Gendering the Renaissance: Text and Context in Early Modern Italy

Gendering the Renaissance: Text and Context in Early Modern Italy

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.

2023

University of Delaware Press

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Abbiamo da poco finito di piangere sulla monaca di Monza. Dopo la pubblicazione di questo libro smetteremo di piangere anche su Arcangela Tarabotti.

Gabrielle Zarri - Universitá di Firenze

After their Italian edition of Taraboti’s Lettere, Meredith Ray and Lynn Westwater have now produce the definitive English translation of this remarkable text: clear, accurate and lively — a delight to read. Their introduction sets the historical and cultural context, while meticulous notes fully explain each letter. Altogether, compelling reading that brings the extraordinary story told by Tarabotti’s Letters to an English-speaking audience for the first time.

Letizia Panizza - Royal Holloway, University of London

Meredith Ray and Lynn Westwater have done an excellent job reworking Tarabotti’s labyrinthine, often page-long sentences, skillfully breaking them into readable, truly eloquent English equivalents. The notes supporting the translation are very thoroughly researched, extensive and insightful. The introduction is an indispensable guide to Tarabotti’s account of convent life.

Elissa Weaver - Professor Emerita of Italian Literature, University of Chicago

Readers will find meticulous historical contextualization in the editors’ analytical introduction, and in the individual summaries that begin each section of texts. Ippolita Maria Sforza adds a different type of protagonist to the growing roster of “other voices,” showing us an Italian noblewoman maneuvering with confidence and dexterity not only in the literary domain but also in that of formal politics.

Sarah Gwyneth Ross - History Department, Boston College

As we expand the geographical span of early modernity, this monograph reminds us that we still have plenty to uncover when it comes to diverse voices in what seem to be the most studied areas. Sarra Copia Sulam’s life, salon, and works are one of these ‘blind spots,’ and Westwater’s book fills a lacuna that many did not even know existed.

Maria Galli Stampino - Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Miami

The first comprehensive English-language biography of Sarra Copia Sulam, this book effectively argues that Copia Sulam merits our attention for her exceptional life as well as for her literary achievements. Westwater provides a compelling and well-researched narrative, artfully placing Copia Sulam’s writings within the context of her life as well as within the contemporary debates surrounding theology and gender. Readers will be fascinated by the biography of an extraordinary person as well as by the descriptions of Jewish culture in Italy at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Gerry Milligan - Department of World Languages and Literatures, College of Staten Island (CUNY)