| Line | Jacob Burckhardt’s view that Renaissance |
| | European women “stood on a footing of perfect |
| | equality” with Renaissance men has been repeatedly |
| | cited by feminist scholars as a prelude to their |
| (5) | presentation of rich historical evidence of women’s |
| | inequality. In striking contrast to Burckhardt, Joan |
| | Kelly in her famous 1977 essay, “Did Women Have |
| | a Renaissance?” argued that the Renaissance was |
| | a period of economic and social decline for women |
| (10) | relative both to Renaissance men and to medieval |
| | women. Recently, however, a significant trend |
| | among feminist scholars has entailed a rejection |
| | of both Kelly’s dark vision of the Renaissance and |
| | Burckhardt’s rosy one. Many recent works by these |
| (15) | scholars stress the ways in which differences |
| | among Renaissance women—especially in terms |
| | of social status and religion—work to complicate |
| | the kinds of generalizations both Burckhardt and |
| | Kelly made on the basis of their observations about |
| (20) | upper-class Italian women. |
| | The trend is also evident, however, in works |
| | focusing on those middle- and upper-class |
| | European women whose ability to write gives them |
| | disproportionate representation in the historical |
| (25) | record. Such women were, simply by virtue of |
| | their literacy, members of a tiny minority of the |
| | population, so it is risky to take their descriptions of |
| | their experiences as typical of “female experience” |
| | in any general sense. Tina Krontiris, for example, in |
| (30) | her fascinating study of six Renaissance women |
| | writers, does tend at times to conflate “women” and |
| | “women writers,” assuming that women’s gender, |
| | irrespective of other social differences, including |
| | literacy, allows us to view women as a homogeneous |
| (35) | social group and make that group an object of |
| | analysis. Nonetheless, Krontiris makes a significant |
| | contribution to the field and is representative of |
| | those authors who offer what might be called a |
| | cautiously optimistic assessment of Renaissance |
| (40) | women’s achievements, although she also stresses |
| | the social obstacles Renaissance women faced |
| | when they sought to raise their “oppositional |
| | voices.” Krontiris is concerned to show women |
| | intentionally negotiating some power for themselves |
| (45) | (at least in the realm of public discourse) against |
| | potentially constraining ideologies, but in her sober |
| | and thoughtful concluding remarks, she suggests |
| | that such verbal opposition to cultural stereotypes |
| | was highly circumscribed; women seldom attacked |
| (50) | the basic assumptions in the ideologies that |
| | oppressed them. |
