CLOTHING "DAME HELISENNE": THE STAGING OF FEMALE AUTHORSHIP AND THE PRODUCTION OF THE 1538 ANGOYSSES DOULOUREUSES QUI PROCEDENT D'AMOURS

The market interests and influences of early-modern printers are particularly apparent on contemporary title pages. The advent of print had reintroduced readers to the title page after it had disappeared from medieval codices; its initial purpose was to protect the rest of the text, since copies were often sold unbound.18 However, the development of the early-modern title page also demonstrates the growing experimentation with physical form in the production of books, along with the increasing status of book producers other than the writer. The earliest title pages gave only a brief title alone, printed on the top of an undecorated page, while other publication information, including the place and date of printing, appeared in the colophon; the name of the printer sometimes appeared as well.19 By the first quarter of the sixteenth century, however, title pages included not only the name and work of the author but also the printer, the place and date of printing, along with the printer's device, another means of identifying the individual or printing house that published the work, but also a way of decorating the page.20 Contemporary printers were highly aware of the commercial as well as aesthetic potential of the title page, and the way in which its format style not only ornamented the text but also promoted their own business and artistic principles. Some printers (including Janot) used both the title page and the colophon to self-advertise, while others drew attention to themselves in creative ways by presenting their information in different ink color, font, or type size, or even in carefully contrived verses.21 Set formulae for establishing such material in the book did not exist and early-modern printers did not necessarily relegate this textual space to the purely practical domain. Instead, the title page was a place of experimentation both in its conception and presentation.22

Creativity with the title page is a defining characteristic of the 1538 Angoysses Douloureuses. The first edition actually contains four title pages.23 The first acts as title page to the entire work and presents "Dame Helisenne" as the writer of the three parts of the story (signature A, see Fig. 1). In addition, two interior title pages introduce the second and third parts of the volume (AA and AAA), and indicate that Dame Helisenne narrates in the voice of Guenelic (Fig. 2).241 classify them as title pages since each includes a decorative woodcut compartment containing the title of their respective Partie, and each appears on its own leaf; the Partie that each introduces begins only on the next recto. Finally, a fourth title page announces Quezinstra's epilogue, a final account of the deaths of Helisenne and Guenelic, their voyage to the underworld, and the fate of the book that Helisenne leaves behind (FFF 8): "S'ensuyt une ample et accommodee narration, faicte par le magnanime Quezinstra, pour exhiber la mort immaturee de son compagnon fidele le gentil Guenelic: en comprenant ce qu'il intervint du predict Guenelic, et de sa dame Helisenne apres leurs deplorables fins, ce qui se declarera avec decoration du delectable stile poectique." Although this last title page also includes a woodcut frame (see Fig. 3), it does not occupy its own leaf, and the text of the "Narration" begins immediately on its verso. Unlike the other title pages, the fourth appears at the end rather than at the beginning of a gathering of leaves. Although commercial demands may have directed these typographical choices, it is worth considering their effect on the presentation of the author.25 The third title page, for instance, does not tell us that the third Partie contains Quezinstra's epilogue, and unlike the second and third titles, the fourth title introducing the epilogue does not indicate that Dame Helisenne speaks in the voice of Quezinstra. Thus, this fourth title page appears to signal a type of addendum, a brief but unexpected coda to the third Partie that is written not by Dame Helisenne (perhaps, for the reader can never be sure) but by Quezinstra.