The Pleasure of Discernment Marguerite de Navarre as Theologian [Hardcover]

In this innovative study, Carol Thysell provides an in-depth examination of Marguerite de Navarre'sHeptameron. While this collection of tales is traditionally considered to be secular in nature, Thysell argues that Marguerite de Navarre used it as a vehicle for a constructive theological program.

The book is a carefully crafted work, informative, thoughtful, and provocative, which anyone interested in Marguerite de Navarre should not miss. --The IRT Bulletin

Thysell's work will be helpful not only because it contributes to the ongoing attempt to broaden our understanding of what theology includes (drawing in part, helpfully, on Bernard Mcginn's category of vernacular theology) but also because it offers an elegant and compelling description of Marguerite de Navarre's theology, gleaned from a somewhat unlikely source. --The Journal of Religion

While offering a detailed historical - and theological - context that will lead to more enlightened readings of theeptameron, she also indicates Marguerite de Navarre as theologian, showing that she was in the end neither Lutheran nor Calvanist nor spiritual libertine or neo-Platonist but an independent thinker with a theological vision of her own. --Renaissance Quarterly

Well written and accessible to the general reader as well as to the scholar. Theological analyses of French Renaissance authors are sorely needed, and Thysell's work will contribute not only to feminist and Marguerite criticism but also to the understanding of other authors, Rabelais, Montaigne, Pasquier, and others. -Sixteenth Century Journal