Sherry Roush – författare

A contemporary of Giordano Bruno and Galileo, Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) was a controversial philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet who was persecuted during the Inquisition and spent much of his adult life imprisoned because of his heterodox views. He is best known today for two works: The City of the Sun, a dialogue inspired by Plato’s Republic, in which he prophesies a vision of a unified, peaceful world governed by a theocratic monarchy; and his well-meaning Defense of Galileo, which may have done Galileo more harm than good because of Campanella’s previous conviction for heresy.

But Campanella’s philosophical poems are where his most forceful and undiluted ideas reside. His poetry is where his faith in observable and experimental sciences, his astrological and occult wisdom, his ideas about deism, his anti-Aristotelianism, and his calls for religious and secular reform most put him at odds with both civil and church authorities. For this volume, Sherry Roush has selected Campanella’s best and most idiosyncratic poems, which are masterpieces of sixteenth-century Italian lyrics, displaying a questing mind of great, if unorthodox, brilliance, and showing Campanella’s passionate belief in the intrinsic harmony between the sacred and secular.

Jacopo Caviceo’s Peregrino (1508) was a popular Renaissance prose romance in Italy, France, and Spain. Considered the first novel written for women, Peregrino relates the courtship of two young lovers from hostile households who succeed in doing what Romeo and Juliet, among others, could not: reconcile their families and marry without resorting to suicide.

Peregrino features cameos of historical celebrities who interact with fictitious characters during their many adventures, which include a Mediterranean pilgrimage, courtly celebrations, funerals, legal trials, and a journey to the Other World. The book presents female agency in psychologically developed characters and contexts and includes allusions to previous literary masterpieces, such as Homer’s epics, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Dante’s Divine Comedy.

This edition includes a detailed introduction and a biography of Jacopo Caviceo. Drawing on critical and comparative studies in a broad range of literary interests, the book sheds light on the emergence of the modern novel in the early modern period.

Jacopo Caviceo’s Peregrino (1508) was a popular Renaissance prose romance in Italy, France, and Spain. Considered the first novel written for women, Peregrino relates the courtship of two young lovers from hostile households who succeed in doing what Romeo and Juliet, among others, could not: reconcile their families and marry without resorting to suicide.

Peregrino features cameos of historical celebrities who interact with fictitious characters during their many adventures, which include a Mediterranean pilgrimage, courtly celebrations, funerals, legal trials, and a journey to the Other World. The book presents female agency in psychologically developed characters and contexts and includes allusions to previous literary masterpieces, such as Homer’s epics, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Dante’s Divine Comedy.

This edition includes a detailed introduction and a biography of Jacopo Caviceo. Drawing on critical and comparative studies in a broad range of literary interests, the book sheds light on the emergence of the modern novel in the early modern period.