The Armed Maiden of the Sixteenth Century and the Unmaking of Tasso’s Clorinda (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
In literary representations of warfare, women are most often depicted as non-combatant innocents, while men are glorified as fearless warriors protecting them in battle. However, in the Italian literature of the sixteenth century-- a period in which women ruled over principalities and kingdoms and men were frequently forced to capitulate to foreign occupying troops-- authors of both sexes challenged assumptions about women's right and ability to participate in armed combat. "Moral Combat" explores how genres as varied as philosophical treatises, epic poetry, and biographical writing challenged traditional gender roles by depicting the 'fairer sex' as soldiers and even commanders. While Italian men were often shown to be humiliated by invading forces, women were increasingly depicted as heroic warriors. By contextualizing these armed heroines within contemporaneous debates, Gerry Milligan demonstrates how the popular yet problematic figure of the woman warrior became both a cultural symbol and an exponent of a larger political and military strategy. He examines dozens of primary texts to ask how and why women's role in combat became one of the central discourses of this age. A fascinating exploration of the intersection of morality and masculinity, and militarism. "Moral Combat" argues that the popularity of the figure of the warrior woman in sixteenth-century Italian literature was ultimately due to her dual function: signaling potential victory to the disempowered while calling men into action.
This essay offers a political reading of the artistic choices made by seventeenth-century painters in their depictions of the heroines of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1581). It discusses the political subtext of Tasso's epic poem by exploring the roles Tasso assigns to his oriental heroines and their representation in seventeenth-century paintings. Painters and patrons alike were particularly enthusiastic about the love stories that developed around Jerusalem. But Tasso is promoting a crusade, and the visual focus of later painters on Tasso's seductive female protagonists and their submission to Christian warriors, suggests that their aim was to display the delights that await those who join a military expedition to conquer the Holy Land.
Gender & History, 2007
Catalina de Erauso (1592-1650) is a famous, if not infamous, figure in Spanish history. As a girl in 1603, she escaped from a convent in her native city to embark on a life of military adventure in the service of the king of Spain. Under the names Alonso Díaz or Antonio de Erauso, or the nickname 'Monja Alférez' ('Lieutenant Nun'), she became the very model of a bloodthirsty, womanising conquistador and swashbuckling swordsman. Nonetheless, the story of her life in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Spain and colonial Latin America is not an easy one to tell. This singular personage withstands the violence of words: she was an individual with a complex identity forged in a society very different from our own. Any attempt to examine the historical possibilities of her existence, and the actions -both her own and those of other people -that marked her path through life presents significant challenges. It requires us to explore the frontiers between men and women, femininity and masculinity, and thereby attempt to map the identities that existed in a particular context. It also requires us to answer the innumerable questions that surround our hero(ine), first and foremost the surprising political and religious recognition that Erauso gained from the highest authorities of her time. Moreover, the interest aroused by this story over the centuries will allow us to trace the ways in which individuals in more recent times have responded to these same questions.
This article explores how the Gerusalemme Liberata, Torquato Tasso's epic account of the Christian "delivery" of Jerusalem from Muslim occupation, portrays through the evolution of the character Rinaldo the production of a zealous masculinity at once martial, amorous and (re)productive. I focus on Rinaldo because, unlike many of the Liberata's other male characters, he changes significantly in it. His evolving relationship with Armida, which the poem represents as maturing from narcissism, tyranny and sterility to reciprocity, mutual service and eventual fecundity, constitutes the most important index of this change. My analysis of Rinaldo's evolution will be complemented by considerable attention to a much more minor character, a page by the name of Lesbino, and to the impact of his death on his lover, the Muslim king Solimano. Represented as sterile and wasteful, their relationship, I argue, serves as a revealing counterpoint to that of Rinaldo and Armida.
Women and siege: the construction and utilization of a legend (1589-1910)
In this work we study the implications of the Corunna siege. This fact was subjected in May 1589 by a fleet of 120 vessels commanded by Francis Drake. Although the invading force was repelled, the considerable cost in lives and goods made this incident one of the most memorable in the history of the locality, giving rise to official rhetoric and popular accounts, the mythical characteristics of which have hitherto received hardly any analysis. A striking leitmotiv of all versions of the siege is the prominent part played in the defence of the city, in roles usually reserved for men, by its womenfolk in general and by one woman in particular. The theme of the female warrior is not new in mythology, but there is little reason to suppose that the contemporary chronicles of the siege of Corunna, with their emphasis on its female defenders, were the direct descendants of the classical myth. Firstly, 'it has long been clear that this part of Europe has no true tradition of the Amazon myth, in spite of its folklore and history including all kinds of queens and heroines. Secondly, it is well known that between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries many chroniclers were apt to use classical models in recording contemporary events. Rather than appeal mechanically.