This thesis deals with the representation of the erotic body in the works of the most important authors of French sixteenth-century poetry, particularly those of the Pleiade. By "erotic body" we mean a body that is involved in activities of carnal love, a type of love which is considered, during the Renaissance, as the opposite of a more chaste and spiritual kind of love. Our hypothesis is that the textual representation of such a body is coherent throughout the sixteenth century. Since poetic expression is governed by rules of decency during this period, description of the erotic body cannot be direct; its expression depends on analogy and attenuation techniques. Analogy, besides its allusive quality, creates the image of a body "open" to the cosmos rather than one that is fragmented and hermetic. Beauty holds a central position in the imagery of the erotic body. It is a very conventional beauty whose qualities (white, round, hard and smooth) transform the female form into a veritable statue. On the contrary, ugliness and disease are used to sanction behaviour that would otherwise be seen as reprehensible. The erotic art shown in poetry is framed by orthodox morals that condemn certain acts such as sodomy. The guiding principle is one of moderation. Erotic art is also based upon gestures that are fluid and capricious, quite the opposite of a fixed posture. Gestures are made in varied ways, from biting to tickling. However, kissing is the most important practice; it literally kills and resurrects the lover. The center of Renaissance erotic art is the loving couple, whose relations consist of requital and sometimes also of restraint. The game of feigned resistance allows lovers to reconcile these two extremes and to create an erotic relationship that embraces opposition and collaboration between the sexes. The most sought-after locations in Renaissance eroticism are always the same: bucolic surroundings offering a corner away from others' eyes. Temporality on the other hand is variable: stages of life, seasons, holidays, all lend themselves to carnal love. However, the instant reveals itself as the most erotic moment, not because it allows direct pleasure but because it concentrates desire under the guise of a call to carpe diem or of fictitious times (wishes, prayers), thus offering an imaginary satisfaction.

The citizens of utopian Renaissance cities have in common the confidence in the power of reason and moral virtues. The purpose of the thesis is to prove that, in spite of the imaginative and unreal aspects of these utopian societies, they contain the prodroms of the modern societies. / The utopias of the Renaissance are projects of a new commonwealth, based on justice and education. The Italian peninsula of the XVI and early XVII century spawned several works belonging to this literary genre, inspired by Plato's Republic and initiated in England with Thomas More's Utopia (1516). Those considered in this thesis, besides Utopia, are: Francesco Doni's Il mondo savio e pazzo (1552), Francesco Patrizi's La Citta felice (1553), Ludovico Agostini's La Repubblica immaginaria (1580), Tommaso Campanella's La Citta del Sole (The City of the Sun) (1602) and Lodovico Zuccolo's Il Belluzzi (1621). / The thesis examines these six main literary works according to the concept of uchronie and escapism, the definitions of utopia by Karl Mannheim, J.C. Davis and Mikhail Bakhtin, the religious and Arcadian elements and the relationship between utopia and satire. The thesis analyzes three essential aspects of the utopian tales: city planning, relationship between man and woman, and education. The utopias of the Renaissance also reveal two different visions: one innovative if compared to the society of the time, and another, post-tridentina, oriented towards a return to more traditional values. The thesis examines the influence of More's work on the utopias of the Renaissance by analyzing and comparing a series of topics, like the title of the work, the narrator, fantastical names and ideas, the role of Plato, property and inequity, the choice of woman and the concept of beauty, daily labor, the function of God, and the concept of law. / The utopias of the Renaissance have various modern aspects: a utilitarian justice, a better place of woman in the society, the laicity of the government, the "rationality" of war, secularism, education, health, social justice, assistance to elderly. They also contain myopias, like an unrealistic economic model and a static society.

Turks and Indians are the two major figures of the Other in French Renaissance literature. The purpose of this thesis is to explore otherness from a closer point of view by analysing the discursive allusions of the inhabitants of the South of the French Kingdom, particularly those of the "Province de Languedoc" throughout a collection of texts from the second half of the 16th century, whether they be strictly of a literary, historical or geographical source. Using the imagology method, the idea of the South being a key space in the emergence of the French identity is challenged. / First of all, the South legislates as a land of industrious administrators. However, even if it shows a claim for independence---a secularly evidenced fact---it nevertheless remains subject to the French Crown. Southerners, with identical customs as those of the French, are already part of this political entity. Schismatic area par excellence that tears the State apart, shown by numerous Huguenot patches in the Languedoc region, it is about to embrace the faith of the Same. This tendency occurs together with the linguistic phenomenon: the use of the French language develops at the same time as the practice of Law. The various parameters that distinguish the Other from the Same tend to converge to make the Southerner a subject per se of the Kingdom of the Valois. Far from questioning the foundation of the modern French identity, the people of Languedoc and other Southerners, with a rich distinct set of customs, contribute to it in several ways.

This study aims to produce a positive assessment of the Franciade, by viewing Ronsard's epic venture in the context of works by Ronsard himself and by poets such as Baïf and Belleau. The com- positions considered extract single episodes from an epic whole, and are united by their structural and rhetorical techniques, forming a group dominated by the Franciade. The first chapter examines the question of genre raised by the fragments, and reviews classical models utilized by the French poets, placing particular emphasis upon the Alexandrians. It re- veals how the sixteenth-century poets long to produce a full-scale epic . Chapter 2 groups the fragments according to theme, highlighting Argonautic poems, notably Ronsard's Hymne de Calais, et de Zetes, Hymne de Pollux et de Castor, and Hylas. Chapter 3 examines the structure of the fragments in terms of contraction and expansion. Some poets circumscribe their material with a prelude and conclusion; others extend its temporal and spatial perspectives, by such means as retrospection, prophecy, and descriptions of ornate objects. The rhetoric of the fragments is seen in Chapter 4 to reflect the expansive urge: simile, circumlocution, and preterition all widen the poetic vistas. Chapter 5 studies Ronsard's approach to the problem of inven- ting an original framework for his epic, how he tries to lend it coherence by structural and rhetorical means. Yet the techniques Ronsard practised in the fragments finally prevail: the Franciade breaks up into a series of vivid miniatures: Ronsard repeatedly returns to material made familiar by classical epics. The conclusion emphasizes that the 'accidental' fragmentation of the Franciade should be viewed alongside the voluntary frag- mentation of the sixteenth-century heroic miniatures. The Franciade should, especially, be considered in conjunction with other Ron- sardian productions, such as the Argonautic hymns. Together with these, it forms an intricate fretwork of epic motifs.

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Edward Taylor indicates an awareness of 17th century religious melancholy in his "Preparatory Meditations," but the minister is largely excluded from current discourse surrounding religious melancholy in Puritan communities. Taylor's presence in this conversation serves to further understanding of religious melancholy in America and also of the complex nature of the condition that is of interest at the present time. Through an analysis of dominant images of the conversion experience from Edward Taylor's poetry, this thesis argues that Taylor provides intimate knowledge of the nature of religious melancholy and also offers a treatment option for the ailing Puritan in the form of hope for salvation.

The area of early music, especially of its performance, is yet young. Classes in early music performance are offered in only approximately a quarter of the nations colleges and universities, and these are found to vary widely in levels of both faculty and student proficiency, and in the authenticity achieved, resulting from available instruments and knowledge of styles and performance practices affecting interpretation. Although standard sources exist on performance practice, their information on the baroque period highly outweighs that on the Middle Ages or Renaissance. All three periods are encompassed by this writer within early music. Sources regarding practical concerns of an early music program are quite rare., and it is primarily in the few schools granting degrees in early music that a student might learn administrative skills. The lack of funds for instruments or for a faculty specialist often deters the inception of such a program. This guide is intended to serve as a resource tool for the non-specialist already on a faculty, who may happen into the position of collegium director., as well as the interested early musician who cannot attend one of those specializing schools, and who may not have the background to pursue the interest authentically. The hope is to fill a perceived need for a single source, treating both practical matters of directing a program and performance practice of all three.Each of the chapter topics is riled with conflict., both from early and modern writers, so that often concrete solutions cannot be given., and many questions remain unanswered. This work is meant to be a compendium of the many ideas and interpretations,, offering suggestions where possible, otherwise directing the reader to further sources for his own pursuit of solutions. It is hoped that through this work and its reference directions, readers may gain information to help recreate the sounds of early music with as much efficiency., and particularly, authenticity as possible.

Among Marston's earliest works are two books of verse satires (Certaine Satyres and The Scourge of Villanie, both 1598) and three plays (Antonio and Mellida, Antonio's Revenge and What You Will, all between 1600-1602) in which he explored the composition of human identity. From the initial premiss that the self is socially constructed and tends always to be dependent on the social and material contexts in which it exists, he developed a conception of existential struggle, in which the individual self either succumbs to the influence of its environment, or else achieves an authentic autonomy by imposing its own reality on the world around it. The thesis is in five main parts. Chapter I reviews theories of identity in the sixteenth century, analyses the Roman verse satires on which Elizabethan satires were modelled, and gives an account of the developments in English society at the end of the sixteenth century that helped to generate a satirical discourse in which anxiety as to the stability of the self was prominent. Chapter II examines these satires, focusing on Marston but paying close attention also to such other authors as Donne, Hall, Guilpin, Lodge and the anonymous author of Micro-Cynicon. Chapters III and IV are a close reading of the three plays named above; it is argued that in them Marston developed the ideas about identity which he had first conceived in the satires into a considered anatomy of the self. Chapter V looks briefly at Marston's later plays, especially Sophonisba (1606) with the same principles in mind. As will be apparent, the emphasis of the thesis is on Marston as a thinker, rather than as a poetic technician or man of the theatre, although these aspects of him are considered where they are relevant.

The aim of this thesis is to provide a thorough introduction to shorter satirical poetry in Middle English, and also to provide stimulus and material for further study in this somewhat neglected area of medieval English literature. The thesis presents 83 newly transcribed, edited and annotated shorter (approximately 200 ll. or less) poems, which have never before been collected. Strictly political poems, more properly the subject of a separate study, are not included, nor are the poems of Dunbar, Skelton, Henryson and Hoccleve, which are available in excellent editions. The poems are loosely grouped according to the subjects they satirize: clergy, women and marriage, money and venality, rogues and fools, specific people, and medical recipes. A lengthy introduction briefly discusses the problem of defining satire in the Middle English period before going on to discuss the background of medieval satire for each group. For each poem there are notes which clarify difficult points as well as give information on the manuscripts and editions in which the poem appears. Appendix A prints a not hitherto recognized parody of Lydgate's A Valentine to Our Lady with the text of Lydgate's poem facing, and discusses some of the difficulties of recognizing parody in Middle English in light of this particular example. Appendix B is an index which attempts to list all nonnarrative satirical verse in English which appeared between the thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A glossary of difficult words in the texts is included.

The post-monastic liberties have long formed a footnote to the history of early modern London, but they have escaped serious historical consideration on their own merits. Only a handful of the capital's two dozen religious houses became liberties after the dissolution. The thesis focuses primarily on four of them, showing the liberties to be more complex and more functional places than their traditional depiction would suggest. The introduction contextualises London's post-monastic liberties. In addition to reviewing the historiography of the liberties, the introduction puts them in an historical context, considering them alongside provincial jurisdictional battles, early modern London's rapid growth, and the institution of sanctuary. The second chapter focuses on the City of London's relationship with the liberties in the century after the dissolution. A chronological survey of its approach to the liberties precedes a thematic discussion of the issues that affected that approach. The following chapters present in-depth study of four post-monastic liberties. They explore the development of administrative and social conditions within each liberty and consider the relationship of each to outside authorities. Because of variations in the survival of sources, different aspects of each liberty's history come to the fore. The Minories chapter focuses on its ecclesiastical exemptions and their role in fostering an early Puritan community there. The Blackfriars chapter considers the effects of its gentry and noble population as well as the role of its playhouses and its Puritan leanings in the decades before the Civil War. St Katherine by the Tower's history is explored through the development of an indigenous administrative system to govern the growing population of the precinct, which existed alongside its still-operating hospital. The St Martin le Grand chapter corrects long-held misconceptions about its role as sanctuary and considers its administrative