Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in the Italian Renaissance
By Anna Wainwright
University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 978-1-64453-359-8
In late medieval Italy, women often outlived their husbands. This book examines writings from the period to explore the different ways widows mourned their spouses and how they chose to carry on with their lives afterwards.
Excerpt:
Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in the Italian Renaissance is the first scholarly work to investigate the evolving role of the widow from allegorical subject to author in medieval and early modern Italian literature. Through an analysis that cuts across genres, my study establishes the cultural and political significance of widowhood in Italy, from the works of canonical authors such as Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, who constructed a rich poetic vocabulary around widowhood, to those of the numerous widowed writers who rose to prominence in the sixteenth century and radically changed the conversation to public mourning, offering an entirely new perspective on widowed identity.
Who is this book for?
Widowhood is a subject rarely examined in depth by medieval historians, so this book fills an important gap. Divided into three parts, it first explores what major Italian authors of the period had to say about widowhood, then looks at how women themselves responded to losing a husband, whether through religious or secular paths, and finally turns to writings by widows, including several prominent female authors of the sixteenth century.
This book will be of interest to readers of women’s history and social history in Renaissance Italy. It also offers useful insights for those interested in literature, gender, religion, and hagiography.
The Author
Anna Wainwright is an Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the University of New Hampshire, where her research focuses on the medieval and early modern periods. On her Academia.edu page you can find a few articles that deal with topics explored in the book.
Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in the Italian Renaissance
By Anna Wainwright
University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 978-1-64453-359-8
In late medieval Italy, women often outlived their husbands. This book examines writings from the period to explore the different ways widows mourned their spouses and how they chose to carry on with their lives afterwards.
Excerpt:
Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in the Italian Renaissance is the first scholarly work to investigate the evolving role of the widow from allegorical subject to author in medieval and early modern Italian literature. Through an analysis that cuts across genres, my study establishes the cultural and political significance of widowhood in Italy, from the works of canonical authors such as Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, who constructed a rich poetic vocabulary around widowhood, to those of the numerous widowed writers who rose to prominence in the sixteenth century and radically changed the conversation to public mourning, offering an entirely new perspective on widowed identity.
Who is this book for?
Widowhood is a subject rarely examined in depth by medieval historians, so this book fills an important gap. Divided into three parts, it first explores what major Italian authors of the period had to say about widowhood, then looks at how women themselves responded to losing a husband, whether through religious or secular paths, and finally turns to writings by widows, including several prominent female authors of the sixteenth century.
This book will be of interest to readers of women’s history and social history in Renaissance Italy. It also offers useful insights for those interested in literature, gender, religion, and hagiography.
The Author
Anna Wainwright is an Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the University of New Hampshire, where her research focuses on the medieval and early modern periods. On her Academia.edu page you can find a few articles that deal with topics explored in the book.
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website.
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