| In order to determine the motivation for Madame de Lafayette's allusion to both Marguerite de Navarre and her Renaissance novella collection, the Heptameron, this dissertation examines the structural and narrative parallels between Lafayette's the Princesse de Cleves and the Heptameron's tenth novella. The goal of the dissertation is to establish Lafayette's "particular attachment" for Navarre's work in terms of a maternal literary model, by investigating shared narrative and feminist issues.;The thesis begins with an overview of the criticism that considers Lafayette's affiliation with Navarre. The first chapter inquires into the history of French short prose, seventeenth-century editions of the Heptameron , and Lafayette's literary circle in an effort to establish Lafayette's reading formation and to ascertain the seventeenth century's view towards the Renaissance novella collection. In addition, the first chapter discusses the similar narrative structure of the two texts, i.e. a story within a story, a narrative device that is striking in Lafayette's otherwise concise novel.;Given the circumstantial evidence, coupled with Lafayette's own citation and account of Heptameron's publication date, the dissertation continues, exploring the narrative parallels between the Princesse de Cleves and the Heptameron's tenth novella, the story of Amadour and Floride. Chapter two compares the female protagonist of both texts, tracing her coming-of-age with the commentary of Simone de Beauvoir. In addition, other seventeenth-century narratives of female adolescence are explored.;Chapter three, in contrast, focuses on the male protagonist, who sharply diverges from the female protagonist, in that, he is a practiced lover, and more importantly a soldier, who takes a war mentality to the extramarital love affair with unexpected results. The fourth chapter examines the heroine's defense and refusal of this aggressive view of love, detailing her interpretation of the aristocratic values of personal honor and duty.;The final chapter focuses on the text's parallel conclusions: both protagonists refuse their lover and withdraw from society. The dissertation closes with an examination of the mother-daughter like affiliation that Lafayette exhibits towards Navarre's text, using the criticism of Gilbert and Gubar, in addition to Lafayette's own comments about the mother-daughter relationship within her text. |
