An important contribution to growing scholarship on women's participation in literary cultures, this essay collection concentrates on cross-national communities of letters to offer a comparative and international approach to early modern women's writing. The essays gathered here focus on multiple literatures from several countries, ranging from Italy and France to the Low Countries and England. Individual essays investigate women in diverse social classes and life stages, ranging from siblings and mothers to nuns to celebrated writers; the collection overall is invested in crossing geographic, linguistic, political, and religious borders and exploring familial, political, and religious communities. Taken together, these essays offer fresh ways of reading early modern women's writing that consider such issues as the changing cultural geographies of the early modern world, women's bilingualism and multilingualism, and women's sense of identity mediated by local, regional, national, and transnational affiliations and conflicts.

An important contribution to growing scholarship on women's participation in literary cultures, this essay collection concentrates on cross-national communities of letters to offer a comparative and international approach to early modern women's writing. The essays gathered here focus on multiple literatures from several countries, ranging from Italy and France to the Low Countries and England. Individual essays investigate women in diverse social classes and life stages, ranging from siblings and mothers to nuns to celebrated writers; the collection overall is invested in crossing geographic, linguistic, political, and religious borders and exploring familial, political, and religious communities. Taken together, these essays offer fresh ways of reading early modern women's writing that consider such issues as the changing cultural geographies of the early modern world, women's bilingualism and multilingualism, and women's sense of identity mediated by local, regional, national, and transnational affiliations and conflicts.

Witty and dynamic lovers' dialogues for the stage. The actress and author Isabella Andreini won international renown playing the bold, versatile, and intellectual inamorata of the commedia dell'arte. After her death, her husband Francesco Andreini continued publishing her works, among them the thirty-one amorosi contrasti-or lovers' debates- presented in this volume. Available in English for the first time, Lovers' Debates enables readers to envision the commedia dell'arte through the words of its most revered diva. Lovers flirt boldly, trade bawdy insults, exhibit their learning, and drive each other mad in stage dialogues that showcase Isabella's skill in composition and drama. Sparkling with wit and bursting with dynamic energy, these brilliant lovers' dialogues for the stage hold strong appeal not only for specialists in early modern literature and women's studies, but for enthusiasts, scholars, and practitioners of classic and contemporary theatre.