Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 02-24-08
Isabella Morra /di Morra (1516/20-1545/6)
=======================================================================
"I WHO... SPEND MY TIME WITHOUT ANY PRAISE."
=======================================================================
More is known about Isabella Morra's death that about her life. She was born to a noble family in a remote area of southern Italy, part of the Kingdom of Naples. In 1527, during one of France's recurring attempts to conquer Spanish-controlled Naples, Isabella's father became involved in the conflict --- but on the losing side. He escaped to France, to the court of Francis I, but his family remained behind, most of their property seized as having belonged to a rebel.
Himself the product of a humanist education, Isabella's father had her educated with one of her brothers. That brother was sent to school in Rome and later joined his father in France; Isabella remained at home with her mother, a sister, and five other brothers, none of whom apparently shared her interest in Petrarchan poetry and classical mythology.
In late 1545 or early 1546, three of her brothers found Isabella in possession of letters and poems from a nobleman who lived in the area. They killed their sister and the teacher who had brought the letters. Within a year they also killed the offending nobleman and fled to France. It was the nobleman's death that brought judicial attention; the result was a few months of prison for the eldest brother, who apparently had not been involved in any of the murders.
We don't know when Isabella started to write poetry (or how much she wrote); we do know that she was writing up to the time of her death. The poems that have survived did so because they were found during the judicial investigation, made their way to the wider world, and were published within ten years of her death.
Morra's theme is the isolation she felt, living among people who had no interest in her poetry and far away from the humanist circles available in a city like Naples. At first she hoped that her her father would send for her. Later she seems to have become more resigned to her fate, but her desire for her poetry to be heard and remembered never left.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information about secondary sources.
=======================================================================
1. In an essay on Morra, four sonnets, translated by Laura Anne Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie.
2. In Italian:
(a) Links to the originals of Morra's Rime: ten sonnets and three canzone (the canzone are given as Rime #s 10, 12, and 13).
(b) A hypertext version of Rime; here, by clicking on a highlighted word, you can find all Morra's uses of it.
3. Essays:
(a) A biography by Giovanni Caserta.
(b) An essay on Morra and her poems, by Margaret E. Kern, followed by a 2002 bibliography that includes primary and secondary sources; you can also link to a complete list of the editions of Morra's work.
4. In a 2004 Italian newspaper article about Morra, her "presumed portrait" and the area around her home.
5. Half-way down the page, a closer view of the Morra family's castle at Valsinni, where Isabella spent her entire life.
6. Reviews (for excerpts from the translation and information on Jaffe's treatment of Morra, see below, under "In print"):
(a) At a bookseller's site, the Virginia Quarterly Review on Irene Musillo Mitchell's 1998 translation, Canzoniere.
(b) Maria Galli Stampino on Irma B. Jaffe's 2002 translation /study, Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune: The Lives and Loves of Italian Renaissance Women Poets.
=======================================================================
[Irene Musillo Mitchell has translated all of Morra's poems, with the original Italian given on the facing page. Mitchell's introduction discusses Morra's life and work and also reviews the few available English-language studies. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Morra, Isabella di. Canzoniere: a bilingual edition; edited
and translated by Irene Musillo Mitchell. West Lafayette, IN:
Bordighera, c1998. (64 p)
LC#: PQ4630.M84 A25 1998; ISBN:1884419186
Includes bibliographical references.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"...these rough customs of an irrational people...."
--------------------------------------------------------------
[Isabella's villain is the goddess Fortune, who does not give according to merit. (See the original of the whole canzone online.):]
Now that you have clipped the wings of the beautiful desire
That surged in my heart, cruel Fortuna,
So that I live bereft of your every good,
I will reclaim in this unrefined and frail style
Some part of my internal ill
Caused only by you amid these thickets,
Amid these rough customs
Of an irrational people, devoid of intellect,
Where without support
I am constrained to lead my life,
Placed here by everyone in blind oblivion. [p.37]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...erased in them will be the gentility bequeathed from
the ancients."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[At the end of the poem, after describing Fortune's ill-treatment of Isabella and of her father. The "great King" is God, who can speak to the king of France:]
The children of my miserable mother
Should be the staff of her frail old age;
But because of your iniquitous and cruel tempests
They are in extreme and horrid indolence;
And erased in them will be the gentility
Bequeathed from the ancients, to these days,
If from high places
Pity does not reach the heart of the king of France,
So that, with just balance,
Weighing the harm, he may render a recompense
According to the merit of my pure faith.
Every evil I forgive you,
Nor will my soul ever lament of you
If only this you will do
---Ay, ay, Fortuna, and why should you not do it?---
Let my sighs reach the great King. [pp.39-41]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am worthy of the sepulcher I keep procuring with the
beloved Muses."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Despite her rustic home, Isabella had, as a poet, had earned the right to be honored, if only in death. The "Divas" are the the Muses, goddesses opposed to the blind Fortuna. (See the original online.):]
Of the fierce assaults of cruel Fortuna
I write, lamenting my green age,
I who in so vile and horrid a region
Spend my time without any praise.
If vile the cradle, I am worthy of the sepulcher
I keep procuring with the beloved Muses,
And I hope some mercy to secure
Despite the harsh, tormenting blind Goddess;
And with the favor of the sacred Divas,
If not with the body, at least with the released soul,
On more happy shores be acclaimed.
Perhaps in the world such a high king lives,
Who will hold entombed in solid marble
This flesh wherein now I find myself contained. [p.21]
--------------------------------------------------
"Cry in loud broken voices with me...."
--------------------------------------------------
[The mountainous area in which Isabella liv.es, and all its creatures, will hear and perhaps join in voicing her frustration. (See the original online.):]
Here, another time, O infernal valley,
O alpine river, O rocky ruins.
O spirits devoid of virtue and sullen,
You will hear my crying and eternal misery.
Every mountain will hear me, every cavern.
Wherever I move my steps, wherever I settle,
Because Fortuna, who is never faithful,
Increases my pain, every hour, each eternal.
Oh, while day and night I lament,
O rocks, O horrid ruins, O wild beasts,
O solitary grottos, O uncultivated forests,
And you, owls, seers of our torment,
Cry in loud broken voices with me
My pitiful end, beyond all others. [p.33]
--------------------------------------------
"Brother, every other hope is vain."
--------------------------------------------
[At length, Isabella turns to God, but the desire for "glory" remains. (See the original online.):]
With a bitter style, harsh and in torment
Once, as you know, I wrote against Fortuna,
Such that no other ever under the moon
Complained of her with a will more ardent.
Now of its blind error my soul repents,
For in such qualities it perceives no glory,
And if it lives deprived of a benign legacy,
It hopes to enrich itself in God, clear and lucent.
Neither time nor death nor the violent hand,
Nor the predator the beautiful eternal treasure
Will seize before the King of heaven.
There, neither summer nor winter withstand,
For from heat or cold one never suffers,
Therefore, brother, every other hope is vain. [p.45]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"So that through my style, I reveal you to myself...."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[As Petrarchan poets have praised the physical parts of their beloveds, Isabella will try to describe the earthly body of Jesus. (See the original of the whole canzone online.) Here, the poem's opening:]
Lord, who until now, by your great mercy,
with this ephemeral and frail perception of mine,
Made me despise every mortal beauty,
Make me inherit so much goodness through grace,
That I always love you with pure faith
And despise every other object before me,
With such true affection
That everyone points me out as your faithful lover
In this erring world,
which is nothing else, without your heavenly love,
But a stormy sea full of tempests.
Lord, who by your own hand made yourself,
Whereas every intelligence toils in vain
Only to represent in verse your beautiful human face,
Only to give vent to my desires now,
For others, no, but only for myself I would like to,
And to sculpt for myself your heavenly body,
As it was when from heaven
You descended to inhabit the lower world
And to turn mankind from war.
This grace, O Lord, concede me
So that through my style, I reveal you to myself.... [p.47]
-------------------------------------
"Song, how mad you are...."
-------------------------------------
[But at the end she acknowledges it an impossible task:]
Song, how mad you are,
That in the sea of the beauty of God
With so ardent a desire
You thought you could enter! Now that you have lost the way,
Remain outside, because you do not see the shore. [p.51]
----------------------------------------------------------
"Through the solitary paths, my soul walks...."
----------------------------------------------------------
[Religious faith has at least brought Isabella to some acceptance of the isolated land she had so hated. (See the original of the whole canzone online.):]
That which in days past
Troubled this onerous body of mine,
To be within these lonely and dark forests,
Now only delights my soul;
For from God, his mercy, I beseech such grace
That he makes me clearly perceive the secure roads
Of traveling toward him, away from iniquitous cares.
Now, turning my mind to the Queen
Of heaven, with true highest humility,
Through the solitary paths,
My soul walks without mortal intrigue
Already toward its repose,
For to the other part thought does not incline,
Fleeing the sad century so troublesome,
Happy and content in this shady wood.... [p.53]
=======================================================================
[Irma B. Jaffe's collection of biographies includes one on Morra, which gives both the Italian and translations by Jaffe and Gernando Colombardo of eight sonnets and parts of two canzone. With the book is a CD that includes readings in Italian of three of Morra's sonnets. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Jaffe, Irma B. Shining eyes, cruel fortune: the lives and
loves of Italian Renaissance women poets / Irma B. Jaffe with
Gernando Colombardo. New York: Fordham University Press, 2002.
(xxx, 429 p., 8 p. of plates: ill. (some col.), maps; 26 cm.
+ 1 CD (4 3/4 in.)
LC#: PQ4063 .J34 2002; ISBN: 0823221806, 0823221814
Accompanying CD contains poems in Italian. Includes bibliographical
references (p. [411]-415) and indexes
=======================================================================
[Laura Anne Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie have translated for their anthology four of Morra's sonnets and one canzone, with the Italian originals given on the facing pages. Stortoni's brief introduction and bibliography are useful. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women Poets of the Italian Renaissance: Courtly Ladies &
Courtesans. Edited by Laura Anna Stortoni. Translated by Laura
Anna Stortoni & Mary Prentice Lillie. NY:Italica Press, 1997.
LC#: PQ4225 .E8 S838 1997; ISBN: 0934977437
=======================================================================
[This collection includes an essay by Paola Malpezzi Price, "A Sixteenth-Century Woman Poet's Pursuit of Fame: The Poetry of Isabella di Morra," which discusses the effect of Morra's desire for literary glory on her treatment of themes and images:]
The flight of Ulysses: studies in memory of Emmanuel Hatzantonis
/ edited by Augustus A. Mastri ( Studi e testi;1). Chapel Hill,
N.C.: Annali d'Italianistica, 1997. (359 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ4004 .M4 1997; ISBN: 0965795608
English and Italian Includes bibliographical references
------------------------
[Sara Adler's essay, "The Petrarchan Lament of Isabella di Morra," compares the language and images used by Petrarch with those used by Morra in order to show Morra's originality in moving away from the conventions of Petrarchism:]
Donna: women in Italian culture / edited by Ada Testaferri
(University of Toronto Italian studies; 7) . Ottawa: Dovehouse
Editions, 1989. (316 p.)
LC#: PQ4029 .D66 1989; ISBN: 0919473547
"A selection of papers read at York University in an International
Symposium on Women in Italian Studies, which took place in February,
1987." Text in English and Italian. Includes bibliographical
references
------------------------
[Janet Levarie Smarr's article on the ways that women poets of the 1500s adapted to their own use Petrarch's themes includes a brief but useful analysis of Morra's poems (pp.9-11); Smarr sees Morra placing her father, the French king, and eventually God in the role that the earlier poet had assigned to his Laura. Smarr gives her own translation of quoted passages. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
Smarr, Janet Levarie. Substituting for Laura: Objects of desire
for Renaissance women poets. Comparative Literature Studies,
38: 1 (2001), 1-30.
LC#: PN851 .C63; ISSN: 0010-4132
------------------------
[After a discussion of the psychoanalytic view of the Renaissance concept of melancholy, Juliana Schiesari's essay in this collection, "The Gendering of Melancholia: Torquato Tasso and Isabella di Morra," compares one of Morra's canzone with one of Tasso's poems in order to to illustrate a gender-based difference in treatment:]
Refiguring woman: perspectives on gender and the Italian Renaissance
/ edited with an introduction by Marilyn Migiel and Juliana Schiesari.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. (viii, 285 p.:
ill.)
LC#: HQ1075.5 .I8 R44 1991; ISBN: 0801425387, 080149771X
Includes bibliographical references and index
-------------------------
[This reference work includes a 5-page entry on Morra by Schiesari, which speaks more broadly of the poetry's themes and critical reception. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Italian women writers: a bio-bibliographical sourcebook /
edited by Rinaldina Russell. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1994. (xxxi, 476 p.)
LC#: PQ4063 .I88 1994: ISBN: 0313283478
Includes bibliographical references (p. [447]-452) and index
=======================================================================
Updated 02-24-08