Fiche de lecture for any tale in the collection:
I use the following document to prepare students for classroom discussion on any tale in the Heptaméron. Please feel free to adapt it to use with your own students.
Teaching the Heptaméron with Images:
I would like to thank Carrie Klaus, Professor of French at DePauw University, for the following images and ideas for teaching the Heptaméron. They come from the fully illustrated edition of Les nouvelles de Marguerite, Reine de Navarre, ou l’Heptameron français published by the Nouvelle Société Typographique in Bern (Switzerland) in 1780-1781. The full-page copperplate engravings are based on drawings by Sigmund Freudenberger (1745-1801). The smaller engravings, also copperplate, are based on drawings by Balthazar Anton Dunker (1746-1807). These images are for the prologue and first ten novellas and would be an excellent point of departure for class discussions.
Possible questions to begin class discussions:
How did Freudenberger interpret the novella? What moment did he choose to illustrate? What did he underline? What do you think?
The fullpage illustration (or “estampe”) and the headpiece (or “vignette”) for novellas 5 and 6, as examples, also have interesting parallels that make for good discussion. It would be interesting to look at the illustrations for novella 5 (the “batelière de Niort”) along with the BD version of this novella by Maria Colino (Alicante: Ponent, 1999; Angoulême: Centre National de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image, 2001).
*Carrie Klaus submitted these images, questions, and teaching ideas.
Teaching Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron 