The play of equivocation in Catherine Bernard's Frédéric de Sicile

The first juvenile novel by C. Bernard Frédéric de Sicile (1680) is very much different from her later works. The novel is characterised by prevailing baroque style of the beginning of 17th century with less classicistic features. The main theme depicts the process of awakening and a change of identity; from his birth Frédéric must pretend to be a boy instead of a girl, as only a male child can inherit the throne of Sicily. The heroine, by continuous pretending, looses, at times, a track of who she really is. It is love that forces the disguised girl to make a choice between affection and the duty to dynasty and obedience to her father's will. She tries to show her feelings in a way to prevent mystification to be unveiled. Her lover wavers between hunch and reality. Ambiguity is the basic feature of the novel, at times bringing about comic qui pro quo.
The author manifests her presence in numerous moral maxims and by use of grammatical forms leaving no doubt that the novel was written by a woman. The work can be interpreted as a search for self-identity while the present pessimistic vision of love and human nature will be a hallmark of C. Bernard's future novels.

Keywords: Catherine Bernard, Frédéric de Sicile; novel; 17th century; baroque style