ABSTRACT
The roots of the literary quarrel known as the Querelle des femmes have been traced to Christine de Pizan's objection to the portrayal of women in the Roman de la rose. This chapter presents a study whose first goal of this study is to examine how querelle issues are raised, contextualized, and debated in works by male and female writers who were familiar with each other's views, moved in the same circles, and, in some cases, were writing directly in response to each other's work. The second goal of this study is to look at a selection of types of women who participated in literary society during this period and how their transgressing of traditional gender boundaries helped to fuel new waves of the querelle. The chapter explores the development of the Sidney circle's imitative practices regarding Continental literary trends, in particular focusing on the ways in which querelle issues and national religio-political issues become conflated.
