Creating with Anger: Contemplating Vendetta. An Analysis of Anger in Italian and Spanish Women Writers of the Early Modern Era

In the vast gamut of human emotions, anger is one of the most complex, provocative, and enduring. From Greek philosophers working in antiquity to today’s most recent theories on emotions, most scholars agree that anger has a multifaceted nature. This near universal agreement across the barriers of time and geography stems from the following facts: in order to exist, anger involves the participation of other emotions; anger does not have an opposite; anger leads an individual to engage in an act of self-analysis and in an evaluation of other individuals; and, finally, anger inspires action to right a wrong that has been perceived as injustice. This sense of perceived injustice is what leads to the creation of vendetta for the women writers I analyze in my dissertation. They achieve their vendetta through their act of writing, as they themselves often assert. Like all vendetta, theirs grows from a sense of constant injustice and systematic subjugation. Unlike traditional vendetta however, these women, because of their status within society as women, could not take direct action to right these perceived wrongs. Their need for revenge therefore had to be fulfilled entirely through the written word, with their poems, plays, novels and short stories serving as the vehicles through which their anger could be delivered. This dissertation investigates the connection between anger and the act of writing. Specifically, it attempts to explore how anger served as a vital catalyst that prompted early modern women writers to engage in the act of writing