Дисертації з теми "Medieval latin literature - literary criticism"

In the wake of the recent wave of interest in the ties between Early Rus and the Latin world, this dissertation investigates conceptions and depictions of Latin Christians in Early Rusian texts. Unlike previous smaller-scale studies, the present study takes into consideration all indigenous Early Rusian narrative sources which make reference to Latins or the Latin world. Its contribution is twofold. Firstly, it overturns the still prevalent assumption that Early Rusian writers tended to portray Latins as religious Others. There was certainly a place in Early Rusian writing for religious polemic against the Latin faith, but as I show, this place was very restricted. Secondly, having established the considerable diversity and complexity of rhetorical approaches to Latins, this study analyses and explains rhetorical patterns in Early Rusian portrayals of Latins and Latin Christendom. Scholars have tended to interpret these patterns as primarily influenced by extra-textual factors (most often, a text’s time of composition). This study, however, establishes that textual factors—specifically genre and theme—are the best predictors of a text’s portrayal of Latins, and explains the appearance and evolution of particular generic and thematic representations. It also demonstrates that a text’s place of composition tends to have a greater influence on its depictions of Latins than its time of composition. Through close engagement with the subtleties and ambiguities of Early Rusian depictions of Latins, this study furthers contemporary debate on questions of narrative, identity and difference in Rus and the medieval world.

This dissertation offers a novel approach to Hispanic Orientalism, developing a dynamic paradigm from its origins in medieval and Renaissance Iberia during the process of the Christian Reconquest, to its transatlantic migration and establishment in the early years of the Colony, from where it changed in late colonial and post-Independence Latin America, and onto modernity. The study argues that Hispanic Orientalism does not necessarily imply a negative depiction of the Other, a quality associated with the traditional critique of Saidian Orientalism. Neither, does it entirely comply with the positivist approach suggested in the theoretical research of Said’s opponents, like Julia Kushigian. This dissertation also argues that sociopolitical changes and the shift in the discourse of powers, from imperial to non-imperial, had a significant impact of the development of Hispanic Orientalism, shaping the relationship with the Other. The methodology involves close reading of representative texts depicting the interactions of the dominant and dominated societies from each of the four historic periods that coincided with significant sociopolitical transformations in Hispanic society. Through an intercultural approach to literary studies, social history, and religious studies, this project develops an original paradigm of Hispanic Orientalism, derived from the image of the reinvented Semitic Other portrayed in the literary works depicting the relationship between the hegemonic and the subaltern cultures during the Reconquest period in Spain. Then, it traces the turn of the original paradigm towards reinterpretation during its transatlantic migration to Latin America through the analysis of the chronicles and travelogs of the first colonizers and explorers. During the transitional late colonial and early Independence periods Latin America sees a significant change in the discourse of powers, and Hispanic Orientalism reflects this oscillation between the past and the present therough the works of the Latin American authors from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Finally, once the non-imperial discourse of power established itself in the former Colony, a new modern stage in the development of Hispanic Orientalist paradigm takes place. It is marked by the desire to differentiate itself from the O(o)thers, as manifested in the works of the representatives of Modernism and the Boom.

This thesis examines certain aspects of Scottish Latin, particularly in the period 1580-1637. The first chapter chronicles the endeavours of John Scot of Scotstarvet to compile an anthology of Scottish Latin poetry, based on the unpublished letters to Scot in the NLS. Both the letters and contemporary verse indicate that the project was under way twenty years before the Delitiae was printed and that John Leech was an important influence. Leech's letters to Scot highlight Scot's editorial reticence, confirmed by the alterations in Scotstarvet's own verse. The final product was more a reflection of the taste and ethos of the early 1620s, after which Scot apparently ceased to collect material. The second chapter documents the attempts to impose a national grammar upon the schools, akin to the Lily-Colet grammar in England. Attempts to provide a radical alternative to Despauter, firstly by a committee and later by Alexander Hume, were inhibited by the inherent conservatism of teaching establishments. The most successful of the new grammars, those by Wedderburn and the Dunbar Rudiments, remained as general introductions to Despauter. Evidence for the composition of Latin verse in schools and universities, both statutory and manuscript, is assessed in the third chapter. Active involvement in the practice by local authorities influenced the range and extent of verse being written after 1600. The poetry of David Wedderburn of Aberdeen, promoted by the town council, reflects that influence. The importance of teaching methods upon a poet's future development is most clearly seen in the verse of David Hume, discussed in the fourth chapter. Hume continually re-works and re-evaluates the themes of his adolescent verse, measuring them against the achievements of James VI, whose birth he had earlier celebrated. The thesis concludes with a check-list of Scots whose Latin verse was printed before 1640.

Beowulf is preserved in a single manuscript written out around the year 1000, but there are many reasons to believe that the poem was composed several centuries before this particular act of manual reproduction. Most significantly, the meter of Beowulf reveals that the poet regularly observed distinctions of etymological length that became phonologically indistinct before 725 in Mercia. This dissertation gauges the explanatory power of the hypothesis that Beowulf was composed about three centuries before the production of the extant manuscript. The following studies test the hypothesis of archaic composition by determining whether it is able to accommodate independent forms of evidence drawn from the fields of linguistics, textual criticism, and literary history.

Literary texts of medieval England feature trees as essential to the individual and communal identity as it intersects with nature, and the compelling qualities and organic processes associated with trees help vernacular writers interrogate the changing nature of this character. The early depiction of trees demonstrates an intimacy with nature that wanes after the tenth-century monastic revival, when the representation of trees as living, physical entities shifts toward their portrayal as allegorical vehicles for the Church's didactic use. With the emergence of new social categories in the late Middle Ages, the rhetoric of trees moves beyond what it means to forge a Christian identity to consider the role of a ruler and his subjects, the relationship between humans and nature, and the place of women in society. Taking as its fundamental premise that people in wooded regions develop a deep-rooted connection to trees, this dissertation connects medieval culture and the physical world to consider the variety of ways in which Anglo-Saxon and post-Norman vernacular manuscripts depict trees. A personal identification with trees, a desire for harmony between society and the environment, and a sympathy for the work of trees lead to the narrator's transformation in the Dream of the Rood. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Junius 11 manuscript, illustrated in Genesis A, Genesis B, and manuscript images, scrutinizes the Anglo-Saxon Christian's relationship and responsibility to God in the aftermath of the Fall. As writers transform trees into allegories in works like Genesis B and Geoffrey Chaucer's Parson's Tale, the symbolic representations retain their spontaneous, organic processes to offer readers a visual picture of the Christian interior-the heart. Whereas the Parson's Tale promotes personal and radical change through a horticultural narrative starring the Tree of Penitence and Tree of Vices, Chaucer's Knight's Tale appraises the role of autonomous subjects in a tyrannical system. Forest laws of the post-Norman period engender a bitter polemic about the extent of royal power to appropriate nature, and the royal grove of the Knight's Tale exposes the limitations of monarchical structures and masculine control and shapes a pragmatic response to human failures.

Written in c. 700 at the island monastery of Iona, Adomnán’s Vita Sancti Columbae (VSC) is an important source for the study of early medieval Scotland and Ireland. This thesis analyses the text as a literary work, seeking to understand more about its internal logic and the ways in which it relates to other kinds of literary texts. These include Biblical texts, other early insular, continental and late antique hagiographies, vernacular secular sagas, legal texts, scholarly literature and wisdom literature. Adomnán did not necessarily know all of these texts, and some of them post-date him, but they provide a wider interpretative context for VSC. Adomnán’s other known work, De Locis Sanctis, and texts connected to him, such as Cáin Adomnáin, will also be considered. I look for points of similarity and divergence between Vita Sancti Columbae and these other texts, which I term “adjacent literature”, looking to see how the text relates to its wider literary and intellectual context. By taking this approach, we are able to understand the text better on its own terms, making it more useful as a source for historical study. The text is studied, and set within its wider context, with respect to the following main areas: The Manuscripts of Vita Sancti Columbae: the visual construction of the text: Considering the five surviving manuscripts of the first recension of VSC, but focussing especially on the earliest (Schaffhausen Stadtbibliothek Generalia 1, of near authorial date and Ionan provenance), this chapter considers how the visual presentation of VSC relates to its production and reproduction as a literary text. Page layout, illumination, the use of the Greek alphabet and different colours of ink and manuscript context are all discussed. Structure and Narrative Sequencing in Vita Sancti Columbae: VSC is not a chronologically-structured account of Columba’s life, but rather a hagiography made up of many short narratives that demonstrate his sanctity and power in different ways. These narratives are arranged thematically, with a basic tripartite structure, with one book concerned with prophecies, one with miracles and one with visions. The narratives within the three books are often arranged into small, tightly constructed clusters of related stories. This chapter is an investigation of both the overall structure of the work and the “micro-structure” of the sequencing of narratives. Language and Vita Sancti Columbae: This chapter explores Adomnán’s style as a Hiberno-Latin writer, including discussions of such techniques as hyperbaton, alliteration and variatio. Adomnán’s use of and attitudes to Greek and Hebrew are also explored, as is his use of and attitudes to Old Irish. Sex, Women and Violence in Vita Sancti Columbae: This chapter investigates Adomnán’s presentations of sexual behaviour, the role of women as givers of advice, and the violence inflicted on the innocent. Several of the narratives about violence clearly have a strong gendered dimension, and relate in interesting ways to Cáin Adomnáin, and they are discussed in this light. Dangerous Beasts in Vita Sancti Columbae: VSC contains several encounters with dangerous beasts of various kinds, some of which are not unambiguously identifiable. These episodes are studied in turn, including discussions about identifying the beasts, and investigating the functions that they have within the text. Vita Sancti Columbae and Cult Practice: The thesis concludes with an exploration of the roles VSC might have played in the life of the Columban familia. The use of blessed objects and relics within the text is studied, with suggestions as to their relation to cult practice. The final section concerns the possibility that certain parts of VSC were intended to be used in processions, or to be read with the active participation of an audience.

Subject of the dissertation research is European epistolographic tradition and forms of its acceptance in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, within the 14th – 16th centuries, by emphasizing the aspects of genre and typology, as well as trends of its development. The present paper analyzes the birth and development of the European epistle writing tradition, structure and contents of the epistolographic theory textbook, concept and model of an epistle; similarities and differences of epistle writing textbooks in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the values influenced by such textbooks and their significance for common education system and culture formation. The dissertation makes a research on the time periods and ways, how the epistolographic tradition reached the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, how it was adopted and functioned in epistle writing of the country, school curricula and cultural life in general. Based on specific examples, the dissertation discloses the changes in variety of epistle writing in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, within the 14th – 16th centuries, stressing out how an epistle, as a former and fairly formal form of business and personal communication in the Middle Ages, is turned into means of self-expression and piece of literature during the period of Renaissance. Key sources of the research performed are the epistle writing textbooks (artes dictandi) published in the 11th – 14th centuries and epistolographic theory works (modi epistolandi), extant from the 15th... [to full text]
Disertacijos tyrimo objektas – europinė epistolografijos tradicija ir jos perėmimo formos LDK XIV–XVI a., išryškinant žanrinius ir tipologinius aspektus, raidos tendencijas. Šiame darbe analizuojama, kaip susikuria ir kaip kinta europinė laiškų rašymo tradicija, teorinio vadovėlio struktūra, turinys, laiško samprata ir modelis; kokie egzistavo panašumai ir skirtumai tarp Viduramžių ir Renesanso laiškų rašymo vadovėlių; kokias vertybes jie formavo; kokią reikšmę turėjo bendroje švietimo sistemoje, kultūros formavimęsi. Tiriama, kada ir kokiu būdu europinė lotyniškosios epistolografijos tradicija perimama LDK, kaip ji funkcionavo lotyniškoje LDK epistolikoje, mokymo programose, kultūriniame gyvenime. Disertacijoje analizuojama, kaip keičiasi LDK epistolikos įvairovė XIV–XVI a., kaip laiškas, Viduramžiais atlikęs gana formalizuotas dalykinio ir asmeninio bendravimo funkcijas, Renesanso epochoje virsta saviraiškos forma, literatūriniu kūriniu. Pagrindiniai atlikto tyrimo šaltiniai – Viduramžių laiškų rašymo vadovėliai (artes dictandi) ir renesansiniai epistolografijos teoriniai veikalai (modi epistolandi). Dvi skirtingas epistolografijos tradicijas šiame darbe iliustruoja Ldk Vytauto (1350–1430) laiškai, kaip Viduramžių kanceliarinės korespondencijos pavyzdys, ir Saliamono Risinskio (? –1625) laiškų rinkinys, kaip humanistinė Renesanso laiškų išraiška. Konstatuojama, kad LDK XIV–XVI a. nebuvo sukurta originalių teorinių laiškų rašymo veikalų, bet buvo remiamasi europiniu... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

This thesis argues that the corpus of Old Norse-Icelandic literature which pertains to Iceland contains an intertextual narrative of the formation of Icelandic identity. An analysis of this narrative provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between literature and identity, as well as the potency of the artistic use of the idea of the past. The thesis identifies three salient narratives of communal action which inform the development of a discrete Icelandic identity, and which are examined in turn in the first three chapters of the thesis. The first is the landnám, the process of settlement itself; the second, the origin and evolution of the law; and the third, the assimilation and adaptation of Christianity. Although the roots of these narratives are doubtless historical, the thesis argues that their primary roles in the literature are as social myths, narratives whose literal truth- value is immaterial, but whose cultural symbolism is of overriding importance. The fourth chapter examines the depiction of the Icelander abroad, and uses the idiom of the relationship between þáttr (‘tale’) and surrounding text in the compilation of sagas of Norwegian kings Morkinskinna to consider the wider implications of the relationship between Icelandic and Norwegian identities. Finally, the thesis concludes with an analysis of the role of Sturlunga saga within this intertextual narrative, and its function as a set of narratives mediating between an identity grounded in social autonomy and one grounded in literature. The Íslendingasögur or ‘family sagas’ constitute the core of the thesis’s primary sources, for their subject-matter is focussed on the literary depiction of the Icelandic society under scrutiny. In order to demonstrate a continuity of engagement with ideas of identity across genres, a sample of other Icelandic texts are examined which depict Iceland or Icelanders, especially when in interaction with non-Icelandic characters or polities.

Landscape in Roman literature is manifest with symbolic potential: in particular, Vergil and Ovid respond to ideologically loaded representations of abundance in nature that signal the dawn of the Augustan golden age. Vergil's Eclogues foreground a locus amoenus landscape which articulates both the hopes of the new age as well as the political upheaval that accompanied the new political regime; Ovid uses the same topography in order to suggest the arbitrary and capricious use of power within a deceptively idyllic landscape. Moreover, for Latin poets, depictions of landscape are themselves sites for poetic reflection as evidenced by the discussion of landscape ecphrases in Horace's Ars Poetica. My thesis focuses upon the depiction and refiguration of the locus amoenus landscape in the post-Augustan epics of the first century AD: Lucan's Bellum Civile, Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Statius' Thebaid and Silius Italicus' Punica. Landscape in these poems retains the moral, political and metapoetic force evident in the Augustan archetypes. However, I suggest that Lucan's Neronian Bellum Civile fundamentally refigures the landscapes of Latin epic poetry, inscribing the locus amoenus with the nefas of civil war in such a manner that it redefines the perception of landscape in the succeeding Flavian poets. Lucan perverts the landscape, making the locus horridus, a landscape of horror, fear and disgust, the predominant landscape of Latin epic; consequently, the poems of Valerius, Statius and Silius engage with Lucan's refiguration of landscape as a means of expressing the horror of civil war. In the first part of my thesis I examine archetypal landscapes, including those of the Augustan poets and Lucan's Bellum Civile. Taking an approach which engages with literary reception theory and the concept of the â horizon of expectationâ as a framework within which literary topographies can be understood as articulating a response to the thematics of civil war, in the second part of my thesis I demonstrate the manner in which landscapes represent a coherent and paradigmatic response to Lucan's imposition of his civil war narrative within the literary landscape of Roman literature.

For thousands of years, people have been hearing, reading, and interpreting stories and myths in light of their own experience. To read a work by a different author living in a different era and setting, people tend to imagine works of literature to be something they are not. To avoid this fateful tendency, I hope to elucidate what it means to read a work of literature and interpret it: love it to the point of wanting to foremost discuss its excellence of being a piece of art. Rather than this being a defense, I would rather call it a musing, an examination on two texts that I adore: Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Exodus

Orientador: Isabella Tardin Cardoso
Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
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Resumo: A obra do comediógrafo romano Tito Mácio Plauto (c. 254 ¿ 184 a.C.) é marcada pela presença dos gêneros trágico, épico e mesmo lírico em determinadas passagens, que têm sido identificadas por diversos critérios, como menção, alusão e associação por paralelos formais. Estudos teóricos sobre "mescla" ou "cruzamento de gêneros" vêm se desenvolvendo ao menos desde a proposição do conceito de "Kreuzung der Gattungen" por W. Kroll (Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur, 1924). No entanto, estudiosos como A. Barchiesi ("The crossing", 2001) passam a questionar premissas do trabalho do filólogo alemão, que tomava a "miscigenação" como "decadência" da cultura literária helenística e romana. Em nossa pesquisa sobre as mesclas genéricas na comédia plautina, também nos afastamos da perspectiva de W. Kroll e não propomos, como ponto de partida, que as peças que abrigam outros gêneros resultem necessariamente em híbridos. Na verdade, preferimos uma abordagem como a de S. J. Harrison, que lida com a noção de "generic enrichment" (Generic enrichment in Vergil and Horace, 2007). A sistematização da presença de outros gêneros poéticos no corpus de Plauto selecionado (a peça Cativos, bem como passagens de Báquides, O cabo, O soldado fanfarrão, dentre outras) nos interessa no sentido de explorar o quanto a comédia é enriquecida precisamente por meio de elementos perceptíveis pelo público plautino como "alheios" a esse gênero. Assim, nosso método envolve a identificação de aspectos (temáticos e formais) sob os quais esses gêneros aparecem ou transparecem, bem como uma reflexão sobre a possibilidade de, a partir da observação das convenções poéticas com que ele brinca em seus textos, pensar em uma poética imanente em Plauto
Abstract: The presence of the tragic, the epic, and even the lyric genre in the work of the Roman comic poet Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254 ¿ 184 BC) has been already noted in the field of classical studies. Among the various criteria used in the identification of those poetic genres there is not only direct mention of elements of the works pertaining to them, but also (thematic or formal) allusion to such elements. Theoretical studies about "genres miscellany" or "genres crossing" have been developed at least since the proposition of the concept of "Kreuzung der Gattungen" by W. Kroll (Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur, 1924). However, scholars such as A. Barchiesi ("The crossing", 2001) now question premises from Kroll¿s work, which considered the "miscegenation" as a "decadence" on the Hellenistic and Roman literary cultures. The present research does not assume Kroll¿s perspective, i.e. it does not presuppose that the plays in which the presence of other genres is evinced are necessarily hybrids. Rather, it favors an approach like that of S. J. Harrison, which deals with the notion of "generic enrichment" (Generic enrichment in Vergil and Horace, 2007). While systematizing such a presence of different poetic genres in the selected Plautine corpus (the play Captiui, as well as passages from Bacchides, Miles gloriosus, Rudens, among others) this study intends to appreciate to what extent comedy is enriched precisely by the elements perceived by the plautine public as extraneous to this genre. The method is based on the identification of (thematic and formal) aspects under which such genres emerge as the play goes on. The observation of the poetic conventions with which the Roman dramatist plays in his texts may also provide a reflexion on an imanent poetics in Plautus
Doutorado
Linguistica
Doutora em Linguística

A la segona meitat del s. XV s'escriuen una sèrie d'obres que comparteixen els mateixos motius i recursos retòrics en el tractament de l'amor (teorització sobre la passió, descripció de les causes i els efectes de l'amor, narració en primera persona, ús de l'al•legoria i l'epístola, combinació del vers i la prosa, imatgeria sentimental). No es tracta del naixement d'un gènere nou, sinó del moment de consolidació d'una moda literària que la crítica castellana ha anomenat «ficció sentimental». Aquest és el primer panorama que s'escriu sobre el fenomen en la literatura catalana. Per fer-ho, s'ha elaborat un cens amb totes les obres (originals i traduccions, composicions en prosa i en vers) que en formarien part. A més, a partir de la detecció de llacunes en l'estudi d'aquests textos, s'ha decidit editar i comentar dues obres de Francesc Alegre, la Requesta i la Faula de Diana, la darrera de les quals manté paral•lelismes notables amb la Tragèdia de Caldesa de Joan Roís de Corella i les Transformacions d'Ovidi, que havien estat traduïdes anteriorment pel propi autor. Finalment, la tesi conté a l'apèndix una edició filològica de la versió catalana del París e Viana que té com a testimoni de base l'incunable de Girona, conservat a la Biblioteca Reial de Copenhagen. La comparació entre aquesta forma de l'obra i la forma llarga francesa posa de manifest la naturalesa de la ficció sentimental com a moda o gust literari.
A series of works were written in the second half of the fifteenth century that shared the same motifs and rhetorical resources concerning love passion (theorization about love, description of love symptoms, first-person narrators, use of allegories and letters, prosimetrum, sentimental imagery). It was not the genesis of a new genre, but it was the development of a new literary trend known as 'sentimental romance'. This thesis deals with the first comprehensive overview of Catalan sentimental romance. To this purpose, a census was created. It contains all the works (translations, original texts and works in prose or in verse) that should be studied in relation to this trend. Moreover, the census showed critical gaps that had to be addressed, such as the need for an edition and a study of Faula de Diana ('Diana's Fable') and the unpublished work Requesta ('Love Request'), both written by Francesc Alegre. The analysis of Faula de Diana reveals it was influenced by Tragèdia de Caldesa ('Caldesa's Tragedy') by Joan Roís de Corella and Alegre's Catalan translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Last but not least, this thesis also contains an annex with the edition of Paris and Vienne's Catalan version which has been based on the incunable preserved at The Royal Library in Copenhagen. The comparison between this version and the French one is certainly useful in order to understand the nature of sentimental romance as a literary trend.

This thesis investigates the twelfth-century Latin poem entitled Urbanus magnus or 'The Book of the Civilised Man', attributed to Daniel of Beccles. This is a poem dedicated to the cultivation of a civilised life, aimed primarily at clerics although its use extends to nobility, and specifically the noble householder. This thesis focuses on the text as a primary source for an understanding of social life in medieval England, and uses the content of the text to explore issues such as the medieval household, social hierarchy, the body, and food and diet. Urbanus magnus is commonly referred to as a 'courtesy text'. This thesis seeks to understand Urbanus magnus outside of that attribution, and to situate the text in the context of twelfth and thirteenth-century England. Thus far, scholarship of courtesy literature has focused on later texts such as thirteenth-century vernacular 'courtesy texts' or humanist works as exemplified by Erasmus's De civilitate morum puerilium. This scholarship looks back to the twelfth century and sees texts such as Urbanus magnus as 'early Latin courtesy texts'. This teleological view relegates such earlier texts to positions at the genesis of the genre and blindly assumes that they belong to the corpus of 'courtesy literature'. This neglects both their individual importance and their respective origins. This thesis examines Urbanus magnus as a didactic text which contains elements of 'courtesy literature', but also displays moral and ethical concerns. At the heart of the thesis is the question: should Urbanus magnus be considered as part of the genre of courtesy literature? This question does not have a simple answer, but this thesis shows that some elements and sections of Urbanus magnus do conform to the characteristics of courtesy literature. However, there are further sections that reflect other literary traditions. In addition to morals and ethics, Urbanus magus reflects other genres such as satire, and also reveals social issues in twelfth-century England such as the rise of anti-curiale sentiment and resentment of upward social mobility. This thesis provides an examination of Urbanus magnus through the most prevalent themes in the text. Firstly, it explores the dynamics of the medieval household, along with issues such as social mobility and hierarchy. Secondly, it focuses on the depiction of the body and bodily restraint, covering topics such as speech, bodily emissions, and sexual activity. Thirdly, it discusses food and diet, including table manners, food consumption, and dietary effects of foodstuffs. The penultimate chapter looks at the manuscript dissemination of the text to investigate the different uses which Urbanus magnus found in subsequent centuries. The delineation of Urbanus magnus as part of the genre of courtesy literature ignores the social, cultural, and literary impact on the creation of the text. In response, this thesis has two aims. The first is to minimise the notion of genre, and treat Urbanus magnus as a text in its own right, and as a product of the twelfth century. The second shows that Urbanus magnus reflects both continuity and change in society in England following the Norman Conquest.

This study considers Thomas Hoccleve’s role, throughout his works, as a “religious” writer: as an individual who engages seriously with the dynamics of heresy and ecclesiastical reform, who contributes to traditions of vernacular devotional writing, and who raises the question of how Christianity manifests on personal as well as political levels – and in environments that are at once London-based, national, and international. The chapters focus, respectively, on the role of reading and moralization in the Series; the language of “vice and virtue” in the Epistle of Cupid; the moral version of Chaucer introduced in the Regiment of Princes; the construction of the Hoccleve persona in the Regiment; and the representation of the Eucharist throughout Hoccleve’s works. One main focus of the study is Hoccleve’s mediating influence in presenting a moral version of Chaucer in his Regiment. This study argues that Hoccleve’s Chaucer is not a pre-established artifact, but rather a Hocclevian invention, and it indicates the transnational literary, political, and religious contexts that align in Hoccleve’s presentation of his poetic predecessor. Rather than posit the Hoccleve-Chaucer relationship as one of Oedipal anxiety, as other critics have done, this study indicates the way in which Hoccleve’s Chaucer evolves in response to poetic anxiety not towards Chaucer himself, but rather towards an increasingly restrictive intellectual and ecclesiastical climate. This thesis contributes to the recently revitalized critical dialogue surrounding the role and function of fifteenth-century English literature, and the effect on poetry of heresy, the church’s response to heresy, and ecclesiastical reform both in England and in Europe. It also advances critical narratives regarding Hoccleve’s response to contemporary French poetry; the role of confession, sacramental discourse, and devotional images in Hoccleve’s work; and Hoccleve’s impact on literary tradition.

Orientador: Patricia Prata
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
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Resumo: Esta dissertação tem como principal objeto de estudo o poema latino intitulado Culex ("O Mosquito"), que faz parte da Appendix Vergiliana ("Apêndice Virgiliano"), conjunto de textos que foi transmitido junto com as obras de Virgílio. No primeiro capítulo, após uma breve apresentação da Appendix, discute-se a recepção, a autoria e a datação do poema em questão, e, com base na teoria intertextual nos Estudos Clássicos, procura-se refletir sobre como a autoria influencia a leitura e a análise do Culex. Discute-se, ainda, o gênero do poema ¿ o epílio ¿ e analisa-se em detalhes sua estrutura e matéria, em que é marcante a mistura de gêneros, o caráter paródico e o diálogo com as Bucólicas, Geórgicas e Eneida. O segundo capítulo consiste em uma tradução (ainda inédita em língua portuguesa) amplamente anotada do poema, acompanhada do texto latino. E, por fim, o terceiro capítulo é composto por análises ¿ embasadas na teoria intertextual ¿ de alguns trechos do Culex e das três obras canônicas de Virgílio
Abstract: This dissertation has as the main object of study the latin poem entitled Culex ("The Mosquito"), which is part of the Appendix Vergiliana ("Virgilian Appendix"), a collection of texts transmitted together with Virgil¿s masterpieces. On the first chapter of this study, after a brief presentation of the Appendix, a discussion about the reception, the authorship and the date of the concerning poem is presented, and, based on the Classical Studies intertextual theory, it is attempted to reflect about in which degree the authorship influences on the Culex reading and analysis. It is also discussed the poem¿s genre ¿ the epyllion ¿ and it is presented a detailed review of its structure and subject, in which is remarkable the genre miscellany, the parodic character and the dialogue with the Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid. The second chapter consists of a broadly annotated translation of the poem (up to now inedited in Portuguese), followed by the Latin text. At last, the third chapter is composed by some analysis ¿ based on the intertextual theory ¿ of some passages of the Culex and of the three Virgil¿s canonical works
Mestrado
Linguistica
Mestra em Linguística

In 1920s-30s São Paulo, Brazil, leaders of the vanguard artistic movement known as “modernism” began to argue that national identity came not from shared values or even cultural practices but rather by a shared way of thinking, which they variously designated as Brazil’s “racial psychology,” “folkloric unconscious,” and “national psychology.” Building on turn-of-the-century psychological and anthropological theories, the group diagnosed Brazil’s national mind as characterized by “primitivity” and in need of a program of psychological development. The group rose to political power in the 1930s, placing the artists in a position to undertake such a project. The Symphony of State charts this previously unexamined intellectual project and explains why elite leaders believed music to be the most-promising strategy for developing the national mind beyond primitivity. In 1935, they founded the São Paulo Department of Culture and Recreation in order to fund music education, train ethnomusicologists, commission symphonies, and host performances across the city. Until now, historians of twentieth-century Brazil have praised music as a critical site for marginalized groups to sound out political protest. But The Symphony of State shows the reverse has also been true: elite groups used music as a top-down civilizing project designed to naturalize racial hierarchies and justify class difference. The intellectual history portion of the dissertation turns on archival sources, newspaper accounts, personal correspondence, modernist literature, and the period’s scholarly journals. The examination of literary form, discourse analysis, and marginalia lends depth to a carefully-documented study of ideas. Then, The Symphony of State brings to bear an innovative reading of ethnographic field books, vinyl records, and music scores to show that the department’s scholarship and symphonic compositions alike furthered the narrative of a nation jeopardized by primitivity. What is more, the department’s composers employed musical properties such as harmony and dissonance as metaphors to convince listeners that a harmonious society required the maintenance of racial and class hierarchies. In bringing further clarity to the department’s intellectual project, the sections featuring music analysis speak to the value of reading music as an historical text. The dissertation accomplishes multiple goals. It uncovers the theory of national psychology driving the musical institution; examines ethnographic material to further understand racial and regional prejudice in the period; and analyzes concert music commissioned and performed by the municipal department. The examination of the musical institution reveals a moment in Brazilian history in which national identity was constructed atop the notion of a shared psychology and in which modernity was believed to come with the musical tuning of the body politic and the training of its mind.

This dissertation studies the emergence of literary history and criticism in the Americas during the eighteenth century. It focuses upon the study of 1.) Natural history as a matrix of literary history and criticism; 2.) The geopolitical functions of literary history and criticism in the periodical press; and 3.) The recovery of manuscripts as a residual product of modernity. Texts associated with a hegemonic Enlightenment, such as “Disertación sobre el derecho público universal” by Francisco Javier de Uriortúa, are analyzed. Next, we study modern historical-critical thought as emphasized in the periodical press of Bogotá and Quito. Finally, the circulation of manuscripts is studied as an indicator of the participation of Spanish American authors in discussions about the Enlightenment. For the latter, the dissertation analyzes the development of theories of good taste in El Nuevo Luciano de Quito by Eugenio Espejo and in the Plan elementál del buen gusto en todo genéro de materias by Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez de la Victoria. The study challenges the epistemological conflict provoked by the handwritten condition of a considerable portion of scholarship from the eighteenth century, in which the projects of an American modernity become subjugated by the power of European print.

Vénéré depuis le haut Moyen Âge, saint Fiacre fut l’un des saints les mieux connus en France durant la période médiévale et même au-delà. De multiples textes médiévaux sur sa vie nous sont parvenus, du IXe siècle jusqu’à la fin du Moyen Âge, en latin comme en français. De nombreux manuscrits et imprimés des XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles témoignent de la circulation considérable des Vies du saint à cette époque. Ces Vies prennent des formes littéraires variées : la légende romanesque en vers et en prose et le drame. La plupart des Vies françaises et certains récits en latin sont inédits. Notre thèse a pour but principal de contribuer à l’avancement des travaux éditoriaux sur ces œuvres en proposant six éditions des Vies du saint de différentes longueurs composées principalement en moyen français et une édition de la Vita rhythmica de 118 vers. Cet ensemble de textes homogène permettra à la critique littéraire et historique de réexaminer la réception et la transformation des actes d’un saint du VIIe siècle dans la littérature française du Moyen Âge tardif. Notre introduction générale porte sur cette question mais s’inscrit dans une histoire plus large du culte du saint tout au long des siècles pour tracer la continuation et les bifurcations possibles d’une tradition hagiographique. Dans les études linguistico-littéraires qui accompagnent la Vita rhythmica et la pièce de théâtre La Vie de monsieur sainct Fiacre filz du roy d’Escosse par personnaiges, nous nous sommes proposé d’observer respectivement les modalités de la versification rythmique du latin médiéval — domaine moins exploré par la recherche — et la relation entre complexité syntaxique, contrainte formelle et simplicité discursive d’un langage artistique sur la scène du théâtre médiéval. La diversité générique, formelle et généalogique des textes que nous avons choisis d’éditer garantit un riche exercice de philologie
Venerated since the Early Middle Ages, Saint Fiacre was one of the most well-known saints in France during the Middle Ages and even afterwards. Many medieval texts about his life, from the 9th century to the end of Middle Ages, in Latin as well as in French, have survived to this day. The numerous manuscripts and printed works prove the widespread circulation of this saint’s Lives during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, in such different forms as narrative prose, poem and drama. Most of the Lives in French and some texts in Latin are still unedited. This dissertation aims to participate in the editing work of these texts. It offers six editions of French Lives which have different lengths and one edition of the Vita rhythmica (188 verses). This homogenous set of texts could make it possible for literature scholars and historians to reconsider the reception and the transformation of a sacred figure of the 7th century in the late medieval French literature. The general introduction of this thesis deals with this concrete question but is also put in a much larger history of the Saint Fiacre cult throughout the centuries, in order to describe the possible continuity and bifurcations of a hagiographic tradition. In the linguistic and literary studies of the Vita rhythmica and of the theatre play La Vie de monsieur sainct Fiacre filz du roy d’Escosse par personnaiges, this work focuses on the medieval Latin rhythmic versification — a less-explored area — and the relationship between the complicated syntax, the formal restriction and the discursive simplicity of a medieval theatre language. The different texts with various generic, formal and genealogical characteristics edited in this dissertation present a plurality of different philological exercises

Satire and counsel recur together in the secular literature of the High and Late Middle Ages. I analyze their collocation in Latin, Old Occitan, and Middle English texts from the twelfth to the fifteenth century in works by Walter Map, Alan of Lille, John of Salisbury, Daniel of Beccles, John Gower, William of Poitiers, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Skelton. As types of discourse, satire and counsel resemble each other in the way they reproduce scenarios of social interaction. Authors combine satire and counsel to reproduce these scenarios according to the protocols of real-life social interaction. Informed by linguistic pragmatics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and cultural anthropology, I examine the relational rhetoric of these texts to uncover a sometimes complex and reflective ethical discourse on power which sometimes implicates itself in the practices it condemns. The dissertation draws throughout on sociolinguistic methods for examining verbal interaction between unequals, and assesses what this focus can contribute to recent scholarly debates on the interrelation of social and literary practices in the later Middle Ages. In the first chapter I introduce the concepts and methodologies that inform this dissertation through a detailed consideration of Distinction One of Walter Map’s De nugis curialium . While looking at how Walter Map combines discourses of satire and counsel to negotiate a new social role for the learned cleric at court, I advocate treating satire as a mode of expression more general than ‘literary’ genre and introduce the iii theories and methods that inform my treatment of literary texts as social interaction, considering also how these approaches can complement new historicist interpretation. Chapter two looks at how twelfth-century authors of didactic poetry appropriate relational discourses from school and household to claim the authoritative roles of teacher and father. In the third chapter, I focus on texts that depict relations between princes and courtiers, especially the Prologue of the Confessio Amantis which idealizes its author John Gower as an honest counselor and depicts King Richard II (in its first recension) as receptive to honest counsel. The fourth chapter turns to poets with the uncertain social identities of literate functionaries at court. Articulating their alienation and satirizing the ploys of courtiers—including even satire itself—Thomas Hoccleve in the Regement of Princes and John Skelton in The Bowge of Court undermine the satirist-counselor’s claim to authenticity. In concluding, I consider how this study revises understanding of the genre of satire in the Middle Ages and what such an approach might contribute to the study of Jean de Meun and Geoffrey Chaucer.

In this dissertation, I argue that the shifts in the terrain of literary criticism in Argentina during the 1950s represent the development of what I call a “critical infrastructure,” whereby criticism came to perform an essential function for the circulation and appropriation of books and literature in a context of major transformations in book publishing and distribution. In doing so, I bring together two phenomena that belong to a single historical shift, which saw the expansion of mass cultural production, and the consequent development of material and discursive practices to distribute them and to allow them to be appropriated. On the one hand, Buenos Aires experienced a rapid expansion in its publishing industry as a consequence of the Civil War’s ravages on Spain, turning Argentina for a brief period into the world’s primary producer and exporter of Spanish language publications. On the other hand, Argentina experienced what is frequently referred to as an “eruption” in literary criticism in the 1950s, propelled by the proliferation of a number of small, independent literary journals headed by young, middle-class writers and critics. These publications represented a critical challenge to the Argentine literary establishment, which was hitherto almost exclusively comprised of intellectuals belonging to the nation’s elite. While there has been considerable academic interest in each of these phenomena, theorizing their relationship to one another offers important insights into the reasons for the increased relevance and visibility of these otherwise marginal publications. Analyzing a variety of heterogeneous periodicals (including major newspapers like La Nación and La Prensa, as well as “little magazines” such as Espiga, Centro, Bibliograma, and Contorno), I discuss the expansion and increasing contentiousness of literary criticism, which became an ever more regular and visible presence in such publications. I trace the transformations in publishing (1899-1953) to show how a process of indifferentiation among printed materials made the intervention of discursive practices —mainly performed by literary reviews— a structural necessity for the distribution and appropriation of books and literature. Drawing from Adolfo Prieto’s seminal Sociología del público argentino (1956) as well as other texts, I discuss the ways in which the presence of a mass public with ostensively heterogenous ways of “consuming” literature posed a challenged to traditional ideas about national literature, the act of reading, the “figure” of the reader, and consequently also about the nature and function of criticism. Finally, I analyze the small avant-garde magazine Letra y Línea (1953-54) to show the empowering effect this transformation had on relatively marginal, middle-class writers, who invested themselves in a radical critical task in order to seize the opportunity offered by this structural discursive need.

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências Humanas e Sociais na especialidade em Estudos Portugueses e Franceses, Época Medieval apresentada à Universidade Aberta
O século XII francês caracteriza-se por múltiplas transformações (políticas, sociais, económicas, jurídicas, ideológicas, culturais) que redefinem, lenta mas profundamente, os contornos da civilização medieval. Ora, uma das mutações mais decisivas (senão a mais decisiva e marcante) reside justamente na passagem, que perscrutamos atentamente a partir dos múltiplos discursos que in-formam o texto poético, de uma economia oblativa, intimamente ligada ao pensamento simbólico, para uma economia mercantil e monetária, subordinada ao imaginário do signo. Será por mero acaso se vemos nascer e desenvolver-se, neste preciso contexto, a narrativa ficcional em língua vernacular (em romance)? Ou será uma mesma viragem epistemológica que dá simultaneamente origem à notável monetarização (aos mais diversos níveis) das relações sociais, ao renascimento da vitalidade urbana (factores através dos quais tendem a dissolver-se os laços, extremamente fortes e ritualizados, que uniam os homens uns aos outros na sociedade feudal), ao desabrochar do pensamento escolástico e das Ordens Mendicantes, à irrupção das catedrais góticas e à emergência de uma literatura profana que reivindica, pouco a pouco, a sua autonomia perante os sistemas poéticos latinos ou neolatinos? Surgia assim uma rede coerente de possíveis analogias na qual se vislumbrava a estranha e singular geminalidade entre a imagem ambígua do mercador (modelo da fertilidade e comunicação restauradas sobre o qual plana, todavia, e inelutavelmente, o espectro da usura, da avareza, da fraude, da mentira e da falsificação diabólicas) e a não menos ambígua figura do poeta, esse demiurgo que se compraz no jogo, ao mesmo tempo lúdico e subversivo, dos simulacros da Palavra, da Criação e da Verdade. Sobre ambos, pesa o anátema da danação; ambos aspiram, no limiares de uma espécie de Purgatório da linguagem, à plena legitimação dos respectivos discursos. Numa altura em que começam a desagregar-se os valores constitutivos do feudalismo, em que a relação com um Significado fundador, referencial, se torna cada vez mais longínqua e irrecuperável, a ficção e a moeda cunhada emergem assim como dois novos tipos de mediação ante o objecto de desejo, como duas formas de escrita (homólogas, embora distintas e autónomas) que modificam as relações com o Outro e com o mundo (e com o Outro-Mundo inclusive), tanto quanto as suas respectivas representações, e através das quais se elaboram, em suma, novos processos de simbolização. A dualidade e duplicidade que se instauram entre estes dois modos privilegiados de representação (mental e socialmente construída) não podia deixar de ter influências na própria concepção da palavra poética. Com efeito, a forma como dialogam, se entrelaçam, colidem ou se excluem mutuamente imaginário oblativo (bem patente no ideal cavaleiresco e cortês de liberalidade, por exemplo) e imaginário mercantil, abre-nos um terreno de investigação único para observarmos o modo como os dois principais géneros narrativos em verso dos séculos XII-XIII (a canção de gesta e o romance que analisamos mais minuciosamente), reflectem e/ou inflectem o universo que os rodeia e, nesse processo, verificar de que forma se interrogam sobre o seu próprio estatuto e se posicionam um face ao outro através de secretas ou explícitas relações dialógicas e intertextuais. Se, nesta perspectiva, vemos o discurso épico dar, frequentemente, corpo e voz ao inconsciente ideológico e textual recalcado nos inúmeros inter-ditos, ou não-ditos, que estruturam o imaginário romanesco (e vice versa), evidenciando simultaneamente as potencialidades e os limites de uma determinada concepção da linguagem poética e da visão do mundo que (a) sustenta e veicula, caberá à chamada narrativa "realista" do século XIII levar este processo de reflexão (no sentido cognitivo e especular do termo) às últimas consequências. Com efeito, ao multiplicar falaciosamente os "efeitos de real" e as referências ao universo económico, esta narrativa sugere que a única realidade da/na literatura consiste, na verdade, no facto de ser uma arte, subtil e engenhosamente, tecida através de uma temível e sedutora manipulação da retórica da linguagem e das formas significantes nas quais se espelha incessantemente. Desta nova economia poética, emerge uma (in)suspeita, mas agora triunfal e triunfante, relação entre o poeta e o mercador de palavras, entre a usura e a narrativa ficcional enquanto infinita reprodução de simulacros e perpétua deslocação metafórica de uma significação ao mesmo tempo proliferante e sempre ausente; relação na qual se vislumbra a natureza paradoxal, evanescente e profundamente enganadora, do texto medieval como eterna falsa moeda sígnica e semântica.
The twelfth century is a complex period, characterised by an unusual quantity of transformations at all levels (political, social, economic, juridical, ideological and cultural) which would, slowly but profoundly, redefine the contours of Western Civilization. One of the most decisive mutations (if not the most decisive and impactive one) lies in the transition, deeply analysed by us through the several discourses which in-form the poetical text, from the so-called gift economy, closely related to the symbolic though, to a monetary mercantile economy, subordinated to the sign imaginary. Can it be mere chance if we can also find, precisely during that period and context, the beginning and development of the written fictional narrative in vernacular language, (the romance)? Or is it not rather the same epistemological turnover which originates, simultaneously, the remarkable monetarization of social relationships, the rebirth of urban vitality (the towns being the set for an important progressive weakening of the strong and ritualised personal bonds which maintained the cohesion of the traditional feudal society), the flourishing of scholastic thought and Mendicant Orders, the irruption of Cathedral churches and the emergence of profane Literature which slowly takes its autonomous place among the latin and neolatin poetic systems? Faced with this vast net of possible analogies, we were forced to recognise the strange and singular similarity and closeness between the ambiguous image of the merchant (a model of restored fertility and communication, upon whom, nevertheless, always planes the spectre of usury, greed, fraud, lie and devilish forgery) and the none the less ambiguous one of the poet, the demiurge who indulges himself permanently in the vain, ludic and subversive gamble of playing with the Word, the Creation and the Truth. The anathema of damnation stands upon both of them; they both aspire - at the verge of a sort of Purgatory of the Language – to the universal recognition of the legitimacy of their respective discourses. In an era in which the feudal values were starting to dissolve, and the relation to a founding Signified, source of every reference, becomes more and more distant and irrecoverable, the fiction and the minted coin emerge as the two new models for mediation in the face of the object of desire, as two forms of writing (similar although very distinct and autonomous), which drastically modify the relation to the Other and to the World (and to the Other World, as well), just as their respective representations, thus creating a whole new process of simbolization. The duality and duplicity which pervade these two privileged forms of representation (mentally and socially constructed) would forcibly end up behaving serious reflections in the poetic word. In fact, the forms through which the oblative imaginary (in the centre of the chivalric and courtly code of honour) communicates, intermixes, collides or opposes the mercantile imaginary, opens a unique field of research which enables us to observe the way in which the two main versified narrative genres in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries (the chanson the geste and the romance being the ones here under scrutiny) reflect and/ or inflect the universe surrounding them. And, in the course of that same process, to verify the ways in which they position themselves facing one another, through secret or explicit dialogic and intertextual relations. If, under this perspective, we frequently see the epic discourse as voicing and embodying the ideological and textual unconsciousness of the repressed inumerous inter-dicts or non verbalised (unsaid) concepts which shape the romance imaginary (and vice versa), thus enlightening the potentialities and the limits of a certain conception of poetic language and of the respective world vision which feds it and promoted it, it will be the "realistic" narrative of the thirteenth-century to take this process of reflection to its last consequences. By fictively multiplying the "reality effects" and the references to the economic universe, this narrative suggests that the only reality of/ in Literature consists, basically, in the fact that it is an art, subtle and ingeniously, woven through a frightening and seductive rhetoric manipulation of the language and the signifier forms in which it is unceasingly mirrored. From this new poetic economy comes an unsuspected but now triumphal and triumphant relation between the poet and the merchant of words, between usury and fictional narrative. An infinite reproduction of fictiveness and a perpetual metaphoric dislocation of a meaning which is simultaneously proliferating and absent. A relation in which we can envisage the paradoxical, evanescent and profoundly deceiving nature of the medieval text as an eternal false coin of sign and meaning.
Le XIIe siècle est incontestablement une période bigarrée dont les contours multiformes traduisent les diverses transformations (sur le plan politique, social, économique, juridique, culturel ou idéologique) qui redessinent, lentement mais en profondeur, les traits de la civilisation médiévale. Or, une des plus marquante, sinon la plus marquante et décisive, de ces mutations réside justement dans le passage, que nous observons attentivement en nous appuyant sur les nombreux discours qui in-forment le texte poétique, d'une économie du don, intimement liée à la pensée symbolique, à une économie monétaire et marchande subordonnée à l'imaginaire du signe. Est-ce, dès lors, une simple coïncidence si nous voyons immerger et se développer, dans ce contexte, une foisonnante littérature écrite en langue vernaculaire (le roman)? Ou est-ce un même tournant épistémologique qui ouvre simultanément les portes à une remarquable (sous tous les points de vue) monétarisation des rapports sociaux, au renouveau de la vitalité urbaine (la ville étant l'espace où se distendent désormais les liens, extrêmement forts et ritualisés, qui unissaient les hommes au cœur de la société féodale traditionnelle), à l'éclosion de la pensée scolastique et à la multiplication des Ordres Mendiants, à l'irruption des cathédrales gothiques et à la naissance d'une littérature profane qui revendique, peu à peu, son autonomie face aux systèmes poétiques latins ou néo-latins? On voit ainsi se mettre en branle un réseau très cohérent d'analogies possibles au sein duquel on commence à soupçonner d'une étrange et singulière gémellité entre l'image ambiguë du marchant (modèle de fertilité et exemple d'une communication restaurée sur lesquels plane cependant le spectre diabolique de l'usure, de l'avarice, de la fraude, du mensonge et de la contrefaction) et celle, non moins ambiguë, du poète, ce démiurge qui se plait incessamment à prendre le lecteur au jeu tout à la fois vain, ludique et subversif des simulacres de la Parole, de la Création et de la Vérité. Sur l'un comme sur l'autre pèse l'anathème de la damnation; tout deux aspirent également – au seuil d'une espèce de Purgatoire du langage – à voir leurs discours accéder pleinement à la légitimité. À une époque où l'on assiste à la désagrégation des valeurs constitutives de la féodalité, où le rapport à un Signifié fondateur et source de toutes références devient de plus en plus lointain et irrécupérable, la fiction et la monnaie frappée émanent comme deux nouveaux modèles de médiation à l'égard de l'objet du désir, comme deux formes d'écriture (analogues bien que distinctes et autonomes) qui modifient profondément les rapports à l'Autre et au monde (et à l'Autre-Monde, bien entendu), aussi bien que la façon dont ils sont représentés, et autour desquelles se bâtissent, en somme, de nouveaux processus de symbolisation. La dualité et la duplicité qui s'instaurent ainsi entre ces deux modes privilégiés de représentation (mentalement et socialement construite) avaient forcément des reflets sur la conception même de la parole poétique. En effet, la façon dont l'imaginaire oblatif (au cœur de l'idéal de la largesse chevaleresque et courtoise, par exemple) dialogue, s'entrelace ou entre en rupture avec l'imaginaire marchand, ouvre à la recherche un domaine riche et unique où il est permis d'observer comment les deux principaux genres narratifs en vers des XIIe et XIIIe siècles (la chanson de geste et le roman que nous analysons le plus en détail) réfléchissent et/ou infléchissent l'univers qui les entoure, et ce faisant, comment ils se questionnent sur leur propre statut et se positionnent l'un par rapport à l'autre par le biais des relations dialogiques ou intertextuelles qu'ils maintiennent secrètement ou explicitement. Si le discours épique apparaît, dans cette perspective, comme une forme qui donne fréquemment corps et voix à l'inconscient idéologique et textuel refoulé ou enfoui dans les innombrables inter-dits et non-dits qui structurent l'imaginaire romanesque (et vice versa), mettant ainsi en évidence les potentialités et les limites d'un certain langage poétique et de la vision du monde qu'il véhicule et qui le soutient tout à la fois, il incombera au récit - que la critique désigne vulgairement de "réaliste" - du XIIIe siècle de pousser jusqu'aux ultimes conséquences ce processus de réflexion (au sens cognitif et spéculaire du terme). En effet, en multipliant illusoirement les "effets de réel" et les références à l'univers économique, ce récit suggère, en fait, qu'il d'existe d'autre réalité de/dans la littérature que celle qui la définit comme un art subtilement tissé par une menaçante et séductrice manipulation (de la) rhétorique du langage et des signifiants où il se miroite continûment. Il ressort de cette nouvelle économie poétique un (in)suspect, mais désormais triomphal et triomphant, rapport entre le poète et le marchant de paroles, entre l'usure et la fiction en tant que reproduction infinie de simulacres et perpétuel déplacement métaphorique d'une signification à la fois sans cesse foisonnante et toujours absente; rapport qui laisse deviner la nature paradoxale, évanescente et profondément trompeuse, du texte médiéval en sa qualité d'éternelle fausse monnaie du signe et du sens. Sujets: Littérature médiévale française (XIIe-XIIIe siècles); Le marchant dans la littérature médiévale; Culture et civilisation du Moyen Âge, Histoire et critique littéraires; Théorie(s) de la littérature (rhétorique, poétique, théorie des genres); Économie et littérature; Langage et imaginaire.

Literary medievalism has always been critically controversial; it has often been dismissed as reactionary or escapist. This survey of major medievalist writers from America, England, Ireland and Iceland aims to demonstrate instead that medievalism is one of the characteristic literatures of modernity. Whereas realist fiction focuses on typical, plausible or common experiences of modernity, medievalist literature is anything but reactionary, for it focuses on the intellectual circumstances of modernity. Events such as the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, many political revolutions, the world wars, and the scientific discoveries of Isaac Newton (1643-1727) and above all those of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), each sent out cultural shockwaves that changed western beliefs about the nature of humanity and the world. Thus, intellectual anachronisms pervade medievalist literature, as some of the greatest writers of modern times offer new perspectives on old legends. The first chapter of this study focuses on the impact of Darwin’s ideas on Victorian epic poems, particularly accounts of natural evolution and supernatural creation. The second chapter describes how late Victorian medievalists, abandoning primitivism and claims to historicity, pushed beyond the form of the retelling by simulating medieval literary genres. The third chapter crosses into the twentieth century and examines the relationship between the skepticism of a new generation of medievalist writers and their exploration of radical new possibilities in artificial mythology. The fourth chapter examines the gender dynamics of medievalist works, discussing how medievalist writers reinterpreted stock character types through metafiction. The final chapter’s focus is on war, propaganda, and human nature; it documents the iconoclastic trend in postwar medievalism, as writers examine the role of literature in encouraging nationalism and organized violence. Tying together the major threads of medievalism from the previous chapters, this final chapter chases the greatest shockwave of the twentieth century through inverted medieval landscapes where the author may be the greatest villain of all. Rejecting the critical Balkanization of medievalism, this study instead offers a unified view of nineteenth- and twentieth-century responses to northern legend, one which shows medievalism closely tracking the shocks of modernity.
October 2016

From the end of the 19th century, the Old Czech apocryphal story of Joseph (son of Jacob), called Life of Joseph, has not been in the center of the scholars' and editors' attention, and therefore many pivotal philological questions concerning this Old Czech composition have not been satisfactory solved yet. This thesis offers a comprehensive analysis of the Old Czech Life of Joseph in terms of textual criticism and literary history and attempts to bring answers to the main problems of its contextualization. The six extant medieval manuscripts of the Life of Joseph, representing the inherent part of the thesis, are provided with critical edition. The Old Czech Life of Joseph is a late medieval work of an anonymous author and should be dated to the second half or to the end of the 14th century. It is based on a Latin model, namely Historia Ioseph, which was composed in the year 1336 by the Spanish Dominican Alfonso Buenhombre (Alphonsus Bonihominis). The Czech Life of Joseph is the unique vernacular translation of Alfonso's Latin text. This Latin text has not been broadly disseminated. I am aware of the existence of 14 manuscripts, six of which originated in Bohemia and represent the specific Bohemian manuscript branch. The Czech translation is admittedly based on the Latin text related closely to...

In the early 1990s, a series of gruesome murders of young women in Ciudad Juárez, a city located in the U.S.-Mexico border, shook the political landscape of Mexico. A decade later, the strange and violent murders, known as the feminicides or feminicidios of Juárez, reached international infamy across hemispheres and continents. During this time, the city and the cases became the subjects of an extensive body of scholarship and of any imaginable artistic medium (narrative, poetry, theater, performance, music, and so on). Eventually, the complexity and overexposure of the cases and the sociopolitical conditions of Ciudad Juárez placed them at the center of a paradoxical debate: on one hand, the work of activists, feminists, and scholars of social sciences (like anthropologists and sociologists) studied the murders as a localized example of a larger phenomenon of mysoginistic violence; on the other, journalistic and media investigations of Juárez understood the murders as the products of specific agents (serial killers, murderers, drug cartels, amongst others) and the fractures within the Mexican Nation-State. And yet, despite the expansion and overlapping of these discourses, fictional representations of Juárez remained tangential to this intricate debate. Thus, this research explores the different ways in which writers, artists, and filmmakers deployed and negotiated existent perspectives on the feminicides within fictional environments. As a result of the vast amount of published work available on Ciudad Juárez, I narrowed the objects of my research through a transnational scope. The resulting sample of texts transverses borders (Mexico and the U.S.), continents (Latin America and Europe), genres (fiction and nonfiction), and mediums (literature and film). The first chapter explores the connections of Sergio González Rodríguez’s Huesos en el desierto and Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 through the theoretical framework of the possible worlds of fiction. The second chapter moves to issues of representation, gender, and race through the analysis of two novels written by Chicana scholars: Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders and Stella Pope Duarte’s If I Die in Juárez. Finally, the third chapter focuses on film representations of Juárez and the feminicides in the form of Gregory Nava’s Bordertown and Carlos Carrera’s Backyard/El Traspatio.
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