A $121k (拢92k) grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities will support the translation and publication of two major 16th-century French poems.
The funding announcement comes as part of a for 240 humanities projects across the United States and Europe by the endowment. Associate Professor in History of Art Dr Elizabeth L鈥橢strange, in collaboration with Professor Joan E. McRae of Middle Tennessee State University, will be publishing the two major surviving works of Anne de Graville (c.1490-1540) in English: the Beau roman and the Rondeaux.
Anne de Graville was a French poet and translator who dedicated her two surviving works to two powerful women at the French court: Queen Claude of France, and Claude鈥檚 mother-in-law, Louise of Savoy. Following in the steps of Christine de Pizan a century earlier, Anne was an important, but so far over-looked, voice in pro-feminine literature of the 1500s.
The project, titled 鈥楻esurrecting the Work of Anne de Graville: An Edition, Annotation, and English Translation of the Works of Anne de Graville鈥, will give new life to the centuries-old texts and make them widely accessible to the public.
We鈥檙e so pleased that Anne is finally getting the attention she deserves. Her writings engage with two canonical male authors 鈥 Boccaccio and Chartier 鈥 and challenge the misogynistic discourses of her day, giving women a voice in a literary field otherwise largely dominated by men.
For Dr L鈥橢strange, this project is part of her ongoing research on Anne de Graville鈥檚 work. In April 2023 she released her book, , which connected Anne鈥檚 library and book-collecting practices to her writing. The National Endowment for the Humanities funding follows a c.拢10K BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant that Dr L鈥橢strange and Professor McRae received in 2023 to kickstart their project.
UPDATE: Dr L'Estrange's book, Anne de Graville: Women鈥檚 Literary Networks in Early Modern France, has received the 2024 Best Book (Scholarly Monograph) award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender. The award committee commended the publication's "meticulous archival and bibliographical research with innovative literary analysis", adding "This lavishly illustrated and well-written book offers a fascinating account of the concerns animating one woman鈥檚 complex involvement in the world of books鈥 - 08/10/2024
