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The Prodigious Muse : Women's Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy by Cox, Virginia is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.

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In her award-winning, critically acclaimed __Women’s Writing in Italy, 1400–1650__, Virginia Cox chronicles the history of women writers in early modern Italy—who they were, what they wrote, where they fit in society, and how their status changed during this period. In this book, Cox examines more closely one particular moment in this history, in many ways the most remarkable for the richness and range of women’s literary output. A widespread critical notion sees Italian women’s writing as a phenomenon specific to the peculiar literary environment of the mid-sixteenth century, and most scholars assume that a reactionary movement such as the Counter-Reformation was unlikely to spur its development. Cox argues otherwise, showing that women’s writing flourished in the period following 1560, reaching beyond the customary "feminine" genres of lyric, poetry, and letters to experiment with pastoral drama, chivalric romance, tragedy, and epic. There were few widely practiced genres in this eclectic phase of Italian literature to which women did not turn their hand. Organized by genre, and including translations of all excerpts from primary texts, this comprehensive and engaging volume prov

Who reads The Prodigious Muse : Women's Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy?

Author

Cox, Virginia

Publisher

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Published

2011

Language

EN

ISBN

9781421400327

Category

work of fiction

Subjects

History, Science, Literary Criticism

Rating

4.7 / 5 (5 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14