Giustizia delle donne
Giustizia delle donne is a dialogue written by the italian author Moderata Fonte in the 16th century. It was published after Fonte’s death along with Il merito delle donne, her most famous play, in 1600. Both literary works are influenced by Boccaccio’s Decameron: they are frame stories where the characters develop their dialogues and exempla.
Summary[edit]
A group of women is talking in a venetian garden when Pasquale arrives and breaks the relaxed atmosphere by referring the last argument he has had with her husband. It unchaines the most inspiring conversation about “masculine behaviour” in which they complain about the unfair situations they have to face every day; they imagine twelve punishments (one per month) in order to raise awareness among men. That way, they’d have to suffer from public humiliation, they’d have to be self-sacrificing parents and be isolated from their friends and family. The most remarkable punishment is the one dedicated to silence: only women have a voice, a voice which finally lets them speak and organize society.
Formal Features[edit]
The most significant literary devices are irony, paradoxes and references to the reader (as it happened in ancient novels: Apuleius, Luciano de Samosata...). She is clearly influenced by Plato dialogues’ rhythm and through all these procedures achieves to build up a precise portrait of sixtieth social concerns.
The book is divided in 14 chapters: the first one works as an introduction or frame, the next twelve cover punishments and attacks to the masculine figure and in the last one they return to real life after their imaginary trip, but, as it happens in all trips, they come back wiser and filled with hope.
Moderata Fonte in Modernity[edit]
Moderata was a transgressive and completely modern author, and it could be the reason why the manuscript wasn’t published during her life.
However, in the 20th century a group of intellectual women rescued her texts and transmitted her legacy: Eleonora Carinci[1], Adriana Chemello[2], Paola Malpezzi[3], Virginia Cox[4]…
More recently, English and American theoreticians took inspiration from her ideas and formulated some concepts (man’s punishment, mansplaining) that are vital in current feminism.
References[edit]
- ↑ Carinci. Eleonora. 2002. 'Una lettera autografa inedita di Moderata Fonte (al granduca di Toscana Francesco I)'. Critica del testo, 5/3: 1-11
- ↑ Chemello, Adriana. 1983. 'La donna, il modello, l'immaginario. Moderata Fonte and Lucrezia Marinella'. In Nel cerchio della luna: figure di donna in alcuni testi del XVI secolo, 95-170. Ed Marina Zancan. Venice: Marsilio
- ↑ " Moderata Fonte: Women and Life in Sixteenth-Century Venice". Madison and Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson Press.2003
- ↑ Cox, Virginia. 1995. 'The single self: Feminist thought and the marriage market in early modern Venice'. Renaissance Quarterly, 48 (1995), 513-81
Bibliography[edit]
- The Worth of Women: Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men By Moderata Fonte (1997) translated by Virginia Cox. OCLC 44959387.
- Venezia Figurata and Women in Sixteenth-Century Venice: Moderata Fonte's Writings'. In Italian Women and the City. Essays, 18-34. Ed. Janet Levarie Smarr and Daria Valentini. Madison and Teaneck; Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003
- D. Martelli, "Moderata Fonte: Il merito delle donne e Giustizia delle donne", Centro Internazionale della Grafica, 1993.
- Plato, The Symposium, Greek text with commentary by Kenneth Dover. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-521-29523-8.
- Apuleius; Adlington, William (Trans.) (1566). The Golden Ass. Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, Wordsworth Ed. Ltd.: Ware, GB. ISBN 1-85326-460-1
External links[edit]
http://beatricedospuntocero.blogspot.com.es/2017/11/moderata-fonte.html
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