One cannot help but notice that poetry often appears in the seventeenth-century French prose text. With the seventeenth-century writer Madame de Villedieu, the occurrence is almost epidemic.  The purpose of this paper is to determine whether Villedieu's poetic lapses are just that, a "slip" into another genre, or might they be understood as reasoned commentary on Villedieu's own "affair" with the public eye? Additionally, does Villedieu's use of poetry in her texts offer something more to our understanding of poetry's function in seventeenth-century prose texts? As I will show, Madame de Villedieu's use of poetry works within the narrative and ultimately transcends the prose text.

     Two of Villedieu's poetic "lapses" appear as elegies in texts written before and after the worst events of her life: her break with the love of her life and the embarrassing publication of her personal love letters. The nouvelle, Anaxandre, was written before these disastrous events. As one might expect, Anaxandre plays host to a passionate elegy that attests to a dreamy, woman writer in love. In fact, the poem itself is titled "Elegie en forme de songe" and is authored by the protagonist in a moment of passionate reverie after she meets her lover. The second text, written during Villedieu's retreat from the world during 1672-1674, are the pseudo-memoires of an adventuress, Les mémoires d'Henriette-Sylvie de Molière. In contrast to Anaxandre, the elegy in Les mémoires replaces the dream of passion with the harsh reality of unrequited love. This elegy is a sad reminder of those who suffer unrequited love and try to free themselves. It appeared in 1674 after Villedieu's lover had died, and the poet/protagonist appeals to reason as a means of escape.

     I believe there is something larger at work in these poetic "lapses" than Villedieu's view of her love life. Villedieu made a business out of love stories and earned her living from the pen. She even turned the publication of her private letters to her own advantage through subsequent writings. Matters of the heart were her public bread and butter. Consequently, one can read these elegies as Villedieu's evaluation of her life in the public eye. Specifically, I see these poems as Villedieu's own description of the trials she suffered due to her own "love affair" with fame. In the first, ideal, dreamy elegy, she describes a passion that is insatiable-what I interpret to be a desire to continue in the public eye and enjoy her success despite the cursory blemishes to her reputation. In the second elegy, I see suffering and pain that no public renown can alleviate-the world has grown weary of its prize, and the woman writer appeals to reason to attain a separate existence from her work.

     So is this the end of Villedieu's story? Did the world-weary Villedieu insert this sad poeticcomment into one of her last texts in order to reiterate her retreat from a mad world that had taken her inspiration and allowed her no existence beyond her writing persona? For me, the answer is no.  Villedieu's story, nor her writing, ended here, for she subsequently wrote the most brilliant work of her career, Les désordres de l'amour. In this work, she dismisses a woman suffering unrequited love and glorifies the amazing Princesse de Guise-the powerful woman writer untouched by what she writes. In this work, there is no elegy. Instead, the protagonist offers maxims of poetic "truth" that touch the world around her while she remains secure in her own identity. By moving from elegy to maxim, Villedieu's poetic texts find a way to coalesce the rhyme of passion and the power of reason. In this view, her poetry recounts a writer's journey to subjectivity while offering the modern reader a new perspective from which one might evaluate the seventeenth-century poetic "lapse."