Nancy Frelick
Associate Professor
email
Nancy.Frelick@ubc.ca
Thematic Research Area
Period/Nation Research Area
Education
MA, University of Alberta
PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
About
Nancy Frelick is associate professor of French Renaissance Literature and English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia where she has been teaching since 1990. She is the author of the book Délie as Other: Toward a Poetics of Desire in Scève’s Délie (French Forum, 1994) as well as articles on French Renaissance poetry and prose, including works attributed to men (Maurice Scève, Michel de Montaigne, François Rabelais) and women (Louise Labé, Marguerite de Navarre, Marie de Gournay, Hélisenne de Crenne, and Jeanne Flore). Much of her work explores discourses of desire in early modern texts and is informed by post-structuralist psychoanalytic criticism (Lacan) and gender studies, among others.
Teaching
Research
- Sixteenth-century literature
- Theory and criticism: structuralism, post-structuralism, psychoanalytic criticism (Lacan), narratology
- Genre studies: lyric poetry, autobiography, and fiction
- Women’s writing and gender studies
- Early modern medicine: melancholy and lovesickness
- Mirror motifs in early modern literature
- Emblem books
Publications
Select Publications
Books
Délie as Other: Toward a Poetics of Desire in Scève’s Délie. Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1994.
Reprint: “The Poetic Persona and the Object of Desire.” (Chapter 3 of) Délie as Other: Toward a Poetics of Desire in Scève’s Délie. French Forum Monographs 83. Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1994. 99-129. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 111. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Artemis Literary Sources. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420102250&v=2.1&u=ubcolumbia&it=r&p=GLS&sw=w
Edited Books
Subject/Object and Beyond: Women in Early Modern France, edited by Nancy M. Frelick and Edith Benkov. Reflections on Early Modernity / Réflexions sur la première modernité 1. New York/Toronto: Iter Press, 2024.
The Mirror in Medieval and Early Modern Culture: Specular Reflections. Cursor Mundi 25. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2016.
Edited Journals
Marguerite de Navarre: Perspectives croisées. Guest editors of special issue: Nancy M. Frelick, Scott Francis, and Dariusz Krawczyk. French Forum 47.2-3 (2022).
The Reader, the Subject and the Self: Selected Papers from the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference at the University of British Columbia in March 1993. Guest editors of special issue: Mark Vessey and Nancy Frelick. Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 18.4 (1994).
Articles and Book Chapters
“Le sexe féminin et le regard de l’Autre dans la ‘Visio prima’ du Catoptrum microcosmicum de Remmelin: ‘entre la Méduse et l’abîme’.” Special issue: Découvrir le sexe féminin: dires et savoirs de la ‘nature’ cachée des femmes / Uncovering the Female Anatomy: Discourses on Women’s Hidden “Nature.” Guest editors: Hélène Cazes, Viviane Fairbank, and Magdalena Koźluk. Folia Litteraria Romanica 21 (2026): 175-206. https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/romanica/article/view/28638/28197
“Réflexions sur quelques miroirs métaphoriques au xvie siècle: Marguerite de Navarre et Maurice Scève.” Le Détour du comparant. La Métaphore à l’épreuve du temps littéraire. Ed. Xavier Bonnier and Florence Fix. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2025. 129-45.
“Blason du Miroir (ou miroir du blason?).” Harmoniques littéraires. Études en l’honneur de Jean-Philippe Beaulieu. Ed. Renée-Claude Breitenstein and Diane Desrosiers. Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2024. 125-43.
“Ronsard et ses miroirs dans Les Amours (1552).” L’Année ronsardienne 6 (2024): 57-74.
“Gender, Transference, and the Passions: Reading Montaigne with Lacan.” Special issue: Montaigne and Gender. Guest editor: Gary Ferguson. Montaigne Studies 36.1-2 (2024): 39-54.
“Lost in the Labérynthe: Mythologizing Louise Labé and the École lyonnaise.” In Subject/Object and Beyond: Women in Early Modern France. Reflections on Early Modernity / Réflexions sur la première modernité 1. Ed. Nancy M. Frelick and Edith Benkov. New York/Toronto: Iter Press, 2024. 87-120.
“Reading Marguerite de Navarre with Psychoanalysis.” Special issue: Marguerite de Navarre: perspectives croisées. Guest editors: Nancy M. Frelick, Scott Francis, and Dariusz Krawczyk. French Forum 47.2-3 (2022): 1-15.
“L’Heptaméron de Marguerite de Navarre: enjeux et écueils de la lecture biographique.” Le Verger – bouquet 20 (2021): 17 pp. URL : http://cornucopia16.com/blog/2021/01/26/nancy-frelick-lheptameron-de-marguerite-de-navarre-enjeux-et-ecueils-de-la-lecture-biographique/
“Gender, Transference, and the Reception of Early Modern Women: The Case of Louise Labé.” Special issue: Writing/Creating in the Feminine in Early Modern France. Guest editors: Anne R. Larsen and Colette H. Winn. L’Esprit Créateur 60.1 (2020): 9-22.
“Délie et le langage des yeux.” In Maurice Scève. Le poète en quête d’un langage. Ed. Vân Dung Le Flanchec, Michèle Clément, and Anne-Pascale Pouey-Mounou. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2019. 441-62.
“Woman as Other: Medusa and Basilisk in Early Modern French Literature.” Special issue: Altérité et différences à l’aube des temps modernes. Guest editors: Colette H. Winn and Cynthia Skenazi. French Forum 43.2 (2018): 285-300.
“Mirror Effects: The Narcissus Emblem in Scève’s Délie.” In Images of Sex and Desire in Renaissance Thought and Modern Historiography. Ed Angeliki Pollali and Berthold Hub. Visual Culture in Early Modernity. New York and London: Routledge, 2018. 61-79.
“Mirroring Discourses of Difference: Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron and the Querelle des femmes.” Special issue: Querelles des femmes: French Women Writers of the 15th and 16th Centuries. Guest editors: Kevin Brownlee and Scott Francis. French Forum 42.3 (2017): 375-92.
“In the Eye of the Beholder: The Rhetoric of Beauty and the Beauty of Rhetoric in the Heptaméron.” Special issue: Women in the World and Works of Marguerite de Navarre. Guest editor: Judy Kem. L’Esprit créateur 57.3 (2017): 8-20.
“La Passion au miroir: les dizains spéculaires de Délie.” Special issue: Les Passions et leurs enjeux au seizième siècle. Guest editor: Colette H. Winn. Renaissance and Reformation/ Renaissance et Réforme 38.3 (2015): 17-39.
“Per speculum in aenigmate: An Introduction to Le Miroir des melancholicques.” In Miroirs de la mélancolie/Mirrors of Melancholy. Ed. Hélène Cazes et al. Les collections de la République des Lettres. Paris: Hermann, 2015. 119-84.
“Amitié et anamorphose chez Montaigne et Holbein.” Topiques, Études Satoriennes 1 (2015): 14 pp.
http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/sator/article/view/11620
http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/sator/article/view/11620
“Speech, Silence, and Storytelling: Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron and Narrative Therapy,” Reformation and Renaissance/Renaissance et Réforme 36:1 (2013): 69-92.
“Lire en abyme: les emblèmes spéculaires de Délie”, textimage – L’image répétée. Imitation, copie, remploi, recyclage. Actes du colloque des 2, 3, et 4 juin 2011 à l’Université de Victoria (2012).
“Alcofribas et les leurres du discours alchimique.” Le Verger – bouquet 1 (2012).
“Reading Hélisenne with Transference.” In Teaching French Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation. Ed. Colette H. Winn. New York: Modern Language Association, 2011. 206-17. Rpt. in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 218. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Artemis Literary Sources.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CRMBDDF811933006&v=2.1&u=ubcolumbia&it=r&p=GLS&sw=w
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CRMBDDF811933006&v=2.1&u=ubcolumbia&it=r&p=GLS&sw=w
“Love, Mercy, and Courtly Discourse: Marguerite de Navarre Reads Alain Chartier.” Mythes à la cour, mythes pour la cour. Ed. Alain Corbellari et al. Genève: Droz (2010). 325-36.
“Images captivantes: Louise Labé Amazone.” Dix ans de recherches sur les femmes écrivains de l’Ancien Régime. Ed. Guy Poirier. Sainte-Foy: PU Laval (2008). 127-46.
“Reading Violent Truths.” Approaches to Teaching Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron. Ed. Colette H. Winn. New York: MLA (2007). 113-17.
“Contagions of Love: Textual Transmission.” Imagining Contagion in Early Modern Europe. Ed. Claire L. Carlin. London: Palgrave Macmillan (2005): 47-62.
“Attribuer un sexe à Jeanne Flore?” Trans. Régine Reynolds-Cornell. In Actualité de Jeanne Flore. Ed. Diane Desrosiers-Bonin, Eliane Viennot, and Régine Reynolds-Cornell. Paris: Champion, 2004. 239-50. Rpt. In Actualité de Jeanne Flore. Ed. Diane Desrosiers-Bonin, Eliane Viennot, and Régine Reynolds-Cornell. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2022. 239-50.
“Friendship, Transference, and Voluntary Servitude: Montaigne and La Boétie.” Le Visage changeant de Montaigne/The Changing Faces of Montaigne. Ed. Keith Cameron et al. Paris: Champion (2003). 195-206. Rpt. In Le Visage changeant de Montaigne / The Changing Face of Montaigne. Ed. Keith Cameron and Laura Willett. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2023. 195-206.
“Lacan, Courtly Love, and Anamorphosis.” The Court Reconvenes. Courtly Literature Across the Disciplines. Ed. Barbara K. Altmann et al. Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer (2003). 107-14.
“(Re)Fashioning Marie de Gournay.” La Femme au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Richard G. Hodgson. Tübingen: Gunter Narr (2002). 165-80.
“Poétique du transfert et objets a: l’exemple de la Délie” in Poétiques de l’objet. Ed. François Rouget with John Stout. Paris : Champion (2001). 73-82.
“Female Infidelity: Ideology, Subversion, and Feminist Practice in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron.” Special issue: Le Mariage sous l’Ancien Régime. Guest editor: Claire L. Carlin. Dalhousie French Studies 56 (2001): 17-26. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 85. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Artemis Literary Sources. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CNTGMCM530986232&v=2.1&u=ubcolumbia&it=r&p=GLS&sw=w
“Fetishism and Storytelling in Nouvelle 57 of Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron.” In Distant Voices Still Heard: Contemporary Readings of French Renaissance Literature. Ed. John O’Brien and Malcolm Quainton. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2000. 138-54. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 211. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2015. Artemis Literary Sources.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CBJOLEB588980138&v=2.1&u=ubcolumbia&it=r&p=GLS&sw=w
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CBJOLEB588980138&v=2.1&u=ubcolumbia&it=r&p=GLS&sw=w
“Sex, Lies, and Anamorphosis: Love as Transference in Scève’s Délie.” Romanic Review 90.3 (1999): 301-16. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 111. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Artemis Literary Sources.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CHAYVPC171632143&v=2.1&u=ubcolumbia&it=r&p=GLS&sw=w
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CHAYVPC171632143&v=2.1&u=ubcolumbia&it=r&p=GLS&sw=w
“‘Hydre-miroir’: Les Romanesques d’Alain Robbe-Grillet et le pacte fantasmatique.” The French Review 70.1 (1996): 44-55.
“J’ouïs-sens: Thaumaste dans le Pantagruel de Rabelais et le sujet-supposé-savoir.” Études rabelaisiennes 30 (1995): 81-97.
“Looking for ‘Délie’ Through the Labyrinth of Signs.” A Scève Celebration: Délie 1544-1994. Ed. Jerry C. Nash. Saratoga, CA: ANMA Libri, 1994. 115-127.