Peritextuella gränsland

La querelle des femmes och den tidigmoderna bokmarknaden

Abstract

Peritextual Borderlands: La querelle des femmes and the Early Modern Book Market

The article investigates the roles played by printers, publishers and book traders in la querelle des femmes, the literary debate about women that took place in Europe in the early modern period. I discuss what Gerard Genette calls the peritext, as a section of the printed book where the interests of authors, printers, publishers and traders intersect. After discussing the English Swetnam controversy of 1615-1617 from the perspective of the literary market, I turn to the French poet Louise Labé and her work OEuvres, which was printed by Jean de Tournes in Lyon in 1555. In analysing three peritexts in OEuvres – the title page, the royal privelege and a laudatory poem by another, anonymous poet – it becomes clear that these peritexts carry messages on many different levels. They can be read as commercial, political and personal messages, making them highly complex aspects of the book. In conclusion, I argue that the organisation of the early modern book market is an important and heretofore largely neglected aspect of la querelle des femmes, and that the commercial logic of this book market in certain cases seems to work to support la querelle des femmes and women authors.