This essay establishes a parallel between Marguerite de Navarre’s four biblical plays and those four secular plays (labeled as “comedies”) that were written between 1535 and 1547. It is suggested that the aim of both tetralogies was to proselytize: not only do their themes clearly blend together, once they are placed in their historical context, but they also reflect the chronology of Marguerite’s own life during the years of religious repression. Moreover, Marguerite’s early commitment to and sponsorship of the Evangelical cause continued even after the Cercle de Meaux had been dismantled. After the Affaire des Placards, the Queen of Navarre knew that self-censorship was the only means by which she might quietly promote the Evangelical agenda and extend her protection—limited as it was — to those suspected of blasphemy or heresy who did not enjoy the relative immunity conferred by her privileged status. Consequently, none of these comedies appeared in print until 1547, and those of an obviously satirical nature were cautiously omitted, together with numerous religious meditations, when Les marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses was published.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Reynolds-Cornell, R., (2025), "Comédies bibliques, comédies profanes de Marguerite de Navarre: deux faces d'un Janus évangélique", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Reynolds-Cornell, Régine. "Comédies bibliques, comédies profanes de Marguerite de Navarre: deux faces d'un Janus évangélique." Renaissance and Reformation 38 (4): 2020. 11-31. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v38i4.8836. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.