Female-Authored Drama in Early Modern Padua: Valeria Miani Negri
Author: Rees, Katie
Source: Italian Studies, Volume 63, Number 1, Spring 2008 , pp. 41-61(21)
Publisher: Maney Publishing
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Abstract:
This article examines the work of the Paduan playwright Valeria Miani Negri (c.1560-post 1611), a rare 'female voice' in the published drama of the early modern period. Miani's pastoral Amorosa Speranza (1604) and her tragedy Celinda (1611) reflect her personal experience of literature and society, developing along intensely spiritual, but also distinctly pro-feminist lines. Her plays appear to be the product of an aristocratic 'drammatica secreta' that offered comparative freedom to female writers, though they also bear comparison to sacred drama, and particularly to convent theatre. Miani addressed her work to academic and courtly audiences, both within and outside Padua; her plays were well regarded by her contemporaries, but have received surprisingly little critical attention since her death. In Miani's work, Christianity balances the neoclassical and romanzesco elements of early seicento drama, allowing the author to demonstrate a critical distance from social and theatrical structures, even as she confirms their validity.Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1179/007516308X270128
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