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Literary Criticism Italian

Writing Gender in Women's Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance

by (author) Meredith K. Ray

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Dec 2009
Category
Italian, Women's Studies, Letters
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802097040
    Publish Date
    Jul 2009
    List Price
    $75
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442697836
    Publish Date
    Dec 2009
    List Price
    $90.00

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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.

About the author

Meredith K. Ray is an assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Delaware.

Meredith K. Ray's profile page

Awards

  • Winner, Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Book Prize awarded by American Association for Italian Studies

Editorial Reviews

'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.'

Annali d?Italianistica, vol 28: 2010