Strong Words is a social history of the Italian Renaissance (1300-1560) in a cultural key. Using tales, poetry, prayer, and letters as prime sources, Lauro Martines probes religious sensibilities, love, alienation, explosive feeling against political authority, the moral strains of patronage, and the close ways of urban neighborhoods. Case studies of suicide and the seduction of propertied women sharpen the analysis. By moving behind literary posture and metaphor, Martines exposes the power of local angers, fears, and loyalties, of misogyny, cruelty, and female space. The vitality of urban experience in Renaissance Italy passes before us, as we see the language of literature giving form and immediacy to the emotions of everyday life. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Acknowledgments A Word to the Reader Chapter 1 NEIGHBORHOOD VOICES IN POETRY The Parochial Matrix, Parish and Patrons Chapter 2 THE VERBAL WEB OF PATRONAGE Love, Hate Chapter 3 PRAYER IN THE URBAN SETTING Mise-en-Scene, Remembering Death The Language of Prayer, Holy Craziness Language for the Virgin and the Saints, Basic Themes in Sacred Drama, Love: Sacred and Profane, Open Questions Chapter 4 LOVE AND HISTORY: MEN AGAINST WOMEN Poetry as Chronicle, Love and Religious Feeling, Misogyny, Love and Social Standing, The Mysteries Social Identity, Love and Arranged Marriage, Popular Love, Conclusion Chapter 5 THE SUICIDE OF A POET Background, Thispen for Hire, Suicide Chapter 6 ALIENATION: THE OUTSIDER AS POET A Material Life, Poetry as Self-Inquiry Chapter 7 THE TALE AS HISTORICAL TESTIMONY Chapter 8 CRUELTY IN THE COMMUNITY: A BLOODY TALECruelty or Context?, The Tale Chapter 9 SEDUCTION AND FAMILY SPACE Entree, Seduction: Theme and Characters, Space, Time and Seduction, Fear, Fantasy, and Symbolic Action, Appendix: A Chronological List of the Authors Chapter 10 POETRY AS POLITICAL MEMORY Chapter 11 CRISIS IN THE GENERATION OF 1494 Notes Bibliography Index AUTHOR BIO: Lauro Martines is a former professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. His many books include Society and History in English Renaissance Verse and Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy, the latter available from Johns Hopkins.