Spring/Summer 2005 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

ITALIAN STUDIESAretino’s DialoguesPietro AretinoTranslated by Raymond RosenthalWith a new introduction by Margaret RosenthalTHE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARYPietro Aretino (1492–1556) was one of the mostimportant figures in Italian Renaissance literature,and certainly the most controversial. Condemnedby some as a pornographer, his infamy was duelargely to his use of explicit sexuality and the vulgartongue of ordinary speech in much of his work.Dialogues centres around a conversationbetween two rather frank, experienced, and sharptonguedwomen on the topic of women’s occupations.We learn that at the time there were onlythree: wife, whore, or nun. Their discussion is a rollickingaccount of the advantages, perils, and pleasureseach profession offers.Not only was Dialogues the first erotic book inthe Christian world to be written in the commonvernacular, it was but one of the few to describe theobscenity of commercial love, and is thus a cornerstoneof both Italian literature and Counter-Renaissance vigour. Raymond Rosenthal’s Englishtranslation first appeared in 1971, and this editioncontains his original preface as well as a new introductionby Margaret Rosethal. Also included, as apreface, is a review of the translation by AlbertoMoravia from the New York Times Book Review.The late Raymond Rosenthal (1915–1995) was aworld-renowned translator of Italian literature.Margaret Rosenthal is an associate professor in theDepartment of French and Italian at the Universityof Southern California.The Ugly WomanTransgressive Aesthetic Models in Italian Poetryfrom the Middle Ages to the BaroquePatrizia BettellaTORONTO ITALIAN STUDIESThe ugly woman is a surprisingly common figure inItalian poetry, one that has been frequently appropriatedby male poetic imagination to depict moral,aesthetic, social, and racial boundaries. Mostly usedbetween the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries –from the invectives of Rustico Filippi, FrancoSacchetti, and Burchiello, to the paradoxical praisesof Francesco Berni, Niccolò Campani and PietroAretino, and further to the conceited encomia ofGiambattista Marino and Marinisti – the portrayalof female unattractiveness was, argues PatriziaBettella in The Ugly Woman, one way of figuringwoman as ‘other.’Bettella shows how medieval female uglinessincluded transgressive types ranging from the lustfulold hag, to the slanderer, the wild woman, theheretic/witch, and the prostitute, whereas EarlyModern unattractiveness targeted peasants, mountaindwellers, and black slaves: marginal womenwhose bodies and manners subvert aesthetic preceptsof culturally normative beauty and propriety. Takinga philological and feminist approach, and drawingon the Bakhtinian concept of the grotesque body andon the poetics of transgression, The Ugly Woman is aunique look at the essential counterdiscourse of thecelebrated Italian poetic canon and a valuable contributionto the study women in literature.Patrizia Bettella is an instructor in the Departmentof Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at theUniversity of Alberta.Approx. 420 pp / 6 x 9 / April 2005Cloth ISBN 0-8020-9004-4 £40.00 $60.00 EPaper ISBN 0-8020-4890-0 £20.00 $29.95 CApprox. 270 pp / 6 x 9 / May 2005Cloth ISBN 0-8020-3926-X £40.00 $60.00 E36