Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe)

Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe)

Laura Cereta

Language: English

Pages: 244

ISBN: 0226100138

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Renaissance writer Laura Cereta (1469–1499) presents feminist issues in a predominantly male venue—the humanist autobiography in the form of personal letters. Cereta's works circulated widely in Italy during the early modern era, but her complete letters have never before been published in English. In her public lectures and essays, Cereta explores the history of women's contributions to the intellectual and political life of Europe. She argues against the slavery of women in marriage and for the rights of women to higher education, the same issues that have occupied feminist thinkers of later centuries.

Yet these letters also furnish a detailed portrait of an early modern woman’s private experience, for Cereta addressed many letters to a close circle of family and friends, discussing highly personal concerns such as her difficult relationships with her mother and her husband. Taken together, these letters are a testament both to an individual woman and to enduring feminist concerns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

patron in her letter to Santa Pelegrina (XXXIX) but in the metaphor of a bond between two friends-here two women-as a growing plant that needs to be fed and watered.t" Her letter on the Turkish menace (XL) also differs from the usual humanist call for a crusade to recapture Constantinople. She urges the Italians not to launch a costly war against the Turks, which would only bring the Turks to Italian shores and result in greater Italian casualties.w The Italians, she argues, should stay home and

1653) The Nobility and Excellence of Womenand the DefectsandDeficiencies ofMenwere written in Italian, each of these women chose to frame her discourse in the most characteristic of all humanist genres: the dialogue. In assessing the impact of early modern women writers-many of whom were forced to work, through no fault of their own, in relative isolation-it is always tempting to overemphasize the novelty of their works. Despite their originality, Ceretas letters, particularly those on classical

to a former teacher (llrestituitll) and that her teacher was a woman (llpraeceptrici''); for the view that there were no women teachers of Latin in Italy in the fifteenth century, see Paul Grendler et al., Schoolingin RenaissanceItaly. Literacyand Learning,1300-1600 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). 4. See Francoise Lionnet, Autobiographical Voices:Race,Gender,Self-Portraiture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). I am indebted to Lionnet's groundbreaking essays on

powers. His rational skepticism, which had good credibility in the community of the learned, worked to revise the conventional views of women and witchcraft. WOMEN'S WORKS. To the many categories of works produced on the question of women's worth must be added nearly all works written by women. A woman writing was in herself a statement of women's claim to dignity. Only a few women wrote anything prior to the dawn of the modern era, for three reasons. First, they rarely received the education

broken, can be healed, and so that everything-once the sickness in our thoughts about one another has been medicated-may soon be right again between US. 5 8 54. Cereta here shows her mastery of the genre of the humanist amicitia(friendship/patronage) letter. Her vocabulary is flawless: friendship, honor, law, enduring ties, utility-all the right images are there. 55. Her sententiaabout ethics has a terse Aristotelian ring to it. 56. "Ornatissimis litteris". Cereta indicates that what she wants

Download sample

Download