Writing Gender in Women’s Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance (Toronto Italian Studies)

Writing Gender in Women’s Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance (Toronto, 2009) examines the literary vogue for letters and letter writing during the Italian Renaissance, when early modern writers rushed to publish collections of private correspondence. The book focuses on letters by a diverse array of Renaissance women – including a noblewoman, a courtesan, an actress, a nun, and a male writer who composed letters under female pseudonyms. It argues that these works were a studied performance of pervasive ideas about both gender and genre, and variously reflected and subverted cultural and literary conventions regarding femininity and masculinity. Indeed, the widespread interest in women’s letter collections during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries suggests a deep curiosity about the female experience and a surprising openness to women’s participation in this kind of literary production.