Overview

The essays in this volume revisit the Italian Renaissance to rethink spaces thought to be defined and certain: from the social spaces of convent, court, or home, to the literary spaces of established genres such as religious plays or epic poetry. Repopulating these spaces with the women who occupied them but have often been elided in the historical record, the essays also remind us to ask what might obscure our view of texts and archives, what has remained marginal in the texts and contexts of early modern Italy and why. The contributors, suggesting new ways of interrogating gendered discourses of genre, identities, and sanctity, offer a complex picture of gender in early modern Italian literature and culture. Read in dialogue with one another, their pieces provide a fascinating survey of currents in gender studies and early modern Italian studies and point to exciting future directions in these fields.

Full Product Details

Author:   Meredith K. Ray ,  Lynn Lara Westwater ,  Anna Wainwright ,  Suzanne Magnanini
Publisher:   University of Delaware Press
Imprint:   University of Delaware Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.467kg
ISBN:  

9781644533055

ISBN 10:   1644533057
Pages:   308
Publication Date:   14 April 2023
Recommended Age:   From 18 to 99 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Beyond the Wall: Gender as Nexus in Renaissance Italy  Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater Part I Gendering Genre 1 Widows, Lament, and Ottoman Anxieties in Renaissance Florence Anna Wainwright 2 Unhappily Ever After: Moderata Fonte’s Fairy Tale Suzanne Magnanini 3 Amerigo Vespucci and African Amazons: Reinventing Italian Exploration in Baroque Epic Poetry Nathalie Hester Part II Gendering Identities 4 The Princess Nun: The Familiar Letters of Suor Eleonora d’Este (1515–1575), Daughter of Lucrezia Borgia Gabriella Zarri (translated by Giuseppe Bruno-Chomin) 5 A Christian Romance for Married Women: Marriage, Female Spirituality, and the Pursuit of Saintliness in Antonia Pulci’s Rappresentazione di Santa Guglielma Emanuela Zanotti Carney 6 Maestre Pie Venerini and Filippini: Instituting Public Education  for Women in Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century Lazio Jennifer Haraguchi Part III Gendering Sanctity 7 The State of Grace in the Libro del Cortegiano Michael Sherberg 8 Singing Women, Saint Cecilia, and Self-Fashioning in Seventeenth-Century Rome Courtney Quaintance 9 “Polemics That Might Seem Spiteful in Heaven”: Female Spiritual Authority in Arcangela Tarabotti’s Paradiso Monacale Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater Bibliography Contributors Index

Reviews

""Enriches our understanding of the gender dynamics that shaped the Renaissance and early modern era. . . . Essential reading for early modernists. . . . A provocative, well-researched, and highly engaging study that appeals to students, specialists, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of gendered discourses in early modern Italian history, literature, and culture. . . . Ultimately, this book reminds us that understanding gender in its full complexity enhances our knowledge of history and culture.""-- ""Modern Philology"" (11/21/2024 12:00:00 AM)

Author Information

Meredith K. Ray is Elias Ahuja Professor of Italian at the University of Delaware. Her books include Margherita Sarrocchi’s Letters to Galileo: Astronomy, Astrology, and Poetics in Seventeenth-Century Italy, Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, and Writing Gender in Women’s Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance. Her translations include Machiavelli: Political, Historical, and Literary Writings, co-edited with Mark Jurdjevic and, with Lynn Lara Westwater, Arcangela Tarabotti’s Letters Familiar and Formal and Convent Paradise. Lynn Lara Westwater is a professor of Italian at The George Washington University. Her books include Sarra Copia Sulam: A Salonnière and the Press in Counter-Reformation Venice; with Meredith K. Ray, critical editions of Arcangela Tarabotti’s Letters Familiar and Formal and Convent Paradise; and with Diana Robin, a critical edition of Ippolita Sforza’s writing titled Duchess and Hostage in Renaissance Naples: Letters and Orations.  

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