MDVL 420

Spring 2010

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Masterpieces Renaiss Lit
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Credit: 3 hours.

Same as CWL 420 and ITAL 420. See ITAL 420.

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CRN Type Section Time Day Location Instructor Section Details
34727
Lecture-Discussion
B
9:30AM -10:45AM
TR
217 Gregory Hall
Stoppino, E
Part of Term:
1
Date Range:
01/19/10-05/05/10
Section Info:
TOPIC: FOUNDING MOTHERS: GENEALOGY IN EARLY MODERN ITALIAN LITERATURE In this course, we will explore the problem of the relationship of women to dynastic power in the literature and culture from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Beginning from Giovanni Boccaccio?s famously ambivalent portraits of women in the Decameron and his treatise On Famous Women, we will locate women within an early modern system of inherited power and literary representations. We will then move to study a series of genealogically motivated chivalric poems (such as Orlando innamorato, Orlando furioso, Floridoro, Gerusalemme liberata) which propose a number of roles for women: warriors, queens, saints, monsters, saviors, poets, founders. These texts return again and again to the key role of women in establishing and maintaining dynastic continuity within noble families, but also to the dangers they pose to dynastic stability. We will try to understand how these literary texts work within the social and political context of the Italian city-states of this period. We will also study the involvement of women in the production and circulation of literary texts, focussing on notable patrons of the arts like Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia, and on important poets like Vittoria Colonna.
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