The Music of Mary and Martha: Tension and Dissonance in Marguerite de Navarre's Chansons spirituelles

Abstract

This study examines Marguerite de Navarre's Chansons spirituelles in the context of sixteenth-century ideas concerning the self and self-expression. In essence, I find that Marguerite conceptualizes the self as a series of relationships between the interior and the exterior, who one is on the inside and the image or projection of that entity on the outside. To help establish a framework within which to develop these ideas, I focus on theological, gender, and poetic tensions at play throughout the compilation of songs. These tensions provide opportunities to examine what Marguerite desired to communicate about her understanding of the emerging concept of the individual in Renaissance France. Additionally, these poems demonstrate how the author's portrayal and valuation of violence both clarifies and obscures the relationship between internal and external that is fundamental to proper interpretation of the songs and much of early modern French literature.