SOURCE: “‘Voylà, mes dames …’: Inscribed Women Listeners and Readers in the Heptameron,” in Critical Tales: New Studies of the Heptameron and Early Modern Culture, edited by John D. Lyons and Mary B. McKinley, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993, pp. 104-22.

In the following essay, Bauschatz contends that the Heptameron is primarily directed at a female audience, and this intention is reflected in a disruption of the traditional narrative structure.

Many critics of the Heptameron have appeared frustrated or baffled in their attempts to find a coherent and unified message in the book. Rather than reaching any sort of closure, the stories succeed each other in a narrative process, often seeming to cancel out each other's meaning. Thus the message, if any, to be derived from the book appears ambiguous at best.¹ One way out of this impasse may be to look at stylistic patterns which repeat throughout the collection...