The Court and Its Critics: Anti-Court Sentiments in Early Modern Italy

di Paola Ugolini (Autore)

University of Toronto Press, 2020

Anti-courtly discourse furnished a platform for discussing some of the most pressing questions of early modern Italian society. The court was the space that witnessed a new form of negotiation of identity and prestige, the definition of masculinity and of gender-specific roles, the birth of modern politics and of an ethics based on merit and on individual self-interest. The Court and Its Critics analyses anti-courtly critiques using a wide variety of sources including manuals of courtliness, dialogues, satires, and plays, from the mid-fifteenth to the early seventeenth century. The book is structured around four key figures that embody different features of anti-courtly sentiments. The figure of the courtier shows that sentiments against the court were present even among those who apparently benefitted from such a system of power. The court lady allows an investigation of the intertwining of anti-courtliness and anti-feminism. The satirist and the shepherd of pastoral dramas are investigated as attempts to fashion two different forms of a new self for the court intellectual.

• Autore: Paola Ugolini
• Editore: University of Toronto Press
• Collana: Toronto Italian Studies
• Anno: 2020
• Rilegatura: Hardback
• Pagine: 312 p.
• Dimensioni: 235 x 165 mm
• Peso: 600 gr.
• EAN: 9781487505448

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