ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to advance an alternative hypothesis concerning the status of the female writer in print. A material and textual reading of the Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d'amours reveals numerous ways in which the work constructs itself as authoritative. This authority is created partly by the text itself through its use of exemplarity to appeal to the reader and the representation of its production and reception and partly through the use of extra-textual elements such as the preface, the author's name, the title page and the use of illustrationsIn order to facilitate the circulation of their works, women writers adopted numerous strategies that sought to ensure that their works were not only favourably received but also treated with the gravity that their own commitment to literary enterprise merited. The synonymy between the author and the claimed narrator of the story, Dame Helisenne, is therefore an essential aspect of the novel's authoritative claim.
