Voiceover

This chapter explores Anne de Graville’s Beau Romant, an early sixteenth-century adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Teseida, dedicated to Queen Claude of France. Also the author of a rewriting into rondeaux of Alain Chartier’s famous Belle dame sans mercy, de Graville both reprises and exceeds the works of two prestigious medieval authors in order to define a literary, ethical, and political sphere that elevates women. In de Graville’s Beau Romant, the character Emilia recuperates Chartier’s Fair Lady. Though the latter was denounced for refusing her would-be lover’s suit, Emilia’s exemplary reason, courtesy, and wise speech allow her to accommodate the conflicting desires of male characters and to preserve her reputation for female virtue. De Graville thus intervenes strategically in the Querelle des femmes, while also establishing her relevance in universal terms by joining the long philosophical and ethical tradition focused on how to withstand the vicissitudes of Fortune. Thus “voiceover” in this chapter describes the actions of both de Graville and Emilia, as the author re-voices a canonical male-authored work for an explicitly female readership, and re-focuses the value of its female protagonist by giving voice to her virtue and exemplarity.