Italian Literature I - Writing Intensive Seminar

3 units

This course traces the evolution of narrative and lyric genres in Italy from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance, with a particular focus on men as writing subjects and the women they constitute as objects. We will focus on such topics as how male poets formed lyric communities, the conflicting dynamics of love and misogyny, the notions of the real and the ideal in the representation of women. We will also look at how women writers both adapted to and wrote back at the dominant discourses of their time. Authors studied include Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Castiglione, Veronica Franco.