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Gaspara Stampa: Selected Poems

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"Gaspara Stampa: Selected Poems", edited and translated by Laura Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie, is a dual-language (English and Italian) compilation of selected poems by a woman considered by many to be the best woman poet of the Italian Renaissance, even the greatest Italian woman poet of all times. Stampa's poems are very similar to Petrarch's poems to Laura, in that a lover (the poet) sings praises of the beloved, while simultaneously lamenting the heart break and loss that comes with this intense and unrequited love. What is so unique and rare about these 16th century poems is that the poet and lover is a woman (and of questionable status), and the object of disire is a man. Stampa's poems are filled with so much passion and emotion that anyone who has been in love will be able to relate to the universal emotions that Stampa expresses. One of my favorite poems is one that is brief and simple, yet conveys such a depth of feeling that one is left wondering how so much could be communicated in so few and such uncomplicated words. These are my favorite types of poems. Stampa explains why love is more deadly than death: "Your cruel arrow, Love,/ Is sharper and more dire/ Even than Death's own dart/ Because through Death one simply dies on time,/ While you, when you attack/ Can strike a thousand times, yet never slay./ So, Love, your piercing dart,/ Is deadlier than Death." Stampa's poems by no means speak to a specific, narrow audience. Her experiences and poems are not dated or defined by her time, but speak to anyone, especially any woman, just as much now as they did over 400 years ago. Likewise, this edition of Stampa's poems is not limited in its audience. Many may find this volume useful and interesting - from Renaissance scholars to literature students, to those interested in Women's Studies, from students of Italian to poetry lovers, to romantics. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

This may be the only selection of Stampa's poetry in print anywhere, which is remarkable considering that she's regarded as one of the finest poets of the Renaissance. I recall the writer Dacia Maraini saying that when a woman writer dies in Italy, she disappears. That would be a shame, particularly in the case of Stampa, because her work is outstanding. I disagree with the reviewer here who characterized her poetry as merely "undistinguished laments," but recognize that Stampa's powerful language and originality are somewhat lost in the translation. The gist is there, but the swift rhythm, the melody, the intelligence revealed in the careful choice of words, rarely come through.
This is a good translation in that Stortoni and Lille tried hard to render the literal meaning of the poems. The problem is that they attempted to use iambic pentameter -- not even the meter for Petrarchan sonnets -- which results in an inflated, lumbering style.
Nevertheless, there are some standouts; for example, "Amor m'ha fatto tal ch'io vivo in foco" -- which one should try to read in the Italian, if only to listen to the sound of the language. Stampa was a unique poet by any standard, and she deserves the recognition. Highly recommended!

I have to start with a warning: I like the poetry of Gaspara Stampa very much but I also read it in the original. With that note, I am afraid that I was most interested in this book simply so that I could have more copies of her work, copies that weren't photo-copies caged over the years I spent studying Italian at university. The translations are fine, not particular inspired but not terrible either. For the reader who does not know Italian, they do well expressing the meaning of the poetry if not it's particular genius. However as "A Reader" pointed out, Stampa's true brilliance comes out in the original. "A Reader" also made a few other good points when she mentioned Dacia Maraini, and I think La Maraini touches a certain truth of Italian literature. In short, after an exhaustive effort on my several visits to Italy, I have never once been able to find a newly publised collection of Stampa's work. Infact, I have yet to find any used collections of her work. (They must have existed at some point, and perhaps one day I will find one.) Worse, of the many Italian book sellers I spoke with, very very few had ever heard of this writer. Veronica Franca, the other and rather more famous courtesan poet, was saved from similar neglect perhaps first by Maraini's own writting and certainly by the much romanticized biopic, "Dangerous Beauty."

And so, in my rather round about way, I must conclude that if you enjoy Italian poetry, in particular that written during the Renaissance, this collection is more than worth it's price. Indeed it is very nearly priceless.

Gaspara Stampa's use of language is rather simple and concise. There are really no tortured words, or tortured phrasings or linguistic metaphors, just laments of longing. Some scholars dismiss her simple words as being overwrought with emotion, but this misses the point of what she is communicating. The intensity of infatuation, of having a crush, of unrequieted love that makes you desperate has never been better expressed. While her direct expression of feelings don't satisfy the intellectual pursuit of contemporary critics, it is not to this audience whom she is writting to. She writes to the heart. Since her poems were meant to be read out loud the impact of each of her poems should only be appreciated in its entirety, dissecting them line by line only disservices them. Read her if you want to re-kindle the embers of your heart.

In my opinion, these poems do not have much intrinsic merit; they are important for women's studies or an understanding of Renaissance taste or a survey of Petrach's influence, not for a study of brilliant literature. Her metaphors are cliche in the extreme, her story is not very inventive, and her style is heavily derivative of Petrarch. There are some poems which are witty or poignant or lyrical, but these moments of inspiration do little to improve the rest of the collection, which consists of undistinguished laments.