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Love Enamored and Driven Mad

With Love Enamored and Driven Mad, Lucrezia Marinella puts her mark on classical mythology and literary antecedents. She transforms Cupid from all-powerful god to wayward adolescent who falls to his own haughtiness while having female characters (such as Venus) take on distinctly positive roles. From the literary standpoint, she demonstrates her deep knowledge of classical and vernacular authors, from Ovid to Apuleius and Prudentius, and from Dante to Tasso, with numerous forays into Petrarchan poetics.

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe - The Toronto Series, volume 72

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Reviews

"This accurate and readable translation constitutes an exciting contribution to our understanding of Lucrezia Marinella’s work as a whole, situating Amore innamorato within the context of the author’s artistic trajectory. It indeed helps us, as Gomez and Stampino state in their introduction, to avoid the trap of privileging the better-known of Marinella’s literary works."

Laura Benedetti, Georgetown University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 1
The Other Voice 1
Marinella’s Life and Works 2
Works, 1595–1605 4
Works, 1617–1648 7
Historical Context 9
Ovid: Metamorphoseon libri (Metamorphoses) 10
Prudentius: Psychomachia (Battle of the Soul) 11
Dante: Divina commedia (Divine Comedy) 13
Boccaccio: Genealogia deorum gentilium (Genealogy of the Pagan Gods) 14
Tasso: Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) 15
Summary and Analysis 18
Apuleius: The Source Text 21
Marinella’s Amore innamorato et impazzato (Love Enamored and
Driven Mad) 27
Petrarchan Beauty in a New Context 37
Marinella’s Poetics 41
Marinella as an Observer of Her World and Society 44
Afterlife 45
Note on the Translation 47
Love Enamored and Driven Mad 49
Preliminary Texts 50
Dedicatory Letter 50
Allegory of the Poem 51
Permission 56
To the Reader 57
Canto 1 59
Canto 2 75
Canto 3 89
Canto 4 101
Canto 5 115
Canto 6 129
Canto 7 139
Canto 8 153
Canto 9 167
Canto 10 181
Bibliography 199
Index 205

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