Here is a supposed image of Cereta, even though no portraits of her apparently survive.
WELP. When I ordered Cereta over Christmas Break, I remember thinking, "The Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist. Awesome." Now I hope you don't think I am being ridiculous or close-minded, because I did assume that the concept of feminism is a bit different now from what it was in the late 15th century or early 16th century. I just was somewhat wary about reading a book from that sort of topic. I did not know what to expect (like I said I assumed that the voice of feminism would be different then), because other than Christine de Pisan and some other female writers we encountered last semester, I have never really encountered or studied feminism. So, maybe like I have seen some of the other girls suggest, I do not understand that much about it. But just because I do not happen to agree with all feminist ideas does not mean I cannot have an open mind and a discussion about it.
To be honest with you, I had trouble getting through the readings. There were some interesting parts, yes, but (and this might sound immature) but it was really long and quite dull to me, at least most of the time. A lot of times I was getting annoyed with the book ("I'm will not go into detail about blank but blah blah blah here it is anyway"). I also wasn't sure if, when indicating her anger with women "for their complicity in their own oppression," she was inadvertently lumping all women into that oppressed category or perhaps only some of the women that she observed in her day. I figure she is supposed to represent women as a whole? Much of the time it was hard to distinguish between whether or not she was talking about herself, and in what light I wanted to categorize those thoughts in: Humanism? Renaissance? Christian? I do not know. I guess it just really frustrated me, especially with the whole tension thing: there are some things that Cereta seems to be innately drawn to but that she also tries to shy away from because she thinks they are wrong. AUGH! How do I distinguish?
There were some good and valid (and interesting!) points too. I really enjoyed the idea of Time (notice the capital T) as being a commodity, or a necklace. How fascinating, I had never considered it like that before. In that sense she also critiques fashion sometimes, so it is like... wait, where are you coming from again? Another thing I loved (because I totally enjoy weird metaphors) was the pen-needle/masculine-feminine thing. That was really interesting! Of course we also had to see the Fortune idea come up again, like we seem to see in so many readings... she is apparently obsessed with death and the afterlife. Of course I felt bad for her when her husband died, though...
I guess that is enough of my ramblings for now!
