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Three Spanish Querelle Texts: Grisel and Mirabella, The Slander against Women, and The Defense of Ladies against Slanderers

Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women's 2014 Scholarly Edition in Translation Award for a work published in 2013

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index Translation of the Month, April 2013

This volume of the Other Voice brings together the two most influential voices in the Spanish querelle des femmes, Pere Torrellas (ca. 1420 – ca. 1492) and Juan de Flores (d. ca. 1503). Torrellas’ Slander against Women (Maldezir de mugeres) (ca. 1445) and Flores’ short romance Grisel and Mirabella (La historia de Grisel y Mirabella) (ca. 1475) circulated widely among Spanish readers from the time of their composition throughout the sixteenth century. Grisel and Mirabella became an international success in translation and was known across Europe as Aurelio and Isabelle. Translated into Italian, French, English, Polish and German, and also printed in polyglot formats as a tool for language learning, Grisel and Mirabella was perhaps the most widely disseminated work of fiction in the pan-European querelle des femmes.

"This bilingual edition of the Three Spanish Querelle Texts is very well-conceived and will attract a wide audience among specialists and non-specialists alike. Francomano provides the first modern English translations of texts that enjoyed European-wide celebrity in the early sixteenth century. Her introduction is the best available summary of our knowledge about Torrellas’ two texts and Flores’ Grisel y Mirabella. And her translations are more readable than the Spanish texts, dividing Flores’ elaborate, rambling sentences into more comprehensible discourse. She often captures the tone of ambiguous or mock sincerity in the pleadings of both Flores' and Torrellas' characters. Francomano has a special sensitivity to the ludic quality of these discourses which helps readers appreciate their expression of “male anxiety” and “female agency” in the gender politics of their era."

-Mark Johnston, Professor of Spanish, DePaul University

EMILY C. FRANCOMANO is Associate Professor of Spanish at Georgetown University, where she also teaches in the Medieval Studies and Comparative Literature programs.  She is the author of Wisdom and Her Lovers in Medieval and Early Modern Hispanic Literature (2008) as well as articles on Cárcel de amor, the Libro de buen amor, Castilian vernacular Bibles, and medieval romance (Catalan, French, and Spanish).

REVIEWS
Choice 51.2 (2013): 266–267. Reviewed by E. H. Friedman.
Early Modern Women 9.1 (2014): 182–184. Reviewed by Emily S. Beck.
Medieval Feminist Forum 50.2 (2015): 117–119. Reviewed by Elena Woodacre.
Renaissance Quarterly 67.2 (2014): 673–674. Reviewed by Antonio Pérez-Romero.
The Sixteenth Century Journal 45.2 (2014): 447–448. Reviewed by Ana Grinberg.
Speculum 89.2 (2014): 553–555. Reviewed by Lucia Binotti.

Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women's 2014 Scholarly Edition in Translation Award for a work published in 2013

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index Translation of the Month, April 2013

This volume of the Other Voice brings together the two most influential voices in the Spanish querelle des femmes, Pere Torrellas (ca. 1420 – ca. 1492) and Juan de Flores (d. ca. 1503). Torrellas’ Slander against Women (Maldezir de mugeres) (ca. 1445) and Flores’ short romance Grisel and Mirabella (La historia de Grisel y Mirabella) (ca. 1475) circulated widely among Sp...

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book Details

  • Page Count:

    206 pages

  • Publication Year:

    2013

  • 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 21

Ebook

USD$ 34.95 ISBN 978-0-7727-2135-8 Order Ebook

Print

USD$ 34.95 ISBN 978-0-7727-2134-1 Order Print Book

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