Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMeredith Ray and Lynn Westwater have done an excellent job reworking Tarabotti’s labyrinthine, often page-long sentences, skillfully breaking them into readable, truly eloquent English equivalents. The notes supporting the translation are very thoroughly researched, extensive and insightful. The introduction is an indispensable guide to Tarabotti’s account of convent life.
—Elissa Weaver, Professor Emerita of Italian Literature, University of Chicago
"Meredith Ray and Lynn Westwater have done an excellent job reworking Tarabotti’s labyrinthine, often page-long sentences, skillfully breaking them into readable, truly eloquent English equivalents. The notes supporting the translation are very thoroughly researched, extensive and insightful. The introduction is an indispensable guide to Tarabotti’s account of convent life." -- Elissa Weaver, University of Chicago
Table of ContentsIllustrations xvii
Abbreviations xix
Acknowledgments xxi
Introduction 1
The Other Voice 1
Convent Paradise and Convent Life in Seventeenth-Century Venice 2
The Convent of Sant’Anna 9
The Contours of Monastic Life 16
Composing from the Convent 31
Tarabotti’s Literary Works 31
Publishing Convent Paradise: Context and Paratext 34
Reading Convent Paradise 44
In Dialogue with Saint Augustine 44
Style and Rhetoric in Convent Paradise 47
Sources for Convent Paradise 50
Reception and Afterlife 52
Editors’ Note 60
Convent Paradise 65
Paratext: Dedication, Letters, and Poems 67
Soliloquy to God 81
Arcangela Tarabotti to the Reader 111
Book One 115
Book Two 163
Book Three 201
“The Archangel: Idyll” and Other Poems 245
Bibliography 259
Index 277
