Ragionamenti
Ragionamenti ( Italian ; "Sensible Conversations", "Discussions") is the common collective title for Ragionamento della Nanna e della Antonia ("Sensible Conversation of Nanna and Antonia"; Venice, 1534) and Dialogo nel quale la Nanna insegna a la Pippa ( "Dialogue in which Nanna teaches Pippa", Venice or Turin, 1536), two texts by Pietro Aretino originally published separately . Aretino's best-known work describes in drastic terms the female world in Renaissance Italy and was considered the epitome of permissive literature until the 18th century .
The title of the text collection is not clearly defined; it appeared differently, such as Sei giornate (“Six Days”), Giovanni Aquilecchia's critical Italian edition from 1969; Courtesan conversations or just conversations are common in German . A third part Ragionamento dello Zoppino fatto frate, e Lodovico, puttaniere, dove contiene la vita e la genealogia di tutte le cortigiane di Roma ("Conversation of Zoppino, monk, and Lodovico, whore, about the life and origins of all courtesans in Rome") should not come from Aretino and be a follow-up text that should take advantage of the success of the predecessor.
content
In the Ragionamento della Nanna e della Antonia , Nanna and Antonia talk about the future of Nanna's daughter Pippa and weigh up three basic options for a woman to shape her life: as a nun, wife and prostitute. Nanna explains this based on her own life story. On the first day she tells how, as a girl, she was put in a convent that turned out to be a place of debauchery and sexual initiation . The second day is devoted to describing Nanna's subsequent marriage and marriage; the brutality and lovelessness that prevail there inevitably and justly lead the woman to infidelity; the husband is killed in the end. On the third day, Nanna describes her life as a courtesan in Rome, which is by far preferable to monastic hypocrisy and conjugal tyranny. Antonia's analysis of the worlds portrayed is as follows:
“The mio parere è che tu faccia la tua Pippa puttana: perché la monica tradisce il suo consagramento; e la maritata assassina il santo matrimonio; ma la puttana non la attacca né al monistero né al marito: anzi fa come un soldato che è pagato per far male, e facendolo non si tiene che lo faccia, perché la sua bottega vende quello che ella ha a vendere; […] Poi, secondo che per le tue parole comprendo, i vizi delle puttane son virtù. Oltra di questo, è bella cosa a essere chiamata signora fino dai signori, mangiando e vestendo semper da signora, stando continuamente in fixed e in nozze, come tu stessa, che hai detto tanto di loro, sai molto meglio di me; e importa il cavarsi ogni vogliuzza potendo favorire ciascuno: perché Roma semper fu e semper sarà, non vo 'dir delle puttane per non me ne avere a confessare. "
“I think you should let your Pippa become a whore, because the nun betrays her holy vow and the wife gives the sacrament of marriage the death knell; but the whore does not harm either the monastery or the husband, she does it like a soldier who is paid to do mischief. And you can't blame her for the evil she's doing, because what's there was sold in her shop. [...] if I have understood you correctly, [are] all vices of a whore to be regarded as virtues. In addition, it is a nice thing to be addressed as 'madam' even by gentlemen, to always dress and eat like a Signora, and always to live splendidly and happily, like yourself, whom you give me so much from them you know much better than I do. It is also nothing small to be able to satisfy every mood and to be able to treat everyone you wish. Because Rome always was and always will be ... I don't want to say the whore city so that I don't have to confess the expression. "
After Pippa's future profession as a prostitute has been determined in the Ragionamento Pippas, in the Dialogo nel quale la Nanna insegna a la Pippa Nanna teaches her daughter the lists and arts with which she induces her customers and lovers to be generous towards her and behind a respectable and elegant surface real intent of their actions hidden: to make money through the control of emotions and dexterity in behavior. The next day, Pippa heard from Nanna as an urgent warning of sentimental derailments, which conversely men use deceptions to win women over and then abuse their trust. The crescendo of increasingly outrageous anecdotes from Nanna causes Pippa to pass out from pain. Finally, on the third and last day, the matchmakers Balia and Comare explain how Pippa will one day be able to earn a living when she has become old and has lost its charm for men.
Morals and ethics
The narratives, which are closely linked by the characters, location and content, follow each other on two three days under the fig tree of a vineyard, at first glance a locus amoenus and thus the ideal place for a philosophical dialogue ; However, the literary topos is broken, as the somewhat overgrown surroundings deviate from the usual order of the Renaissance gardens, and the fig is explained in connection with the topic discussed as a metaphor for the female genitalia. The protagonists in Aretinos Ragionamenti reflect the very special circumstances, tied to time and place, under which some prostitutes were able to achieve salon ability and wealth in the heyday of Roman courtesans in the 16th century .
Like Niccolò Machiavelli's Il Principe of 1513, the text relativizes the sophistication and humanism attributed to Italian courts and Italian lifestyle in favor of a more truer view of conditions and a utilitarian approach to the demands of existence. In their “ three-tier teaching of women” (nun - wife - prostitute), the speakers come to the conclusion that every female path in life leads to one or the other form of marketability and that a woman's abilities and talents can only develop sufficiently in a life as a courtesan , only here would they have the chance to really take part in social life. The most important prerequisite for a successful life as a woman is, however, not to fall in love with men, so as not to be betrayed and exploited by them. The analysis of the human emotional life than back and forth between deception and self-deception and the economic understanding of sexuality between men and women provide an ethical foundation, the moral teachings in complete reversal of the courtly ideal of gratuitousness of love or the Platonic overcome the passions with the Life path gives; a way of life, which in this way can be led more honestly, correctly and freely than it is possible for a nun or wife.
Classification in literary history
The two texts parody the contemporary doctrines of dialogic virtue - above all Pietro Bembos Gli Asolani (“The People from Asolo”) from 1505 and Baldassare Castiglione's Il Libro del Cortegiano (“The Court Man's Book”) from 1528. Women from the Roman lower class speak who earn their lives as noble prostitutes (“courtesans”) and matchmakers , antipodes of the court culture idealized by classical Renaissance literature . Aretino's work belongs to anti- Petrarkism , which made fun of the idealization of women and “bittersweet love”, as it had become a stereotype in the artificial imitation of Francesco Petrarca's Canzoniere (“Book of Songs”).
The linguistic and literary significance, from the novella of the 15th century and Boccaccio's Decameron significantly influenced dialogue collection came to Aretino's death on the index and was such a long time of literary criticism withdrawn. Nonetheless, the notorious image of the time circulated in secret as a bestseller and not least established Aretino's unjustified reputation as an immoral author. The open and detailed portrayal of prostitute life and the drastic, lifelike language made the Ragionamenti the epitome of permissive literature. Only the libertine works of the 18th century such as Thérèse philosophe or Histoire de Dom B… overtook them.
The Ragionamenti belong to a line of tradition that began in antiquity with Lukian's Hetaera Talks (written around 160, first printed in 1494) and extends into modern times . 1913 appeared under the pseudonym “W. Pfeifer “the bibliophile illustrated private print Whore Conversations by Heinrich Zille . The text consists largely of dialogues between prostitutes who tell their life stories in Berlin dialect .
expenditure
The two editions of 1534 and 1536 were published in Venice under the fake printing locations Paris and Turin, respectively.
- Be Giornate: Ragionamento Della Nanna E Della Antonia . Parigi [Venice] 1534.
- Dialogo Nel Quale La Nanna Insegna a la Pippa . Turino [Venice] 1536.
The first German edition was after the Spanish translation of the text with the title Coloquio de las Damas
- Italiänischer Hurenspiegel, Petri Aretini published by Florentz around 1665, followed by a second edition, Nuremberg 1672.
The first complete translation into German comes from Ernst Otto Kayser, who wrote an introduction and annotated the text, as a private print . [Leipzig 1921]. This translation forms the basis for all subsequent German text editions.
- The Conversations of Pietro Aretino. For the first time transmitted in full with an introduction and notes. Photomechanical reprint of the Leipzig 1921 edition. Leipzig, Zentralantiquariat, 1978.
literature
- Pietro Aretino: The conversations of the divine Pietro Aretino. Germanized by Heinrich Conrad, 2 vols., Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1903.
- Pietro Aretino: The Conversations of the Divine Pietro Aretino . Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999. ISBN 978-3458342700 (reprint of the Leipzig 1903 edition)
- Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Kindler Verlag, Munich 1988. Volume 1, p. 644. ISBN 3-463-43001-0
- Harenberg's Lexicon of World Literature . Harenberg Lexikon-Verlag, Dortmund 1989. Volume 3, p. 1705. ISBN 3-611-00091-4
Web links
- Curtisan Talks, I Ragionamenti, by Pietro Aretino; an essay
- Ragionamenti (Italian)
- Ragionamenti (German translation by Heinrich Conrad, 1903) in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Notes on the Ragionamenti (Italian)