Overview

Early Modern Women Writers of Venice: Looking for Happiness explores the ways in which five women used their writing to challenge misogynistic views about female inferiority, develop a sense of agency, and form meaningful interpersonal relationships that would enable them to find happiness. They are the forerunners of later feminist thinkers. This book is the first full-length study of the happiness of women in early modern Italy. It focuses on five women writers who lived in Venice between the late fifteenth century and the early seventeenth century. It takes an interdisciplinary approach that combines methodologies from literature, psychology, philosophy, history, religion, and emotion studies, emphasizing the importance of studying the search for happiness within a specific cultural context. It contributes particularly to feminist studies that consider gender in the context of ideology and the exercise of power. It also engages with current studies of emotions by approaching them from the perspective of research in the field of positive psychology and self-determination theory. It considers how the process of writing enabled women to achieve autonomy, what they thought about happiness, and the extent to which they were able to achieve it in their individual lives.

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9781032443737

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“As we emerge from several years of a global pandemic, this timely and uplifting effort to revindicate the lives of early modern women by utilizing positive psychology and the theory of self-determination to consider their happiness is a welcome and innovative approach.” Professor Stacey Parker Aronson, University of Minnesota Morris

Author Information

Kathleen French is the author of Shakespeare and Happiness. She has a PhD from The University of Sydney and is currently an Honorary Associate of The University of Sydney. She has a particular interest in the role of positive emotion in the early modern period.

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