Letters

Isabella Andreini

ISBN 10: 1649590857 / ISBN 13: 9781649590855

Published by Iter Press, US, 2023

About this Item

A collection of inventive writings in letter form from a sixteenth-century star of commedia dell'arte. Isabella Andreini (1562-1604) was a commedia dell'arte diva who toured Italy and France as part of the Compagnia dei Comici Gelosi. Letters is a collection of epistles written by Andreini in fictional, anonymous, male, and female voices, a "hermaphroditic" alternation of gender unlike any that had been seen in letter writing to that time. In her letters, Andreini remade the humanistic epistolary genre into a distinctive fusion of literary and dramatic performance. The guise of epistolary intimacy cedes to a knowing artificiality, which allows for the emergence of Andreini's modern critique of the gendered self as a uniform entity. The collection centers on love and examines-from surprising perspectives-pertinent issues such as death, the birth of a girl, prostitution, patriarchal marital practices, love in old age, courtiership, country and city life, human nature, and defenses and critiques of both sexes.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781649590855

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Letters
• Publisher: Iter Press, US
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1649590857
• ISBN 13: 9781649590855
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 513 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A collection of inventive writings in letter form from a sixteenth-century star of commedia dell'arte.

Isabella Andreini (1562–1604) was a commedia dell’arte diva who toured Italy and France as part of the Compagnia dei Comici Gelosi. Letters is a collection of epistles written by Andreini in fictional, anonymous, male, and female voices, a “hermaphroditic” alternation of gender unlike any that had been seen in letter writing to that time. In her letters, Andreini remade the humanistic epistolary genre into a distinctive fusion of literary and dramatic performance. The guise of epistolary intimacy cedes to a knowing artificiality, which allows for the emergence of Andreini’s modern critique of the gendered self as a uniform entity. The collection centers on love and examines—from surprising perspectives—pertinent issues such as death, the birth of a girl, prostitution, patriarchal marital practices, love in old age, courtiership, country and city life, human nature, and defenses and critiques of both sexes.
 

About the Author

Isabella Andreini (1562-1604) was a renowned prima donna of the European stage. Also a poet, playwright, and author of philosophical letters, she was one of the most published Italian women writers in the seventeenth century.