Aretino's Dialogues.

• MitwirkendeR: Moravia, Alberto,; Rosenthal, Margaret,; Rosenthal, Raymond,
• TeilnehmendeR: Rosenthal, Margaret.; Rosenthal, Raymond.
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2018]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (420 p.)

Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) was one of the most important figures in Italian Renaissance literature, and certainly the most controversial. Condemned by some as a pornographer, his infamy was due largely to his use of explicit sexuality and the vulgar tongue of ordinary speech in much of his work.Dialogues centres around a conversation between two rather frank, experienced, and sharp-tongued women on the topic of women's occupations. We learn that at the time there were only three: wife, whore, or nun. Their discussion is a rollicking account of the advantages, perils, and pleasures each profession offers.Not only was Dialogues the first erotic book in the Christian world to be written in the common vernacular, it was but one of the few to describe the obscenity of commercial love, and is thus a cornerstone of both Italian literature and Counter-Renaissance vigour. Raymond Rosenthal's English translation first appeared in 1971, and this edition contains his original preface as well as a new introduction by Margaret Rosethal. Also included, as a preface, is a review of the translation by Alberto Moravia from the New York Times Book Review.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION: 'A whore's vices are really virtues': The Erotics of Satire in Pietro Aretino's Ragionamenti -- PART ONE -- PIETRO ARETINO TO HIS DARLING MONKEY -- 1. This begins the first day of conversation in which Nanna, beneath a fig tree in Rome, tells Antonia the life of the nuns, composed by the Divine Aretinofor his amusement and to set forth correctly the three conditions of women -- 2. The second day of Aretino's capricious conversations, in which Nanna tells Antonia about the life of the wives -- 3. The last day of Aretino's capricious conversations, in which Nanna tells Antonia about the life of the whores -- PART TWO -- TO THE GENTLE AND HONORED MESSER BERNARDO VALDURA, ROYAL EXAMPLE OF COURTESY, PlETRO ARETINO -- 1. The first day of Messer Pietro Aretino's conversation, in which Nanna teaches her daughter Pippa the art of being a whore -- 2. The second day of the dialogue of Messer Pietro Aretino, in which Nanna tells Pippa all the vicious betrayals that men wreak on women -- 3. The third and last day of Messer Pietro Aretino's dialogue, in which the midwife explains to the wetnurse, with Nanna and Pippa listening, how to be a procuress -- AFTERWORD -- SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY -- CHRONOLOGY