Selected Poetry and Prose: A Bilingual Edition (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe) - Softcover

Matraini, Chiara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226510859 ISBN 13: 9780226510859

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2008

Synopsis

Chiara Matraini (1515-1604) was a member of the great flowering of poetic imitators and innovators in the Italian literary heritage begun by Petrarch, cultivated later by the lyric poet Pietro Bembo, and supplanted by the epic poet Torquato Tasso. Though without formal training, Matraini excelled in a number of literary genres popular at the time-poetry, religious meditation, discourse, and dialogue. In her midlife, she published a collection of erotic love poetry, but later in life her work shifted toward a search for spiritual salvation. Near the end of her life, she published a new poetry retrospective. Mostly available in only a handful of rare book collections, her writings are now adeptly translated here for an English-speaking audience and situated historically in an introduction by noted Matraini expert Giovanna Rabitti. Selected Poetry and Prose allows the poet to finally take her place as one of the seminal authors of the Renaissance, next to her contemporaries Vittoria Colonna and Laura Battiferra, also published in the Other Voice series.

About this title

About the Author:

Elaine Maclachlan was a teacher of Italian at Harvard, Smith College, and Tufts University. She is now retired from teaching.
Giovanna Rabitti is assistant professor of philology of Italian literature at the University of Sassari, Italy, and the editor of the Italian critical edition of Chiara Matraini’s poetical works.   

Review:

"The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series allows little-known women's voices to be heard, with translations of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century European texts. The approach is feminist, and each volume is prefaced with a historical account of the systematic oppression and frustration of women." - Maya Slater, Times Literary Supplement"

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0226510859
• ISBN 13: 9780226510859
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232