Download or read book Veronica Franco in Dialogue written by Marilyn Migiel and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the late twentieth century, the Venetian courtesan Veronica Franco has been viewed as a triumphant proto-feminist icon: a woman who celebrated her sexuality, an outspoken champion of women and their worth, and an important intellectual and cultural presence in sixteenth-century Venice. In Veronica Franco in Dialogue, Marilyn Migiel provides a nuanced account of Franco’s rhetorical strategies through a close analysis of her literary work. Focusing on the first fourteen poems in the Terze rime, a collection of Franco’s poems published in 1575, Migiel looks specifically at back-and-forth exchanges between Franco and an unknown male author. Migiel argues that in order to better understand what Franco is doing in the poetic collection, it is essential to understand how she constructs her identity as author, lover, and sex worker in relation to this unknown male author. Veronica Franco in Dialogue accounts for the moments of ambivalence, uncertainty, and indirectness in Franco’s poetry, as well as the polemicism and assertions of triumph. In doing so, it asks readers to consider their ideological investments in the stories we tell about early modern female authors and their cultural production.
Download or read book Poems and Selected Letters written by Veronica Franco and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Veronica Franco (whose life is featured in the motion picture Dangerous Beauty) was a sixteenth-century Venetian beauty, poet, and protofeminist. This collection captures the frank eroticism and impressive eloquence that set her apart from the chaste, silent woman prescribed by Renaissance gender ideology. As an "honored courtesan", Franco made her living by arranging to have sexual relations, for a high fee, with the elite of Venice and the many travelers—merchants, ambassadors, even kings—who passed through the city. Courtesans needed to be beautiful, sophisticated in their dress and manners, and elegant, cultivated conversationalists. Exempt from many of the social and educational restrictions placed on women of the Venetian patrician class, Franco used her position to recast "virtue" as "intellectual integrity," offering wit and refinement in return for patronage and a place in public life. Franco became a writer by allying herself with distinguished men at the center of her city's culture, particularly in the informal meetings of a literary salon at the home of Domenico Venier, the oldest member of a noble family and a former Venetian senator. Through Venier's protection and her own determination, Franco published work in which she defended her fellow courtesans, speaking out against their mistreatment by men and criticizing the subordination of women in general. Venier also provided literary counsel when she responded to insulting attacks written by the male Venetian poet Maffio Venier. Franco's insight into the power conflicts between men and women and her awareness of the threat she posed to her male contemporaries make her life and work pertinent today.
Download or read book The Honest Courtesan written by Margaret F. Rosenthal and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-07-13 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Venetian courtesan has long captured the imagination as a female symbol of sexual license, elegance, beauty, and unruliness. What then to make of the cortigiana onesta—the honest courtesan who recast virtue as intellectual integrity and offered wit and refinement in return for patronage and a place in public life? Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was such a woman, a writer and citizen of Venice, whose published poems and familiar letters offer rich testimony to the complexity of the honest courtesan's position. Margaret F. Rosenthal draws a compelling portrait of Veronica Franco in her cultural social, and economic world. Rosenthal reveals in Franco's writing a passionate support of defenseless women, strong convictions about inequality, and, in the eroticized language of her epistolary verses, the seductive political nature of all poetic contests. It is Veronica Franco's insight into the power conflicts between men and women—and her awareness of the threat she posed to her male contemporaries—that makes her literary works and her dealings with Venetian intellectuals so pertinent today. Combining the resources of biography, history, literary theory, and cultural criticism, this sophisticated interdisciplinary work presents an eloquent and often moving account of one woman's life as an act of self-creation and as a complex response to social forces and cultural conditions. "A book . . . pleasurably redolent of Venice in the 16th-century. Rosenthal gives a vivid sense of a world of salons and coteries, of intricate networks of family and patronage, and of literary exchanges both intellectual and erotic."—Helen Hackett, Times Higher Education Supplement The Honest Courtesan is the basis for the film Dangerous Beauty (1998) directed by Marshall Herskovitz. (The film was re-titled The Honest Courtesan for release in the UK and Europe in 1999.)
Download or read book Italian Women and the City written by Janet Levarie Smarr and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies of the city, and of women's experiences of the city, have focused primarily on modern times, especially as modernism was defined in large part by urban life. Italy, however, has a long history of urban-centered culture, and women have been a vocal part of that culture since the Renaissance. This volume, therefore, looks at the art and literature of both earlier and more modern periods to investigate the meanings of the city for Italian women, the intensely gendered meanings (for both sexes) of those city spaces that excluded women, and the conditions that permitted a limited permeability of gendered boundaries. Two aspects to the combination of "women" and "city" are salient to these investigations. One involves their metaphorical relationship. Urbs, citta, ville -- the words for city tend to be grammatically feminine, and a long tradition of representation associates the city. with a woman. Women, especially writers, could exploit, modify, or resist the prevailing uses of such metaphors. The second aspect of connection involves social realities. What was or is the relation of the (female) city with the real women who inhabit it? What kind of site has it provided for women seeking a satisfying life for themselves? How has art and literature, by men and by women, represented the relationship of female persons or characters to urban spaces?
Download or read book The Book of the Courtesans written by Susan Griffin and published by Crown. This book was released on 2002-02-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer-Prize-nominated author Susan Griffin comes an unprecedented, provocative look at the dazzling world of the West’s first independent women, whose lively liaisons brought them unspoken influence, wealth, and freedom. While they charmed some of Europe’s most illustrious men honing their social skills as well as their sexual ones, the great courtesans gained riches, power, education, and sexual freedom in a time when other women were denied all of these. From Imperia of sixteenth-century Rome, who personified the Renaissance ideal of beauty; Mme. de Pompadour, the arbiter of all things fashionable in eighteenth-century Paris and Versailles; Liane de Pougy, known in France during the Belle Epoque as “Our National Courtesan”; to Sarah Bernhardt, who, following in her mother’s footsteps, supported herself in her early career with a second profession, The Book of the Courtesans tells the life stories and intricacies of the lavish lifestyles of these women. Unlike their geisha counterparts, courtesans neither lived in brothels nor bent their wills to suit their suitors. They were strong- willed, autonomous, and plucky. An open secret, their presence can be felt throughout our culture. The muses who enflamed the hearts and imaginations of our most celebrated artists, they were also artists in their own right. They wrote poetry and novels, invented the cancan at the Moulin Rouge, and presented celebrated acts at the Folies Bergères. They helped to influence and shape the sensibility of modern literature, painting, and fashion. When Greek sculptor Praxiteles wanted to depict Venus he used a famous courtesan as a model, as in later centuries Titian, Veronese, Raphael, Giorgione, and Boucher did when they painted goddesses. When Marcel Proust was a young man it was the courtesan Laure Hayman who took him under her wing, introducing him to the right people, and providing inspiration for one of literature’s greatest masterpieces. And they often had considerable political influence too. When King Louis XV needed advice on foreign affairs or appointments of state he turned to Jeanne du Barry as well as Pompadour. In her witty and insightful prose, as Griffin celebrates these alluring and fascinating women, she restores a lost legacy of women’s history. She gives us the stories of these amazing women who, starting from impoverished or unimpressive beginnings, garnered chateaux, fine coaches, fabulous collections of jewelry, and even aristocratic titles along the way. And through a brilliant exploration of their extraordinary abilities, skills, and talents which Griffin playfully categorizes as their virtues "Timing, Beauty, Cheek, Brilliance, Gaiety, Grace, and Charm" her book explains how, while helping themselves, through their often outrageous, always entertaining examples, the great courtesans not only enriched our cultural heritage but helped to liberate women from the social, sexual, and economic strictures that confined them. Intensively researched and beautifully crafted, The Book of the Courtesans delves into scintillating but often hidden worlds, telling stories gleaned from many sources, including courtesans’ memoirs, presented along with stunning rare photographs to create memorable portraits of some of the most pivotal figures in women’s history.
Download or read book The Beauty and the Terror written by Catherine Fletcher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-08 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new account of the birth of the West through its birthplace--Renaissance Italy The period between 1492--resonant for a number of reasons--and 1571, when the Ottoman navy was defeated in the Battle of Lepanto, embraces what we know as the Renaissance, one of the most dynamic and creatively explosive epochs in world history. Here is the period that gave rise to so many great artists and figures, and which by its connection to its classical heritage enabled a redefinition, even reinvention, of human potential. It was a moment both of violent struggle and great achievement, of Michelangelo and da Vinci as well as the Borgias and Machiavelli. At the hub of this cultural and intellectual ferment was Italy. The Beauty and the Terror offers a vibrant history of Renaissance Italy and its crucial role in the emergence of the Western world. Drawing on a rich range of sources--letters, interrogation records, maps, artworks, and inventories--Catherine Fletcher explores both the explosion of artistic expression and years of bloody conflict between Spain and France, between Catholic and Protestant, between Christian and Muslim; in doing so, she presents a new way of witnessing the birth of the West.
Download or read book Moderata Fonte written by Paola Malpezzi Price and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did it mean to be a woman in sixteenth-century Venice? How did women impact the everyday life of this brilliant, festive, but essentially patriarchal city? How did an educated, sensitive, and intelligent woman writer of the Venetian citizen class treat the question of gender relationships and of women's place in society? These questions are at the center of this volume, which explores the role of Venetian women in sixteenth-century culture as well as the contribution of the writer Moderata Fonte to the centuries-old war of the sexes.
Download or read book The Ethical Dimension of the Decameron written by Marilyn Migiel and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With The Ethical Dimension of the “Decameron” Marilyn Migiel, author of A Rhetoric of the “Decameron” (winner of the MLA’s 2004 Marraro Prize), returns to Giovanni Boccaccio’s masterpiece, this time to focus on the dialogue about ethical choices that the Decameron creates with us and that we, as individuals and as groups, create with the Decameron. Maintaining that we can examine this dialogue to gain insights into our values, our biases and our decision-making processes, Migiel offers a view of the Decameron as sticky and thorny. According to Migiel, the Decameron catches us as we move through it, obligating us to reveal ourselves, inviting us to reflect on how we form our assessments, and calling upon us to be mindful of our responsibility to judge patiently and carefully. Migiel’s focus remains unabashedly on the experience of readers, on the meanings they find in the Decameron, and on the ideological assumptions they have about the way that a literary text such as the Decameron works. She offers that, rather than thinking about the Decameron as “teaching” readers, we should think about it “testing” them. Throughout, Migiel engages in the masterful in-depth rhetorical analyses, delivered in lively and readable prose, that are her trademark. Whether she is examining the Italian of the Decameron, translations of the Italian into English, commentaries by scholars, newspaper articles, or student essays, she asks us always to maintain an ethical engagement with the words of others.
Download or read book Strong Voices Weak History written by Pamela Joseph Benson and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a March 2000 conference at the University of Pennsylvania, 16 essays explore such aspects as women's dialogue writing in 16th-century France, Maria Domitilla Galluzzi and the Rule of St. Clare of Assisi, courtly origins of new literary canons, the earliest anthology of English women's texts, and the reinvention of Anne Askew. One of the contri
Download or read book Women Poets of the Italian Renaissance written by Laura Anna Stortoni and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dual-language collection presents the rich flowering of women's poetry during the Italian Renaissance: from the love lyrics of famous courtly ladies of Venice and Rome to the deeply moral and spiritual poets of the age. It includes biographies of 19 poets and over 80 selected poems in the original Italian with facing English verse translation. Poets include: Laura Battiferri Ammannati, Chiara Matraini, Isabella Andreini, Lucrezia Tornabuoni de' Medici, Vittoria Colonna, Isabella di Morra, Tullia d'Aragona, Aurelia Petrucci, Lucia Bertani Dell'Oro, Antonia Giannotti Pulci, Leonora Ravira Falletti, Camilla Scarampa, Moderata Fonte, Gaspara Stampa, Veronica Franco, Laura Bacio Terracina, Veronica Gmbara, Barbara Bentivoglio Strozzi Torelli, Olimpia Malipiera. Dual-language poetry. Introduction, biographies, notes, bibliographies, first-line index.
Download or read book Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist written by Laura Cereta and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renaissance writer Laura Cereta (1469–1499) presents feminist issues in a predominantly male venue—the humanist autobiography in the form of personal letters. Cereta's works circulated widely in Italy during the early modern era, but her complete letters have never before been published in English. In her public lectures and essays, Cereta explores the history of women's contributions to the intellectual and political life of Europe. She argues against the slavery of women in marriage and for the rights of women to higher education, the same issues that have occupied feminist thinkers of later centuries. Yet these letters also furnish a detailed portrait of an early modern woman’s private experience, for Cereta addressed many letters to a close circle of family and friends, discussing highly personal concerns such as her difficult relationships with her mother and her husband. Taken together, these letters are a testament both to an individual woman and to enduring feminist concerns.
Download or read book A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now written by Aliki Barnstone and published by Schocken. This book was released on 1992-04-28 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A monument to the literary genius of women throughout the ages, A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now is an invaluable collection. Here in one volume are the works of three hundred poets from six different continents and four millennia. This revised edition includes a newly expanded section of American poets from the colonial era to the present. "[A] splendid collection of verse by women" (TIME) throughout the ages and around the world; now revised and expanded, with 38 American poets.
Download or read book Libertines and Radicals in Early Modern London written by James Turner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyses English sexual culture between the Civil Wars and the death of Charles II.
Download or read book Women and the Circulation of Texts in Renaissance Italy written by Brian Richardson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive guide to women's promotion and use of textual culture, in manuscript and print, in Renaissance Italy.
Download or read book The Worth of Women written by Moderata Fonte and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender equality and the responsibility of husbands and fathers: issues that loom large today had currency in Renaissance Venice as well, as evidenced by the publication in 1600 of The Worth of Women by Moderata Fonte. Moderata Fonte was the pseudonym of Modesta Pozzo (1555–92), a Venetian woman who was something of an anomaly. Neither cloistered in a convent nor as liberated from prevailing codes of decorum as a courtesan might be, Pozzo was a respectable, married mother who produced literature in genres that were commonly considered "masculine"—the chivalric romance and the literary dialogue. This work takes the form of the latter, with Fonte creating a conversation among seven Venetian noblewomen. The dialogue explores nearly every aspect of women's experience in both theoretical and practical terms. These women, who differ in age and experience, take as their broad theme men's curious hostility toward women and possible cures for it. Through this witty and ambitious work, Fonte seeks to elevate women's status to that of men, arguing that women have the same innate abilities as men and, when similarly educated, prove their equals. Through this dialogue, Fonte provides a picture of the private and public lives of Renaissance women, ruminating on their roles in the home, in society, and in the arts. A fine example of Renaissance vernacular literature, this book is also a testament to the enduring issues that women face, including the attempt to reconcile femininity with ambition.
Download or read book The Fates Divide written by Veronica Roth and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 New York Times Bestseller! In the second book of the Carve the Mark duology, globally bestselling Divergent author Veronica Roth reveals how Cyra and Akos fulfill their fates. The Fates Divide is a richly imagined tale of hope and resilience told in four stunning perspectives. The lives of Cyra Noavek and Akos Kereseth are ruled by their fates, spoken by the oracles at their births. The fates, once determined, are inescapable. Akos is in love with Cyra, in spite of his fate: He will die in service to Cyra’s family. And when Cyra’s father, Lazmet Noavek—a soulless tyrant, thought to be dead—reclaims the Shotet throne, Akos believes his end is closer than ever. As Lazmet ignites a barbaric war, Cyra and Akos are desperate to stop him at any cost. For Cyra, that could mean taking the life of the man who may—or may not—be her father. For Akos, it could mean giving his own. In a stunning twist, the two will discover how fate defines their lives in ways most unexpected. Praise for Carve the Mark: #1 New York Times bestseller * Wall Street Journal bestseller * USA Today bestseller * #1 IndieBound bestseller “Roth skillfully weaves the careful world-building and intricate web of characters that distinguished Divergent.” —VOYA (starred review) “Roth offers a richly imagined, often brutal world of political intrigue and adventure, with a slow-burning romance at its core.” —ALA Booklist
Download or read book Women s Writing in Italy 1400 1650 written by Virginia Cox and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008-06-16 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2009 Best Book Award, Society for the Study of Early Modern WomenWinner, 2008 PROSE Award for Best Book in Language, Literature, and Linguistics. Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers This is the first comprehensive study of the remarkably rich tradition of women’s writing that flourished in Italy between the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Virginia Cox documents this tradition and both explains its character and scope and offers a new hypothesis on the reasons for its emergence and decline. Cox combines fresh scholarship with a revisionist argument that overturns existing historical paradigms for the chronology of early modern Italian women’s writing and questions the historiographical commonplace that the tradition was brought to an end by the Counter Reformation. Using a comparative analysis of women's activities as artists, musicians, composers, and actresses, Cox locates women's writing in its broader contexts and considers how gender reflects and reinvents conventional narratives of literary change.
