Representações do papel da mulher nos estudos de Natalie Zemon Davis sobre a Europa Moderna

Abstract

“At one time they were flesh and blood; later they left only memories, portraits, their texts and their art” (Natalie Zemon Davis, Nas Margens). The Renaissance period is a moment marked by several transformations in the social and cultural sphere, combining the “dialectic of mystery and clarity, of credulity and critical spirit, of fantasy and rigor, of vitality and method in the hands of the historian” (DELUMEAU, 1984, p. 125), subject to various historiographical analyses. The conceptions of humanity had their legacies in the Middle Ages, causing individuals from that period to have “fears of witches, but to have fun with the occult” (DELUMEAU, 1984, p. 127), as well as causing several social contradictions that permeate the period regarding the image of women. It is under the aegis of this thematic perspective, of this historical period, between the 15th and 17th centuries, that we will research the roles that women assumed in the Renaissance1, carrying out a historiographical analysis of the historical narratives in the books by Natalie Zemon Davis: Stories of Forgiveness and its narrators in 16th-century France (2001) and On the Margins (1997); In these works, the author uses the dialogue between History and Literature as an aspect of Cultural History, making it possible, therefore, to discuss her theoretical current in the writing of historical texts, starting from the concept of representation.