The transgression of boundaries in the poetry of Francesco Petrarca and Gaspara Stampa.
Item
-
Title
-
The transgression of boundaries in the poetry of Francesco Petrarca and Gaspara Stampa.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9946141
-
identifier
-
9946141
-
Creator
-
Bertoletti, Isabella.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Fred Nichols
-
Date
-
1999
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Literature, Comparative | Literature, Romance | Women's Studies
-
Abstract
-
This dissertation examines the writings of Francesco Petrarca and Gaspara Stampa and the context of a Petrarchan orthodoxy.;In the first chapter ("Beginnings") I argue that Petrarch's vernacular collection (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta) rejects the traditional narrative of conversion. This results in the indeterminacy of the text.;The second chapter ("Mourning Laura") is devoted to Laura's enigmatic textual identity. Against the background of Augustinian orthodoxy (proposed in the Secretum) Laura is Petrarch's vehicle to question the limits of his literary past and of courtly love.;In the third chapter ("Petrarch at a Crossroad") I follow the poet on an intellectual (not spiritual) pilgrimage that takes him from the origins of his literary tradition to his future audience in order to establish his secular legacy and to exercise his enduring (and open-ended) authority.;In the fourth chapter ("Ends") I examine Petrarch's editorial habits and the political and cultural ramifications of his transmission. Petrarch choreographs his reception by classicizing his vernacular.;In the next two chapters ("Exclusions" and "Petrarch Refracted") I survey the context of the transmission and canonization of the Fragmenta. I focus on the establishment of national languages, techniques of production, distribution and circulation of texts in print and corollary fashioning of a new reading and writing public. I also discuss the responses of actual readers (men and women) to the texts of Petrarch as subjects of a poetic discourse.;In the next two chapters ("Silence" and "Voices") I focus on the impact of the Petrarchan tradition and on the context of misogynist literature in limiting the cultural role available to women for molding the aesthetic views of their society.;The last chapter ("Gaspara Stampa in Search of a Petrarchan Lover") is devoted to Stampa and analyzes the problem faced by a woman bound to compose lyrics within a literary context dominated by a male poet. While the rhetorical program of Petrarch is to publicize his failure as a lover and as a spiritual being. Stampa celebrates her success as a poet and the shortcomings of her beloved as a Petrarchan lover/poet.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
