Exclusive: Ramie Targoff talks to Lakshya Datta about Renaissance Woman Vittoria Colonna

Ramie Targoff, author of "Renaissance Woman: The Life of Vittoria Colonna", in conversation with Lakshya Datta, recorded live at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 on Jan 26.

Ramie Targoff’s scholarly area of interest is the English Renaissance with a strong secondary interest in the Italian Renaissance. An award-winning writer, she is the author of three books on Renaissance English literature titled Common Prayer: The Language of Public Devotion, John Donne, Body and Soul and Posthumous Love: Eros and the Afterlife in Renaissance England. Most recently, she has written a biography of the 16th century Italian poet Vittoria Colonna titled Renaissance Woman: The Life of Vittoria Colonna and has completed the first English translation of Colonna’s 1538 book of sonnets, entitled Sonnets of Widowhood. Her forthcoming book, Shakespeare’s Sisters, is a group biography of four women writers in Renaissance England: Mary Sidney Herbert, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary and Anne Clifford.