Marianna M. and Paul J. Archambault. Introduction. A Renaissance Woman:

Helisenne's Personal and Invective Letters. By Helisenne de Crenne. Syracuse: SyracuseUP, 1986. 1-33.

Wood, Diane S. "Literary Devices and Rhetorical Techniques in the Works of Helisennede Crenae." Diss. Wisconsin-Madison, 1975.

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