Women During the Renaissance Period
The Renaissance (14th to 16th centuries) in European history is widely considered to have been a period of "re-birth" and a turning point for the Western Civilization. It is believed to be the transitory period between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age when the social, cultural, and artistic conservatism of the Middle Age was replaced by the dynamic philosophy of humanism, which emphasized individualism and personal achievement. Despite assertions by historians such as Jacob Burckhardt to the contrary, most subsequent studies of the history of renaissance unfortunately reveal that this much-celebrated individualism almost totally bypassed half the population (the women) whose social, cultural, economic and political condition hardly changed during this period. In this paper we shall discuss the condition of women during the renaissance period, and explore the reasons behind it. We will also take a brief look at some women who, despite the handicaps, managed to gain prominence during the Renaissance.
Condition of Women in Florence
The condition of women in the republic of Florence, the great Italian city-state where the renaissance was started and flourished, gives us a fair idea about the state of women during renaissance. There is little doubt that the social and legal constraints on women in Florence were such that female destiny was almost entirely in the hands of men with women having limited rights and even fewer opportunities for acting independently.
The secondary position of women in the society is tellingly revealed in the remarks of Nannina de' Medici, "Don't be born a woman if you want your own way" (quoted by Kent, 26) in a letter to her brother after her marriage. It must be remembered that these are the remarks of one of the most privileged of Florentine upper-class women. The plight of the common women of Florence can be well-imagined. At the same time, it must be realized that the condition of women in Florence was among the worst in the whole...
It also widened her female audience much further than the small group of upper-class women with whom she was acquainted (ibid). Overall, this work represented Lanyer as a complex writer who possessed significant artistic ambition and "who like other women of the age wrote not insincerely on devotional themes to sanction more controversial explorations of gender and social relations" (Miller 360). In her work, Lanyer issued a call to political action
This is furthered by the fact that the daughter closest to the infant, who perches on her mother's lap, holds that baby's hand, implying an ascent to motherhood. Behind the family, the picture window showing grand gardens and mansion details implies wealth. Indeed, the smooth texture and use of dark colors further suggests royalty. While both Drurer's and van Ceulen's portraits use light and dark and positioning as symbols,
She argues that the evasiveness and incongruites in the narrative exist since Spenser is facing issues that are not easily answered. From the start, Britomart represents an authority figure, a power not found in any other knight in the Faerie Queene. Spenser says that Britomart literally cannot be beaten, since she carries a powerful magic spear, or phallic symbol (depending on the interpretation) that refers back to the theme of
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001648096 Goldberg, Jeremy. "Girls Growing Up in Later Medieval England." History Today, June 1995, 25+. http://www.questia.com/. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=27843659 Herlihy, David. Women, Family, and Society in Medieval Europe: Historical Essays, 1978-1991. Edited by a. Molho. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1995. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001272076 Purkiss, Diane. "The Case for Women in Medieval Culture." Medium Aevum 68, no. 1 (1999): 106. http://www.questia.com/. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=14413469 Richards, Earl Jeffrey. "Seulette a Part -- the Little WomanOn
Women Status of women 40 Years Ago In the early sixties feminism was still an unthinkable, but its ghost was gradually arousing from the dead. (Sims, 1980). Women have been mainly underprivileged of a means of planned interface. Women were connecting more to men than to each other, and were kept remote in their individual homes. Though natural structures had begun to develop, they were still largely lacking. These occurrences led
The compositional structure here is actually quite daring. Even though a viewer tends to "read" a painting left-to-right, as with a book, here the left side of the canvas seems to fade away into nothingness. It is not just the empty seascape on the left as compared with the dark richness of the forest on the right. The left half of the painting contains the subject of the painting after
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