Reflections on Isabella di Morro

For my gender interpretation in Italian literature class, we're in the process of studying female poets of the Renaissance (in Italy, obviously). Part of our homework for the quarter is to keep a journal of our reflections and analysis as we read the assigned material. For today we're reading Isabella di Morro.

If you're not familiar with her, she was a noble woman in southern Italy, born approximately in 1520. Her father was banished because at the time there were conflicts between France and Emperor Charles V (he ruled over Spain and dominated Southern Italy) over Italian land and territory. Isabella's father had aligned with France, and therefore Emperor Charles V banished him.

After this Isabella was left with her "cruel" brothers who didn't understand her. They isolated her from any social contact, so she literally saw practically no one. But, through her tutor, she developed a literary relationship with a Spanish nobleman. But of course her brothers found out, murdered the tutor, murdered her nobleman friend, and beat Isabella to death to "cleanse" the family honor.

Isabella left 13 poems, which considering her lifestyle and how young she was, it's remarkable she left anything. I almost can't bear the tragic story of her life. Her life and example to me so embodies poetry and the definition of it that it's almost overwhelming, both to hear her story and read her poetry. I have to wonder how her poetry was even discovered and published given her dire, isolated circumstances! Were they sent to her friend, or somehow kept safe from her brothers' wrath?

I find Isabella to be a remarkably special case among the female writers we've studied as of yet. Her poems are so open and frank about her circumstances, and also peel away at the underlying strength of this remarkable girl. To be that isolated and confined I would gather could lead to two different scenarios: going out of one's mind and committing suicide, or becoming absolutely subservient to her brothers.

One curious think I noticed: in her Canzone II, near the end in the second to last stanza, I read these lines as if she doesn't blame her brothers for their behavior. While she's aware that she doesn't deserve the treatment she's getting, she blames fate and fortune for what her brothers are doing, as if they have been driven mad by the poverty fate has left them in. “And quenched in them will be the noble spirit Left by our ancestors down to these days.” The choice of the word quenched (assuming that the translation is accurate and the synonyms apply) is particularly important, I think. Because it means to extinguish, to squelch. It's a very violent, active word, and it fascinates me that as her brothers attempt to quench her spirit, she sees the humanity in them, and sees it not as an evil, controlling nature, but the simple circumstances of individuals who have had their spirit taken away. They are victims as she is, not simply the people who inflict their will upon to her.

I have to wonder what was going through her head when they were beating her to death.

It could be argued that her views about her brothers were passive and weak. Maybe that she didn't give them enough responsibility for their actions. But in her poetry, I find a humble understanding of human nature, and disregard for free will. That fortune leads people to places they cannot always help, and therefore, like her, they must deal with and suffer the consequences as best they can. Part of why she was able to survive all of this WAS because of her naivete as a young girl, and her idealism of her family. While in reality her father couldn't have cared less about her, and her brothers eventually murdered her, she was able to keep a sense of self through this childlike coping mechanism: a fantasy of what the world was.