Alcune poetesse italiane del cinquecento (Italian female poets of the 16th century)
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Date
2014-12-11
Authors
Cattaneo, Graziella
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Abstract
The present M.A thesis reviews and analyzes a previously underestimated
area of sixteenth century Italian literature, namely the
stylized lyric poetry of five representative female authors, whose
production spans the whole period.
The differences between the various poetesses, even inside their
conventional thematic choices, are considerable. They allow us
to identify a variety of expressional modes in the development
of a fairly limited stylistic canon whose intuitive rules were felt
by each of the writers. These differences are seen to be determined
both by the individual personality of each poetess and by the single
perspective according to which each chose to interpret the role
of the lyric poet.
Hence we can observe, in broad lines, the intellectualized lyric
of Vittoria Colonna, the passionate manner of Gaspara Stampa, the
more rational poetics of Veronica Gambara, all in more or less
direct contrast with the freer manner of Veronica Franco and the
tormented self-dramatization of Isabella Morra,
The study argues that this diversity of treatment accounts for the
comparativist interest which criticism should take in coming to
terms with both the biographical background and poetic results of
five significant female writers- Thus their work is compared both
from a historical viewpoint and from specific personal angles which
attempt to highlight their occasional openings towards a strikingly
modern formulation of the emotion in writing.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
for the Degree of Master of Arts
Johannesburg, 1983