Document Type
Article
Abstract
Marie de Clèves, Duchess of Orléans, owned a striking manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms français 25528) of the Roman de Troyle — Louis de Beauvau’s fifteenth-century French translation of Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato — which focuses on the doomed love affair of Troyle and Criseida. The manuscript’s unique visual presentation and Marie’s own poetic production speak to her consistent tendency to aestheticize women's lovesickness and mourning. Marie’s literary interests reveal a subtle investment in reconfiguring Criseida, who has often been read as an iconic example of the fickle widow; Marie both encourages a more sympathetic reading of Criseida and embodies something akin to Criseida’s performative affect in her own life and work.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank the SMFS Advisory Board for their support, and Anna Kłosowska for her generous guidance and feedback as I revised this essay; I am especially grateful to her for urging me to follow up on a few key questions and suspicions about imagery associated with Marie de Clèves.
Keywords
widowhood, tears, chantepleure, Troilus, Criseida, Marie de Clèves, Charles d’Orléans, Louis de Beauvau
Recommended Citation
Bronstein, Molly "Marie de Clèves’s “Rien ne m’est plus”: Reshaping Widowhood in the "Roman de Troyle"." Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality 60, No. 2 (2025)
