In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for Women's Writing (Volume 11) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series)

This excellent collection of essays and texts surveys the culture and intellectual context of early modern Italy in order to render more intelligible the writing of Italian women. The role of women in society and the persistent misogyny even of the most pro-woman texts are explored in the essays, and the recent critical debates are examined. The translations make available in English a selection of male-authored texts which directly or indirectly elicited the spirited responses of women, for which the volume is aptly entitled “In Dialogue.” A valuable classroom resource, the volume is an important addition to The Other Voice: Toronto series. —Elissa Weaver Professor of Italian, Emerita, University of Chicago Cover Title Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1: Contexts and the Canon 1. Contexts and Canonical Authors 2. Christian Feminine Virtue in Silvio Antoniano’s Three Books on the Christian Education of Children 3. Stefano Guazzo’s Civil conversatione and the querelle des femmes 4. Alessandro Piccolomini’s Raffaella: A Parody of Women’s Behavior and Men’s Dialogues Part 2: Cases 5. Torquato Tasso: Discourse on Feminine and Womanly Virtue 6. Giuseppe Passi’s Attacks on Women in The Defects of Women 7. Love as Centaur: Rational Man, Animal Woman in Sperone Speroni’s Dialogue on Love 8. Francesco Andreini: “On Taking a Wife” 9. Dishonoring Courtesans in Early Modern Italy: The poesia puttanesca of Anton Francesco Grazzini, Nicolò Franco, and Maffio Venier 10. Giulia Bigolina and Pietro Aretino’s Letters 11. Centrality and Liminality in Bernardino Ochino’s “Sermon Preached ... on the Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalen” Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index The first part of this volume contains essays that explore early modern Italian women's writing by examining male-authored texts that illustrate the ideological forces at work in their period. The second part of the volume contains English translations of these male-authored texts, including those by Torquato Tasso, Giuseppe Passi, Pietro Aretino, and Bernardino Ochino amongst others.