Androgyny in Moderata Fonte’s Tredici canti del Floridoro

Yıl 2019, , 369 - 382, 30.12.2019

Merve Aydoğdu Çelik

https://doi.org/10.32600/huefd.532911

Öz

Moderata Fonte, who is one of the earliest female authors to write chivalric romance in Italy, participates in the debate
on women [querelle des femmes] with Il merito delle donne (1600). Tredici canti del Floridoro (1581), in which she
defends the worth of women and equality between sexes, also documents Fonte’s concern for female issues. Within
this framework, this paper aims to analyse Fonte’s protofeminism based upon the concept of androgyny. Drawing upon
her thought about women in Il merito delle donne (1600) within the framework of the Italian patriarchal social context,
it first discusses the social and theoretical implications of androgyny. It interprets the warrior heroine Risamante and
the titular hero Floridoro as representatives of the androgyne examining how they deconstruct their assigned gender
roles. It argues that Fonte utilizes androgyny to evince that there is no essential difference between sexes but the
cultural assumptions and practices produce a hierarchical relationship between women and men. It concludes that
Fonte, by means of androgyny, shatters rigid gender boundaries, and she advocates that both women and men should
benefit from education and they should be treated equally. Tredici canti del Floridoro, thereby, manifests Moderata
Fonte’s protofeminist opinion.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Renaissance, Romance, Androgyny, Profeminism, Moderata Fonte

Moderata Fonte’nin Tredici canti del Floridoro’sunda Androjeni

Öz

İtalya’da kahramanlık romanı yazan ilk kadın yazarlardan biri olan Moderata Fonte, Il merito delle donne (1600)
eseriyle kadınlarla ilgili tartışmalara [querelle des femmes] katılır. Kadının değerini ve cinsiyetler arası eşitliği
savunduğu eseri Tredici canti del Floridoro (1581) ise kadınlara ilişkin sorunlar hususundaki hassasiyetini kanıtlar
niteliktedir. Bu çerçevede, bu çalışma Fonte’nin androjeni kavramına dayanan protofeminist argümanını analiz etmeyi
amaçlar. İtalyan ataerkil toplum düzeni bağlamında Fonte’nin Il merito delle donne (1600) eserindeki kadınlar
hususundaki görüşlerinden hareketle, ilkin androjeninin sosyal ve teorik anlamlarını tartışır. Savaşçı kadın kahraman
Risamante ve esere adını veren erkek kahraman Floridoro’yu, atanmış toplumsal cinsiyet rollerini altüst etmelerinden
ötürü, androjeniyi temsil eden karakterler olarak değerlendirir. Fonte’nin, androjeni kavramından faydalanarak,
cinsiyetler arasında özsel bir fark olmadığını kanıtladığını, kadınlar ve erkekler arasında hiyerarşik bir ilişki üretenin
kültürel varsayımlar ve uygulamalar olduğunu savunur. Makalede, Moderata Fonte’nin androjeni aracılığıyla katı
toplumsal cinsiyet rollerini parçaladığı ve Tredici canti del Floridoro’da her iki cinsiyete de eşit eğitim hakkı verilmesi
ve cinsiyetler arasında eşitlik olması gerektiğini savunduğu sonucuna varılır. Bu bağlamda, Tredici canti del Floridoro,
Moderata Fonte’nin protofeminist görüşünü açıkça ortaya koymaktadır. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

Rönesans, Romans, Androjeni, Profeminizm, Moderata Fonte

Kaynakça

• Agrippa, H. C. (1996). Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex. Trans. Albert Rabil, Jr. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
• Ariosto, L. (1972). Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso Translated into English Heroical Verse by Sir John Harington. Trans. John Harington. Oxford: Oxford UP.
• Auerbach, E. (2013). Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP.
• Bazin, N. T. and Freeman A. (1974). “The Androgynous Vision.” Women’s Studies 2: 185-215.
• Beauvoir, S. (1956). The Second Sex. London: Lowe and Brydone.
• Butler, J. (1999). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge.
• Castiglione, B. (1929). The Book of the Courtier. New York: Horace Liveright. Web. 10 Jun 2018.
• Caughie, P. (1991). Virginia Woolf and Postmodernism: Literature in Quest & Quest of Itself. Urbana: U of Illinois P.
• Cox, V. (1997). Introduction. The Worth of Women Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. By Moderata Fonte. Chicago: U of Chicago P. 1-23.
• --- (1997). “Women as Readers and Writers of Chivalric Poetry in Early Modern Italy.” Sguardi sull’Italia: Miscellanea dedicata a F. Villari. Ed. Z. Baranski et al. Leeds: Society for Italian Studies. 134-145.
• --- (2011). The Prodigious Muse: Women’s Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP.
• Cull, J. T. (1989). “Androgyny in the Spanish Pastoral Novels.” Hispanic Review 57.3: 317-334.
• Dean, T. (2000). The Towns of Italy in the Later Middle Ages. Manchester: Manchester UP.
• Dollimore, J. (1991). Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault. Oxford: Oxford UP.
• Dreher, D. E. (1986). Domination and Defiance: Fathers and Daughters in Shakespeare. Lexington: The UP of Kentucky.
• Farwell, M. R. (1975). “Virginia Woolf and Androgyny.” Contemporary Literature 16.4: 433-451.
• Finucci, V. (2006). Introduction. Floridoro: A Chivalric Romance. By Moderata Fonte. Chicago: U of Chicago P. 1-33.
• Fletcher, A. (1999). “Manhood, the Male Body, Courtship and the Household in Early Modern England.” History 84.275: 419-436.
• Fonte, M. (1997). The Worth of Women Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. Trans. Virginia Cox. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
• ---. (2006). Floridoro: A Chivalric Romance. Trans. Julia Kisacky. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
• Fuller, M. (1994). Woman in the Nineteenth Century and Other Writings. Oxford: Oxford UP.
• Galliano, G. (2003). Gender: Crossing Boundaries. San Francisco: Wadsworth P.
• Heilbrun, C. G. (1973). Towards Androgyny: Aspects of Male and Female in Literature. London: Victor Gollancz.
• Jones, A. R. (1990). The Currency of Eros: Women’s Love Lyric in Europe, 1540–1620. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP.
• Jordan, C. (1990). Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
• ---. (1999). “Writing Beyond the Querelle: Gender and History in Orlando Furioso.” Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso. Ed. Valeria Finucci. Durham: Duke UP. 295-315.
• Kaivola, K.(1999). “Revisiting Woolf’s Representations of Androgyny: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Nation.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 18.2: 235-261.
• King, H. (1998). Hippocrates’ Women. New York: Routledge.
• King, M. L. and Rabil, A., Jr. (2006). Introduction to the Series. Floridoro: A Chivalric Romance. By Moderata Fonte. Chicago: U of Chicago P. xi-xxx.
• Kolsky, S. (1999). “Moderata Fonte’s Tredici Canti del Floridoro: Women in a Man’s Genre.” Rivista di Studi Italiani 17: 165-184.
• Lerner, G. (1986). The Creation of Patriarchy. Oxford: Oxford UP.
• Logan, G. B. (1991). “Italian Women in Science from the Renaissance to the Nineteenth Century.” Phd Dissertation, U of Ottawa.
• Low, J. (2003). Manhood and the Duel: Masculinity in Early Modern Drama and Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Malpezzi Price, P. (1997). “Moderata Fonte.” The Feminist Encyclopaedia of Italian Literature. Ed. Rinaldina Russell. Westport: Greenwood P. 124-125.
• ---. (2003). “Venetia Figurata and Women in Sixteenth-Century Venice: Moderata Fonte’s Writings.” Italian Women and the City: Essays. Ed. Janet Levarie Smarr and Daria Valentini. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP. 18-34.
• ---. (2003). Moderata Fonte: Women and Life in Sixteenth-century Venice. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP.
• Micale, M. S. (1995). Approaching Hysteria: Disease and Its Interpretations. Princeton: Princeton UP.
• Panizza, L. and Wood, S. (2000). Introduction. A History of Women’s Writing in Italy. Ed. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1-9.
• Plato. The Dialogues of Plato. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1871. Web. 13 Feb 2019.
• Rado, L. (2000). The Modern Androgyne Imagination: A Failed Sublime. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia.
• Rosenman, E. B. (1989). “Sexual Identity and ‘A Room of One’s Own’: ‘Secret Economies’ in Virginia Woolf’s Feminist Discourse.” Signs 14.3: 634-650.
• Schiesari, J. (1989). “In Praise of Virtuous Women? For a Genealogy of Gender Morals in Renaissance Italy.” Annali d’Italianistica 7: 66-87.
• Secor, C. (1974). “The Androgyny Papers.” Women’s Studies 2: 139-141.
• Synder, J. R. (2002). “Mare Magnum: The Arts in the Early Modern Age.” Early Modern Italy 1550-1796. Ed. John A. Marino. Oxford: Oxford UP. 143-162.
• Wood, J. T. (2007). Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture. Belmont: Thomson Learning.
• Woolf, V. (1977). A Room of One’s Own. London: Grafton.