Book Description

In Lelia's Kiss, Laura Giannetti offers a new perspective on the way gender and marriage were portrayed, imagined, and critiqued on stage during the Italian Renaissance. Going beyond the traditional canon, Giannetti focuses her study on the social and cultural scripts found in a wide array of comedies of the period to reveal the relativity of sex and gender roles and their cultural construction in Renaissance society. Giannetti argues that the comedic dialogue and cross-dressing characters so prevalent in Italian Renaissance comedies played with the presuppositions of the day and engaged with contemporary social norms, expectations, and desires. Cross-dressing female characters reveal the relativity of sex and gender roles, and also present a vision of female empowerment. At the same time, cross-dressing male characters suggest a unique perception of the male life cycle that was more uncertain and contested than often assumed, and show more broadly how masculinity was also socially and culturally constructed. In discussing marriage, sexuality, and gender roles, the comedies deploy a social scripting that not only reflects and comments on the everyday life of the time, but also interacts with it with playful humor and revealing insight.