1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910458635803321

Autore

DeCoste Mary-Michelle

Titolo

Hopeless love : Boiardo, Ariosto, and narratives of queer female desire / / Mary-Michelle DeCoste

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2009

©2009

ISBN

1-4426-9744-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (176 p.)

Collana

Toronto Italian Studies

Disciplina

850.9/3526643

Soggetti

Lesbianism in literature

Desire in literature

Cross-dressing in literature

Italian literature - History and criticism

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Warrior Woman/Lovely Lady -- 2 To Disguise and Deceive -- 3 Stopping without Ending -- 4 Concluding the Tale -- 5 Queer Female Desire in Cinquecento Comedy -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Book three of the Italian poet Matteo Maria Boiardo's epic poem Orlando innamorato (Orlando in Love) was published posthumously in 1494; in 1532, the poet Ludovico Ariosto published his final version of a sequel, Orlando furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando). At the end of his poem, Boiardo tells the tale of the princess Fiordispina's unfulfilled desire for the maiden warrior Bradamante, a story that Ariosto retells in the body of his later work. In Hopeless Love, Mary-Michelle DeCoste examines both versions of the Fiordispina and Bradamante episode using feminist and queer theory. DeCoste then links these treatments of queer female desire to their wider cultural contexts by exploring their antecedents in genres such as medieval romance epic and hagiography and by examining similar tropes in other sixteenth-



century romance epics. An important work on a previously overlooked subject, Hopeless Love uncovers the diffusion of queer female desire in Italian literature and promotes a better understanding of sexuality in medieval and Renaissance Europe.