Representing Heresy in Early Modern France

Heresy is a fluid concept, not easy to define or pinpoint, and certainly one that defies religious and political boundaries. Heresy could be said to be a cultural construct manufactured by competing narratives. The articles in this volume examine the varieties of perceptions and representations of heresy in early modern France. In so doing, they reveal that such perceptions and representations have had more of an impact on our understanding of heresy than heresy itself. This, in turn, provides us with new and stimulating viewpoints on how heresy was recognized and depicted at the intersections of faith, art, gender, poetry, history, and politics.

"This is a strong collection of essays that fields a range of fresh viewpoints on the French Reformation, often from highly original angles."

-George Hoffmann, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

"The essays, solidly founded on close readings of printed texts and visual images, make a significant contribution to our understanding of the cultural meaning of heresy in early modern France."

-Raymond Mentzer, University of Iowa

"The range of essays in this collection makes it clear that “heresy” is not a monolithic concept nor necessarily a permanent state, but very much in the eye of the beholder."

-Sheila ffolliott, George Madison University

LIDIA RADI is Associate Professor of French and Italian at the University of Richmond. Her current research deals with issues of national identity in the literature of migration, in particular in Italian-Albanian literature starting in the late sixteenth century.

GABRIELLA SCARLATTA is Professor of French and Italian at The University of Michigan-Dearborn. Her research focuses on the Petrarchan and Neo-Petrarchan court poets, early modern women writers, and the intersection of gender and genre.