Graduate Studies

MPhil in European Literature & Culture | Course content | Modules | IT Women & Text - Women and Writing in Italy, 1530-1650

MPhil in European Literature & Culture

Italian | IT Women & Text

Women and Writing in Italy, 1530-1650
(Convenor: Dr Abigail Brundin)

This Italian module seeks to explore the reasons behind the unprecedented increase in published women writers in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a phenomenon which marks Italy out in relation to its European neighbours where the number of women writers in the period was far smaller. Through an analysis of texts by and about women, we will examine the manner in which women constructed gendered identities for themselves within early modern literary culture, directing attention to practices of both the production and the consumption of texts by women, as well as the various ways in which women are represented in male-authored works of the period.

In the opening sessions, we will examine the cultural debate surrounding the Querelle des femmes in Italy, making use of the discussion in Castiglione’s Libro del cortegiano (Book of the Courtier, 1528), Book III, as well as the polemic by Moderata Fonte, Il merito delle donne (The Worth of Women, 1600). We will also investigate the lyric poet Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547), whose work and carefully marketed literary persona were instrumental in defining the model for literary production by secular women in Italy.

Later in the course, and taking into account the interests of individual students, a number of possibilities for further study exist. These include: pro-feminist polemic; the phenomenon of the literary ‘cortegiana’ and issues of gender and sexuality; literary culture in the convents; the growing status of women as patrons and dedicatees of literature; women writers for the theatre.

There will also be scope for the investigation of wider theoretical, historical and thematic issues, such as the impact of the Counter Reformation on literary production by women, or the relationship of manuscript to print culture in women’s literary production. We can also arrange to visit the University Library and examine some of the early printed books by Italian women writers held there.

A good reading knowledge of Italian is desirable, although a number of the works now exist in translation.

Essential Reading

Primary sources

• Castiglione, Baldassare, Il libro del Cortegiano (1528), available in a number of editions in Italian and translation. Book III at least is essential reading.
• Fonte, Moderata, Il merito delle donne, ed. Adriana Chemello (Venice: Eidos, 1988). Also available in English translation with a useful introduction and notes, and a full bibliography: The Worth of Women, ed. and trans. Virginia Cox (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997)
• Colonna, Vittoria, Sonnets for Michelangelo, ed. and trans. Abigail Brundin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) [This is a parallel text of Italian poems with facing page English translations]

Secondary Sources

The indispensible recent historical survey of the whole field is the 2008 study by Virginia Cox:

• Cox, Virginia, Women’s Writing in Italy 1400-1650 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008)

Also useful for initial browsing are the following:

• Benson, Pamela J., The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: The Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1992)
• Brown, Judith C. and Robert C. Davis, eds., Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy (London: Longman, 1998)
• Hutson, Lorna, ed., Feminism and Renaissance Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)
• Panizza, Letizia, ed., Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society (Oxford: Legenda, 2000)
• Panizza, Letizia and Sharon Wood, eds., A History of Women’s Writing in Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

More comprehensive reading lists for individual authors and topics will be made available during the Lent Term.

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