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Eugene O'Connor's superb translation of Antonio Panormita's Hermaphroditus brings to life this little known Renaissance writer 's bawdy masterpiece. Modeled on the writings of the Roman poet Martial, Panormita's work was initially greeted with enthusiasm by humanist scholars upon publication in 1425 only to be reviled and censured as obscene by Christian apologists. O'Connor's excellent introduction offers a wealth of historical and literary information on Panormita's often profane poetry, presented here in both English and the Latin original. This new translation will be a delight to classical, neo-Latin, and Renaissance scholars interested in tracing the development of the epigram from Latin to the vernacular, and to scholars of gender and gay studies seeking to understand the popular portrayal of women and sexual themes in the early Renaissance.
List of contents
Chapter 1 Introduction: The Life of Panormita Chapter 2 Introduction: The Literary Background of the Hermaphroditus Chapter 3 Introduction: A Note on the Text and Translation Chapter 4 Hermaphroditus, Book 1 Chapter 5 Hermaphroditus, Book 2 Chapter 6 Notes to Book 1 Chapter 7 Notes to Book 2 Chapter 8 Appendix: The Latin Text
About the author
Antonio Beccadelli (1394-1471), better known as Panormita, or "the man from Palermo," was an Italian humanist and scholar. Eugene O'Connor is Managing Editor of The Ohio State University Press. He earned a Ph.D. in Classics at the University of California and is translator of The Essential Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and Fragments, (1993).
