Imagining the woman reader in the age of Dante / Elena Lombardi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lombardi, Elena, author.

Contributor:

Harry E. Humphreys Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Books and reading--Italy--History--To 1500.

Women.

Italian literature--To 1400--History and criticism.

Italian literature.

Women in literature.

Women--Books and reading.

History.

Italy.

Physical Description:

278 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2018.

Summary:

This book brings to light a new character in medieval literature: that of the woman reader and interlocutor. It does so by establishing a dialogue between literary studies, gender studies, the history of literacy, and the material culture of the book in medieval times. From Guittone d'Arezzo's piercing critic, the 'villainous woman', to the mysterious Lady who bids Guido Cavalcanti to write his grand philosophical song, to Dante's female co-editors in the 'Vita Nova' and his great characters of female readers, such as Francesca and Beatrice in the 'Comedy', all the way to Boccaccio's overtly female audience, this particular interlocutor appears to be central to the construct of textuality and the construction of literary authority. This volume explores the figure of the woman reader by contextualizing her within the history of female literacy, the material culture of the book, and the ways in which writers and poets of earlier traditions imagined her.

Contents:

1 Introduction: The Making of the Woman Reader in the Italian Trecento p. 7

2 Addressees and Readers in Lyric Poetry p. 38

3 Women as Text, Text as Woman p. 78

4 Bea(ta Lec)trix p. 117

5 Francesca and the Others p. 154

6 Epilogue: Boccaccio's Women Readers p. 187.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-278) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Harry E. Humphreys Book Fund.

ISBN:

0198818963

9780198818960

OCLC:

1013173942