Many critics writing on questions of gender in the Heptaméron have stressed the differences between men's and women's honor. Among these, parrhēsia, frank speech in the face of risk, plays a central role in defending an active, assertive women's honor with tools traditionally available only to men. My goal in this article is twofold: first, to lay out how men's and women's honor interact in Marguerite de Navarre's text, and second, to argue that, rather than emphasize gender-based difference, the Heptaméron instead showcases assertive, even martial forms of self-defense and justification by honorable women who model traditionally masculine modes of aristocratic-heroic virtue.

Instead, through a sustained critique of the brutality and excess that often undergird early modern aristocratic masculinity, she saves the best of honor for her brave and virtuous women. She does not teach resignation, nor passive acceptance, nor silence for its own sake. As often as the tales speak of love, they also examine the honor that it so frequently endangers: the Queen of Navarre creates what might be read as a conduct book for women navigating the treacherous waters of male desire with an eye to conscience and reputation. It's no wonder then that parfait amityé, for all its Neoplatonic idealism, seems a dangerous game. In the aristocratic milieu of its storytellers, a woman's honor is prized, but it is radically vulnerable.

I f marguerite de navarre's heptaméron is a book about love, it isn't of the happy kind.

The heptameron by marguerite of navarre