Letters

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.

• | Author: Isabella Andreini, Paola De Santo, Caterina Mongiat Farina, Paola De Santo, Caterina Mongiat Farina
• | Publisher: Iter Press
• | Publication Date: Dec 21, 2023
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• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781649590855
• | ISBN-10: 1649590857