SOURCE: Wood, Diane S. “Dido as Paradigm of the Tragic Heroine in the Works of Hélisenne de Crenne.” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 18 (1992): 125-36.

In the following essay, Wood contends that de Crenne's works offer a singular vision about the destructiveness of love that take inspiration from the story of Dido in the Aeneid.

The popularity of the tragic story of Dido during the French Renaissance is reflected not only in many translations and in the theater, but also in popular fiction by Hélisenne de Crenne who utilizes the figure of Dido as inspiration for her female characters.¹ In her writings Dido symbolizes an example of great feminine virtue as well as a warning of love's potential for destructiveness. Dido, the unfortunate victim of love in the Aeneid, serves De Crenne as a paradigm for the woman who tragically loses herself to amor. Always a didactic author...