Veronica Franco Research Paper

The Work of Veronica Franco

Women in the Italian Renaissance who seek for public recognition raised different issues to empower women and one of which is Veronica Franco. In Bassanese’s book, he indicated: For women poets of the Italian Renaissance, self-naming raises issues of gender identity, social subordination, and intellectual mastery, involving self-awareness and self-evaluation, recognition of otherness, and empowerment. (Bassanese, F. A.; 1989).

Gabriel Niccoli considered Veronica Franco as the most original and significant among the poets of early 16th century Venice as he stated that Franco’s attitude towards the Petrarchan tradition is independent and intelligent: rather than passively repeating situations and forms of expression typical of that tradition, Veronica strives to adapt the Petrarchan language to the expression of her personal world. In doing so she emerges as one of the most original and significant among the minor poets of the Italian sixteenth century.(Niccoli, G.A.; 1973)

In Benson and Kirkham’s Strong Voices, Weak History book, they described Veronica Franco’s two images as a woman: as a fantasy of desire and as a sensual courtesan. Veronica

The history of the modern western feminist movements is divided into three "waves" (Humm; 1995) Each wave dealt with different aspects of the same feminist issues. (Walker; 1992). The first wave comprised women's suffrage movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, promoting women's right to vote. The second wave was associated with the ideas and actions of the women's liberation movement beginning in the 1960s. The second wave campaigned for legal and social equality for women. The third wave is a continuation of, and a reaction to, the perceived failures of second-wave feminism, beginning in the 1990s. (Krolokke & Sorensen;