Description
Book SynopsisArcangela Tarabotti (16041652), Venetian nun and polemicist, was known for her protest against forced monachization and her advocacy for the education of women and their participation in public life. She responded to Francesco Buoninsegni's Against the Vanities of Women (1638) with the Antisatire (1644), a defense of women's fashions and a denunciation of men, but also a strong condemnation of men's treatment of women and of the subordination of women in society. Both Buoninsegni and Tarabotti write with the exaggeration and absurd arguments typical of Menippean satire; they flaunt their knowledge of ancient and contemporary literature in a prose interspersed with poetry and replete with the astonishing Baroque conceits that delighted their contemporaries. The Other Voice in Early Modern Women: The Toronto Series volume 70
Trade ReviewWith this edition by Elissa Weaver, internationally acclaimed as a distinguished scholar of early modern Italian women’s writing, Arcangela Tarabotti’s lively, polemical
Antisatire (1644) joins several other translations of her works in the Other Voice series. It is published alongside the satire that provoked it, a witty reprise of the traditional moralizing discourse on feminine vanity by the Sienese poet and academician Francesco Buonsinsegni. Weaver’s Introduction locates the dispute with Buoninsegni within Tarabotti’s trajectory as a writer, and traces the
Antisatire’s complex reception history, and the circumstances of its composition. The editorial apparatus is excellent, and the translation of the two texts is fluent, clear, accurate, and historically sensitive.
—Virginia Cox, Department of Italian Studies, New York University
"With this edition by Elissa Weaver, internationally acclaimed as a distinguished scholar of early modern Italian women’s writing, Arcangela Tarabotti’s lively, polemical
Antisatire (1644) joins several other translations of her works in the Other Voice series. It is published alongside the satire that provoked it, a witty reprise of the traditional moralizing discourse on feminine vanity by the Sienese poet and academician Francesco Buoninsegni. Weaver’s Introduction locates the dispute with Buoninsegni within Tarabotti’s trajectory as a writer, and traces the
Antisatire’s complex reception history, and the circumstances of its composition. The editorial apparatus is excellent, and the translation of the two texts is fluent, clear, accurate, and historically sensitive." -- Virginia Cox, New York University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments xiii
Illustrations xv
Introduction 1
Note on the Text and Translation 29
Satire and Antisatire: Dedications and Printer’s Note 31
Francesco Buoninsegni, Against the Vanities of Women, a Menippean Satire 37
Arcangela Tarabotti, Antisatire, In Response 55
Bibliography 95
Index 103
