Based on sources in Genesis and Plato's Symposium , the androygyne during Early Modern France was a means of expressing the full potential of humans made in the image of God. This book documents and comments on the range of references to the androgyne in the writings of poets, philosophers, courtiers, and women in positions of political power.

Marian Rothstein is Professor Emerita of French at Carthage College, USA. She is the author of Reading in the Renaissance: Amadis de Gaule and the Lessons of Memory and editor of Charting Change in Renaissance French Thought and Culture.