Writing Gender in Women's Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance
1st Edition
Published on 31. December 2009
304 pages
978-1-4426-9783-6 (ISBN)
Description
During the Italian Renaissance, dozens of early modern writers published collections of private correspondence, using them as vehicles for self-presentation, self-promotion, social critique, and religious dissent. Writing Gender in Women's Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance examines the letter collections of women writers, arguing that these works were a studied performance of pervasive ideas about gender as well as genre, a form of self-fashioning that variously reflected, manipulated, and subverted cultural and literary conventions regarding femininity and masculinity.
Meredith K. Ray presents letter collections from authors of diverse backgrounds, including a noblewoman, a courtesan, an actress, a nun, and a male writer who composed letters under female pseudonyms. Ray's study includes extensive new archival research and highlights a widespread interest in women's letter collections during the Italian Renaissance that suggests a deep curiosity about the female experience and a surprising openness to women's participation in this kind of literary production.
Meredith K. Ray presents letter collections from authors of diverse backgrounds, including a noblewoman, a courtesan, an actress, a nun, and a male writer who composed letters under female pseudonyms. Ray's study includes extensive new archival research and highlights a widespread interest in women's letter collections during the Italian Renaissance that suggests a deep curiosity about the female experience and a surprising openness to women's participation in this kind of literary production.
Reviews / Votes
'Writing Gender is a fresh approach to the history of women that exposes the role of both authentic and ventriloquized gendered voices in the construction and performance of gender in Renaissance and Baroque vernacular letter collections.' - Aileen A Feng (Annali d'Italianistica, vol 28: 2010)More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Digital original
File size
0,99 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-4426-9783-6 (9781442697836)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
07/2009
University of Toronto Press
€79.23
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Meredith K. Ray is an assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Delaware.
