Women and Writing in the Renaissance

Order Description

Topics:
1. Gaspara Stampa: The Subversive Comformist
2. In the Eye of the Beholder: Veronica Franco’s Self-representation.
3. Lucrezia Marinella and Her Defense of Women: Textual Strategies
4. The Feminism of Tullia D’Aragona (in her poetry or her treatise)
NB:
1. The course reader contains some material that you will find useful for the topic you choose (under: Gaspara Stampa and Veronica Franco). Do not feel you are limited
to these. For both these women poets I used the translation of their works that appears in the Other Voice Series (listed on the course reader). These also happen to
be electronic resources in our liberary catalogue. As such, they are available to you all the time.
2. If you choose the second topic, please note that we have given a very close reading of two of her poems (Capitolo 13 & Capitolo 16). Since we provided such a
detailed analysis of these two poems in class, they are excluded from your essay. You can make references to them, but you should not base your essay on your those.
New Due Date:
The essay is due on 22 November 2017.
Late assignment policy: 2% deduction per day of lateness (including Saturdays and Sundays).
NB: If you find that you are struggling with meeting the due date, please talk to me. This is not an invitation to
Format: Formal essay style with footnotes, endnotes or imbedded notes, depending on the style you use, and bibliography (divided into “Works cited” and “Works
consulted”), prepared according to a recognized style (Chicago Manual of Style, MLA). The essay should have an introduction and a conclusion. Grammar, spelling,
organization and style all count. The essay should be typed, 6-8 pages long (maximum 2,000 words – NO MORE; double- spaced; 12 point).
Please make sure you have 2 headings for your bibliography:
1. Works Cited
2. Works Consulted (do not repeat titles listed under Works Cited)
You will need to consult secondary sources. Print sources are the best and the most reliable. Scholarly journals consulte on line count as print sources. A
bibliography is provided on the course web site. In some cases, I have provided call numbers as well. The bibliography is expanded to include sources in English,
Italian and French. Some reading material is also provided on the course website. You are not limited to these and can certainly search for others. However, because
the class is so large, I wanted to avoid your hunting down the same material all at once. When you quote, for the sake of complete documentation, please provide a
photocopy of the page you quote from (a snapshot with your phone will do, as long as it is legible). You can attach those pages to your hard copy.
The fact that I require you to consult secondary sources does not mean that I do not want to hear your opinions or your conclusions about the topics you choose. It
simply means that I want you to place the material in the right context. Secondary sources will help you do that. This is a research essay rather than, say, a reaction
paper, which typically asks for your personal opinions, reactions or reflections. A reaction paper can contain a personal perspective, a personal understanding,
personal beliefs and feelings. A research essay cannot. You will need to base your opinions on objective, unbiased, substantiated information. In other words, your
opinions must be based on a solid philological basis (on what the authors say, how they say it, their imagery, their rhetorical devices, and so on). You will have to
prove what you say by making references to the text(s) under examination.
It is impossible to quantify the number of primary and secondary sources. It all depends on what you do with these and on what you read. However, the most successful
essays are those whose authors have read widely around the topic and specifically on the topic. Generally, the more you read around your topic, the better informed you
are, the better your essay. Generally, it should take you more time to find the proper secondary sources in the library or on line than to write the actual essay. The
least successful essays are those that are not well researched, those whose authors do not take the time to do the proper research in the library, who wait too long
and are “stuck” with a handful of secondary sources that do not really apply, but which they force into their essay because they have nothing else. I do want to
emphasize that this is a literature essay rather than, say, an essay relating to history. You can, however, make reference to historical events if it has a direct
bearing on your argument.