Tales and Trials of Love, Concerning Venus’s Punishment of Those Who Scorn True Love and Denounce Cupid’s Sovereignty. A Bilingual Edition and Study

In Tales and Trials of Love, Jeanne Flore (whose identity remains a mystery) depicts an ideal notion of love as a mutually beneficial relationship upheld in a world governed by Venus and Cupid. Jeanne Flore urges her readers—and the characters within the tales—to aspire to achieve and vindicate their right to attain mutual love. These seven tales illustrate various obstacles to that ideal and the consequences of denouncing Cupid’s sovereignty. This first bilingual edition situates these tales within the vibrant cultural context of Renaissance Lyon and demonstrates how they respond to contemporary literary conversations, including the querelle des Amyes, works that considered the role of love in a woman’s life, and Christian humanism, an early movement to reform the Catholic Church from within.

"Kelly Peebles’s excellent translation and edition of Jeanne Flore’s Comptes amoureux / Tales and Trials of Love (Lyon, 1542) puts Flore back on the map of important French female authors, both for English-speaking readers and for scholars interested more broadly in early modern French print culture. The transcription of the French text, complete with bibliographic details from the first edition, pairs beautifully with Peebles’s dynamic and engaging translation. Peebles’s introduction elegantly shows how Flore’s text stands as a significant textual and material representative of one of the most artistically rich and culturally tumultuous times in early modern France. Her edition and translation will no doubt become a principal reference for future scholarly work not only on Jeanne Flore, but also on female authorship, gender, and print culture in early modern France and Europe."

-Leah Chang, Associate Professor of French, The George Washington University

KELLY DIGBY PEEBLES earned her PhD in French at the University of Virginia in 2010, specializing in literature of the French Renaissance. She now lives in South Carolina, where she is Assistant Professor of French in the Department of Languages at Clemson University.

MARTA RIJN FINCH is an award-winning New England poet. She studied Latin, Greek, Russian, and Chinese, then lived in France for six years with her husband and two daughters, where she attended the Sorbonne, and translated the poetry of philosopher Simone Weil. Her earlier work for the Other Voice series, the Complete Poems of Pernette du Guillet, edited by Karen James, was published in 2010.

REVIEWS
Early Modern Women 10.2 (2016): 201–203. Reviewed by Deborah Lesko Baker.
Modern Language Review 111.1 (2016): 248–249. Reviewed by Elena Woodacre.
Renaissance & Reformation 38.4 (2015): 188–190. Reviewed by Brenda M. Hosington.
Renaissance Quarterly 69.3 (2016): 1182–1184. Reviewed by Megan Conway.
The Sixteenth Century Journal 46.3 (2015): 731–733. Reviewed by Jane Couchman.