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An example of ambivalent seventeenth‐century Dante reception: Arcangela Tarabotti's uses of the Commedia in her Semplicità ingannata
Author(s) -
Robarts Julie
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
renaissance studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1477-4658
pISSN - 0269-1213
DOI - 10.1111/rest.12237
Subject(s) - ambivalence , allusion , situated , literature , reading (process) , criticism , art , intertextuality , literary criticism , philosophy , psychoanalysis , linguistics , psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science
This article considers Venetian author Arcangela Tarabotti's dependence upon, and ambivalent reception of, Dante's Commedia in her Semplicità ingannata (1654). Through close reading and intertextual analysis, Tarabotti's engagement with the Commedia is situated in contemporary pro‐woman discourse, and post‐Tridentine textual criticism of imaginative literature. From within the convent Tarabotti entered the querelle des femmes , building on the pro‐woman texts of Venetian authors Moderata Fonte and Lucrezia Marinella. She clothed her text in the authority of the Commedia , through quotation and literary allusion, while manipulating that work to put her own case against women being placed in convents without religious vocations.