Dante Alighieri is, undoubtedly, an enduring feature of the cultural memory of generations of Italians. His influence is such that the mere mention of a ‘dark wood’ or ‘life’s journey’ recalls the poet and his most celebrated work, the Divina Commedia. This study, however, seeks to examine the construction of the medieval Florentine poet, exemplified by the above assertion, as a potent symbol of the Italian nation. From the creation of the idea of the Italian nation during the Risorgimento, to the Liberal ruling elite’s efforts after 1861 to legitimise the new Italian nation state, and more importantly to ‘make Italians’, to the rise of a more imperialist conception of nationalism in the early twentieth century and its most extreme expression under the Fascist regime, Dante was made to play a significant role in defining, justifying and glorifying the Italian nation. Such an exploration of the utilisation of Dante in the construction of Italian national identity during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries aids considerably in an understanding of the conceptualisation of the Italian nation, of the issues engendered by the establishment of the Italian nation state, and the evolution of these processes throughout the period in question. The various images of Dante revealed by this investigation of his instrumentalisation in the Italian process of nation-building bear only a fleeting resemblance to what is known of the poet in his medieval reality. Dante was born in 1265 to a family of modest means and standing in Florence, at that time the economic centre of Europe, and one of the most important cities of the Italian peninsula. His writings disclosed, however, that he was little impressed by his city’s prestige and wealth, being instead greatly disturbed by its political discord and instability, of which he became an unfortunate victim. The violent partisan conflict in Florence and the turbulent political condition of the Italian peninsula in the late thirteenth century had a decisive influence on Dante’s life and literary endeavours.

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University of Macau / Faculty of Education

Twentieth-century scholars have extensively studied how Rousseau's domestic discourse impacted the patriarchal ideology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and contributed to women's exclusion from the public sphere. Joan Landes, Lynn Hunt, and many others, argued that the French Revolution excluded women from the public sphere and confined them to the domestic realm. Joan Landes also argued that the patriarchal discourse was a mere reflection of social reality. In The Other Enlightenment, Carla Hesse argues for the women's presence in the public sphere. One of the goals of this dissertation is to contribute to the debate by analyzing the content of the counter-discourse of selected women authors during the revolutionary era and examine how they challenged and subverted the patriarchal discourse. In the second chapter, I reconstruct the patriarchal discourse. I first examine the official (or legal) discourse in crucial works which remain absent from major modern sources: Jean Domat's Loix civiles dans leur order naturel and Louis de Héricourt's Loix eccleésiastiques de France dans leur order naturel. Then I look at how scientists like Monroe, Roussel, Lignac, Venel, and Robert used discoveries regarding woman's physiology to create a medical discourse that justifies woman's inferiority so as to confine them into the domestic/private sphere. I examine how intellectuals such as Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, Coyer and Laclos, reinforced women's domesticity. In chapter 3, I examine women's participation in the early stage of the Revolution and the overt attempt by some women to claim their place in the public sphere and to challenge and subvert the oppressive patriarchal discourse through their writings. Chapter 4 focuses on Olympe de Gouges's theater and a specific example of subversion of the patriarchal discourse: I compare the father figure in Diderot's La Religieuse and de Gouges's play Le Couvent, ou les Voeux forcés. Finally chapter 5 examines women's involvement in the French Revolution after 1794 and Constance de Salm's attack on patriarchy.

Text in Afrikaans / This study investigates postcolonial aspects of the prose oeuvre of André P. Brink, with specific reference to his historiographical texts `n Oomblik in die wind, Houd-den-Bek, Die eerste lewe van Adamastor, Inteendeel, Sandkastele and Donkermaan. The texts can be described as links in a textual history of South Africa: a history corresponding to the official version, revisioning it in an imaginative way. The texts also criticize political (mal)practices, and the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial social contexts of the country are critically scrutinized. The texts offer suggestions for a new political dispensation. Since the seventies the Brink oeuvre has developed a multi-dimensional postcolonial approach. Aspects of post-colonialism, post-structuralism, magical realism and feminism as articulated in the texts, are analyzed and interpreted. Brink's investigation of problems concerning historiography, and the relation between history and fiction, comprised an important aspect of the research leading to this report. / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / D.Litt. et Phil

This study examines carnival and ritual in Breyten Breytenbach's dramatic oeuvre and focuses on his Afrikaans drama texts Boklied (1998) and Die toneelstuk (2001). Seeing that these dramas had their debut performances at the Afrikaans national arts festival, the Afrikaans festival phenomenon, as well as Breytenbach's texts will be discussed as framed Events, within a carnival environment, as defined and described by Russian philosopher Bakhtin. The study evolves around three critical questions: 1. How does Bakhtin define the term "carnival" and could Afrikaans national arts festvals be seen as platforms for carnavalesque expression? 2. How does Professor Temple Hauptfleisch define an Event and why can the Afrikaans national arts festivals, as well as the drama texts under discussion, be seen as such Events? 3. How does Breyten Breytenbach's texts link up with Bakhtin's carnival theory and the ritual nature of the Dionysos festivals? / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / M.A. (Afrikaans)