319 pp / Paperback / ISBN 978-0-7727-2132-7 / $31.95
Edited and Translated by Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater.
Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women’s
2013 Award for Best Translation
http://ssemw.org/2013-award-winners/
“Ray and Westwater’s edited translation of the letters of Arcangela Tarabotti provides a valuable window into the life and works of the unwilling Venetian nun. Confined to the cloister, Tarabotti never gave up her struggle against her forced monachization in treatises condemning male perfidy and the practice of consigning unwanted daughters to the convent. Her collected letters testify to her eager participation in the broader literary world and their publication in1650 was designed to assert her own identity as a writer and to demonstrate her intellectual and social ties to her many correspondents. She would surely be delighted by this elegant and scholarly edition of her letters, which reestablishes her importance. A lucid and beautifully written introduction situates social and religious trends in seventeenth-century Venice, and describes Tarabotti’s cultural, political, and literary context as a nun for whom the convent was both an irksome prison and a space in which – despite increasingly strict enclosure – she was able to flourish as a woman of letters. The letters themselves, whose ornate style and apparent lack of chronological or thematic organization pose a challenge to any editor, have been skillfully translated and carefully edited with extensive and helpful footnotes. Whether or not they read Italian, scholars will find Ray and Westwater’s work to be a highly useful guide to a fascinating figure.” — SSEMW award report.
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Coerced into taking the veil, Venetian writer Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-1652) spent her life protesting the practice of forcing girls into convents. Her fearless defense of women and attacks on patriarchal Venetian society earned her renown and access to presses. Her publications, however, invited constant controversy. Tarabotti published her Letters Familiar and Formal to protect and enhance her literary reputation while also chronicling contemporary literary society and material existence in an early modern convent. The Letters flaunted Tarabotti’s literary accomplishments, humiliated her critics, and advertised her powerful network of allies in Northern Italy and France. The Letters document how Tarabotti established herself as one of the most forceful proponents for women’s self-determination in early modern Europe.
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“After their Italian edition of Tarabotti’s Lettere (2005), Meredith Ray and Lynn Westwater have now produced the definitive English translation of this remarkable text: clear, accurate, and lively – a delight to read. Their introduction sets the historical and cultural context, while meticulous notes fully explain each letter. Altogether, compelling reading that brings the extraordinary story told by Tarabotti’s Letters to an English-speaking audience for the first time.”
– Letizia Panizza – Royal Holloway, University of London.
To view an excerpt of this work, please click here (PDF).
Meredith K. Ray is associate professor of Italian at the University of Delaware. She is the author of Writing Gender in Women’s Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance (University of Toronto Press, 2009).
Lynn Lara Westwater is assistant professor of Italian at The George Washington University. She has published extensively on women’s writings in early modern Venice.
The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies no longer sells or distributes books in “The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series.” Starting July 2015, volumes can be purchased by individuals and institutions from the Chicago Distribution Center. Contact CDC by email (orders@press.uchicago.edu), by fax (800-621-8476 or 773-702-7212), or by phone (800-621-2736 or 773-702-7000).
319 pp / Paperback / ISBN 978-0-7727-2132-7 / $31.95
