„[Q]uant je ne pourrois avoir de vous que les os“. Verfügungsmomente über den weiblichen Körper in Marguerite de Navarres Heptaméron (1559)

Abstract

The prominent role of the female body in Margaret of Navarra’s Heptaméron allows for complex and sometimes even paradoxical interpretations: if female beauty always completes the courtly ethical ideal of the virtuously chaste lady inspired by neo-platonic love doctrines, female charms are at the same time triggers of male desire, unbridled lust, and immoral delusion. To the extent that ambiguity seems to be inherent in the female body, it requires a male interpretative apparatus which, once discursively exhausted, seeks to seize the desired object by physical force. We recognize three scenarios of disposition in the Heptaméron, which we would like to examine in this article. All three ignite on the female body and reveal patriarchal patterns of disposition that manifest themselves in a bodily handling of women. However, in none of the three identified paradigms does Margaret of Navarra blindly reproduce patriarchal strategies of disposal over the female body without subtly counteracting them.