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Love in the Mirror: A Bilingual Edition

Originally published in 1622, Love in the Mirror tells the unforgettable and path–breaking story of a passionate love affair between two women in early modern Florence. Despite the risk of social sanctions, Florinda and Lidia freely consent to love each other "breast to breast and mouth to mouth," with some surprising consequences for the institution of marriage. This bilingual edition of the play introduces the English–speaking reader to one of the most remarkable creative artists of the Baroque age, Giovan Battista Andreini (1576-1654). Actor, playwright, and son of the first great diva of the European stage, Isabella Andreini, Giovan Battista was renowned in his lifetime as an avant–garde theatrical innovator. While drawing on the Italian commedia dell'arte, his comedies go far beyond its limits in order—like Calderón, Corneille and Shakespeare-—to subvert traditional views of the relationship between art and life, representation and reality.  Love in the Mirror, which was lost from view for centuries, is here translated for the first time into a highly accessible and fully annotated English version. The volume includes a wide–ranging introduction to this experimental comic masterpiece, as well as to the life and works of G. B. Andreini.

JON R. SNYDER is Professor of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has written extensively on European literature, art and culture, with particular emphasis on early modern Italy, and has translated many works from Italian to English. His book Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe was published by the University of California Press in 2009, and his L'estetica del Barocco appeared with Il Mulino (Bologna) in 2005.

REVIEWS
Annali d’Italianistica 28 (2010): 543–546. Reviewed by Melina Madrigal.
Modern Language Review 107.3 (2012): 951–952. Reviewed by Lisa Sampson.
Renaissance Quarterly 63.4 (2010): 1283–1285. Reviewed by Eric Nicholson.
The Sixteenth Century Journal 42.2 (2011): 520–521. Reviewed by Filippa (Fina) Modesto.

Originally published in 1622, Love in the Mirror tells the unforgettable and path–breaking story of a passionate love affair between two women in early modern Florence. Despite the risk of social sanctions, Florinda and Lidia freely consent to love each other "breast to breast and mouth to mouth," with some surprising consequences for the institution of marriage. This bilingual edition of the play introduces the English–speaking reader to one of the most remarkable creative artists of the Baroque age, Giovan Battista Andreini (1576-1654). Actor, playwright, and son of the first great div...

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book Details

  • Page Count:

    244 pages

  • Publication Year:

    2009

  • Publisher:

    Iter Press and the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria University in the University of Toronto
  • Series:

    • The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series 2

Ebook

USD$ 31.95 ISBN 978-0-7727-2056-6 Order Ebook

Print

USD$ 31.95 ISBN 978-0-7727-2051-1 Order Print Book

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