Topical Outline of Course

Bibliography

Topical Outline of Course:

1. Woman Defined: Classical and Christian Definitions (3 hours)

• Aristotle's definitions of the female as quasi-monster and of the woman's passive role in reproduction in On the Generation of Animals
• Galen and Humor Theory of Gender Difference
• Christian Views of Women: Eve (Genesis 1 and 2); The Virgin Mary
• Christian Visual Iconography (slides)

2. The Stages of Life for Medieval and Renaissance Women (3 hours)

• The Birth of a Daughter, Early Childhood
• Women's Education and Women as Educators
• Marriage Vows or Holy Vows?
• Childbirth, Breastfeeding, Childcare
• Widowhood
• Wills, Economic Power
• Articles by Klapisch-Zuber, King
  

3. Women's Work In Italy: Wives, Nuns, Courtesans. Three Case Studies based on Women's Letters. (3 hours)

• Renaissance Letters: The Public vs. The Private in the Epistolary Genre
• The Work of Wives and Mothers: Selected Letters of Alessandra Strozzi
• The Holy Work of Nuns: Selected Letters of Arcangela Tarabotti
• Courtesans: Selected Letters of Veronica Franco

4. The Humanist Catalogue: Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies and Giovanni Boccaccio's Concerning Famous Women (9 Hours)

• Introduction to the lives/works of Pizan and Boccaccio
• Cultural Transmission across National Borders: French Writers, Italian Models
• Introduction to Humanism
• Defining the Genre: The Humanist Catalogue and The Classical Figure as Role Model
• Allegory, Personification and Dream Visions
• Analysis of Pizan's revision of Boccaccio's text, focusing on comparative readings of the representations of:
  • woman warriors (Queen Semiramis, The Amazons)
  • learned women
  • the evils of marriage
  • rape (Lucretia, Susanna)
  • Slides of the Illuminated Manuscripts of The Book of the City of Ladies

5. The Novella: Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (9 hours)

• The Lives/Works of Marguerite de Navarre
• The Novella Genre
• Use/Function of the Frame Tale
• From the Merchant's Epic to the Courtly Diversion: Cultural Contexts
• Comparative reading of the configuration of desire in both texts: lecherous clergy/virtuous women; tortured wives; love triangles; adultery; love put to the test

6. The Dialogue: Discussing the Status of Women in Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier and Moderata Fonte's The Worth of Women. (9 classes)

• The Lives/Works of Castiglione and Fonte
• The Dialogue Genre, Open and Closed Dialogues
• The debate on the status of women/Le querelle des /La questione della donna
• Shaping the Courtly Lady: Book III of The Courtier
• Fonte's redirection of the conversation: The Worth of Women or the Worthlessness of Men?
• The gendered locus amoenus in Fonte's dialogue
• Women relating: On Brothers, Fathers, Husbands, Lovers
• Rewriting "History" as "Herstory"
• The limits of Fonte's theoretical feminism

7. The Pastoral Drama: Torquato Tasso's L'aminta and Maddalena Campiglia's Flori. (9 classes)

• The Lives/Works of Campiglia and Tasso
• The Pastoral Drama Defined or Tragedy with a Happy Ending
• Nostalgia for the Golden Age
• A Woman's Place in the Pastoral World
• Acting Up/Acting Out: Women on the Stage in France and Italy
• Woman as Victim, or the Maiden Saved
• Female Friendships
• Celibate Love
• The "Third Status", Happy-endings without marriage

Bibliography

Aristotle. Selections on human reproduction from On the Generation of Animals.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Trans. with and Introduction and Notes by G. H. McWilliam. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. (selections)

---. Famous Women. Ed. and Trans. Virginia Brown. The I Tatti Renaissance Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. (selections).

Campiglia, Maddalena. Flori. (my translation).

Castiglione, Baldesar. The Book of the Courtier. Trans. with an Introduction by George Bull. New York: Penguin Books, 1976. 31-51; 207-278.

Fonte, Moderata. The Worth of Women Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. Ed. and Trans. by Virginia Cox. The Other Voice Series. Eds. Albert Rabil and Margaret L. King. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. 27-116.

Franco, Veronica. Poems and Selected Letters. Ed. and Trans. Ann Rosalind Jones and Margaret F. Rosenthal. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Eds. Albert Rabil and Margaret L. King. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. (selections)

Galen. De elementis, II.1 (on humors), De locis affectis, IV.5 (on the uterus).

King, Margaret L.. "The Woman of the Renaissance." Renaissance Characters. Ed. Eugenio Garin. Trans. Lydia Cochrane. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. 207-249.

Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane. "Woman and the Family." The Medieval World. Ed. Jacques Le Goff. Trans. Lydia G. Cochrane. London: Collins and Brown, 1990. 285-311.

Navarre, Marguerite de. The Heptameron. Trans. P. A. Chilton. New York: Penguin Books, 1984.

Pizan, Christine de. The Book of the City of Ladies. Trans. with an Introduction and Notes by Rosalind Brown-Grant. New York: Penguin Books, 1999. pp. 5-33. (BCL)

Strozzi, Alessandra. Selected Letters of Alessandra Strozzi. Trans. with an Introduction and notes by Heather Gregory. Biblioteca Italiana. Berkeley: UC Press, 1997. (selections).

Tarabotti, Arcangela. Letters (1650). An unpublished translation by Lynn Westwater and Meredith Ray. (selections).

Tasso, Torquato. L'Aminta. Eds. and Trans. Charles Jernigan and Irene Marchegiani Jones. New York: Italica Press, 2000.

www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/dweb.shtml