Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Revised September, 2007 / This study examines the continuity of mediaeval literary tradition in selected rhymed narrative verse. These verses were composed for entertainment at various times prior to 1648. At or shortly before this date, they were collected into The Percy Folio: BL. Add. MS. 27,879. Selected texts with an Historical or Romance topic are examined from two points of view: modification of source material and modification of traditional narrative stylistic structure. First, an early historical poem is analysed to establish a possible paradigm of the conventions governing the mediaeval manipulation of fact or source material into a pleasing narrative. Other texts are compared with the result of this analysis and it is found that twenty paradigmatic items appear to summarize early convention as their presence in other poems is consistent — no text agreeing with less than twelve. The second step is the presentation of the results of an analysis of some fifty mediaeval Romances. This was undertaken in order to delineate clearly selected motifemic formulae inherent in the composition of these popular narratives. It is shown that these motifemes, found in the Romances, are also present in the historical texts of The Percy Folio. The findings, derived from both strands of investigation, are that mediaeval continuity exists in the texts studied. The factors which actually comprise this ‘mediaeval continuity’ are isolated: it is then seen that rather than discard tradition as society grew further and further from the early circumstances that gave rise to it, later poets have chosen to contrive modifications designed to fit new requirements as they arise. Such modifications, however, are always within the established conventional framework. In short, no text examined failed to echo tradition, and mediaeval continuity is an important feature of the popular rhymed narrative in 1648 and The Percy Folio.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1989. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [494]-504).

Diss. : Kunstwissenschaft : Hamburg : 1984. - Bibliogr. [28] p. -

Diss.--Hamburg. / Lebenslauf. "Literatur": p. [105-108]; "Verzeichnis der untersuchten und berücksichtigten Spiele": p. [109-111].

<p>This master essay deals with the changes in the use of and the abandonment of the Avebury monument and the change of the surrounding landscape during the late Neolitihic, about 3000 B.C, and into the Bronze age, about 1500 B.C. The change in the way people supported themselves, the development of agriculture, brought along many other changes as well. I am in this paper dealing with these issues, how and what lead up to these changes, the peoples own part in the development, and I am also looking into the fact that these changes might not have meant an end of old ideologies, but rather a development in the expression of beliefs where the monuments of the neolithic no longer had a place in society.</p>

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The earliest, but scarce, evidence of cuneiform signs being used syllabically to write Akkadian words and proper nouns is at Fara and Tell Abu Salabikh between 2600 BC and 2500 BC. Between around 2350 BC and 1800 BC, there is an increase in the development and use of signs with syllabic values across Mesopotamia and Syria, but these syllabic values (together called 'syllabaries') are still very local in nature with significant and observable differences in sign usage and values between sites. Starting around 1800 BC, reforms to the system begin to be enforced that standardise these signs and their values, which essentially ends any major variability in the script within specific periods. This provides us with a period of almost 600 years, spanning the second half of the third millennium and early second millennium BC, during which there is a wealth of textual data documenting the first full adaptation of the cuneiform script to syllabically write Semitic words and proper nouns. This thesis investigates the attestations and usage of syllabic values to write Semitic lexemes in the cuneiform text corpora from Ebla, Mari, Nabada, Tuttul, Adab, Eshnunna, Kish, Tutub, Assur, and Gasur - with a particular focus on the Syrian sites - during the second half of the third millennium BC and early second millennium BC in order to answer the following two research questions: 1. Did each third millennium site in Mesopotamia and Syria have its own unique syllabary? 2. What were the primary factors that influenced the differences between the syllabaries? This research uses a series of three interdependent techniques to determine and understand the use and distribution of syllabic values within the cuneiform writing system during the second half of the third millennium BC and early second millennium BC. The results suggest that during this period cuneiform syllabaries are variable, and that variation can further inform us about the regional, temporal, and dialectical contexts in which they existed. The addition of this research to the wider literature on the early adaptation of cuneiform will enhance the field's understanding of how cuneiform syllabic values began to develop and emerge across the ancient Near East, and demonstrates how scientific and computational methods of analysis can be applied to research questions in humanities subjects.

This thesis consists of a critical edition, English translation, and commentary of Consentius' 'De barbarismis et metaplasmis'. Consentius probably lived in Gaul in the fifth century, and this work was presumably part of a larger grammatical treatise; as it stands, it is the most extensive discussion of language deviations (errors in ordinary language and poetic licences) in the Latin grammatical tradition. The critical edition has taken advantage from the availability of a manuscript and several sources of indirect tradition that were not used by previous editors. In the introduction, I provide a discussion of the tradition with a stemma codicum. The new text is quite close to that of previous editions, but arguably has several improvements. I also provide the first English translation of this work. In the commentary, I look at the text from the points of view of historical linguistics and the history of linguistics. The section on metaplasms is tightly embedded in the Latin grammatical tradition. This allows us to look into the grammatical approach to the poetic language. In particular, the role of archaisms is crucial in the grammarians' appreciation of poetry, and I analyse their views on this while also explaining the history and use of the forms Consentius and other grammarians discuss. An appendix to the discussion of metaplasms is the final section on the scansion of verses, which displays some original, if sometimes bizarre, views. The section on barbarisms is most interesting for the language historian: as Consentius discusses errors that arise in spoken language, he provides evidence for substandard Latin that is unparalleled in ancient grammatical texts. I assess such evidence by looking at other grammatical treatises, substandard texts (literary or not), and the Romance languages. Several forms mentioned by Consentius foreshadow Romance developments. The text also provides us with information about the regional diversification of Latin.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University