Gendering the Renaissance
Text and Context in Early Modern Italy

Meredith K. Ray (Edited by), Lynn Lara Westwater (Edited by), Anna Wainwright (Contributions by), Suzanne Magnanini (Contributions by), Nathalie Hester (Contributions by), Gabriella Zarri (Contributions by), Emanuela Zanotti Carney (Contributions by), Jennifer Haraguchi (Contributions by), Michael Sherberg (Contributions by), Courtney Quaintance (Contributions by), Meredith K. Ray (Contributions by), Lynn Lara Westwater (Contributions by)

9781644533048

Paperback / softback, published 14 April 2023

308 pages, 10 bw, 3 color images
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.3 cm, 0.068 kg

"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) "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)

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.