By the turn of the seventeenth century, the auto sacramental quickly became the most elaborate dramatic genre in Spain. Shortly after the Council of Trent, professional playwrights replaced clerics who had previously written autos for the Corpus Christi celebrations held each year, but none were more influential than Lope de Vega in refining thematic, literary, and staging elements and techniques. At the middle of the nineteenth century, critics began to study the genre that a royal decree had banned almost a century earlier; however, few have dedicated much time to Lope's autos. As a result, most critics have misunderstood Lope's contributions to the genre. This study addresses some of the issues that scholars have particularly misunderstood or ignored, namely, Lope's treatment of the Eucharistic theme in his autos, the level of dramatic unity displayed in his Corpus Christi plays, and the contribution of spectacle to the overall performance. Using a textual analysis of three of Lope's autos, I conclude that Lope could and did write profound, unified liturgical plays designed to disseminate Catholic dogma in an effective and entertaining manner. Each of the three autos used in this study, Las aventuras del Hombre, El viaje del Alma, and Los dos ingenios y esclavos, presents a protagonist representing mankind, who must learn to disregard evil influences faced in mortality and turn to Christ and the Eucharist for salvation. These elaborate liturgical performances, whose budgets exceeded those of the popular comedias of the day, all took place in city plazas around the country. In order to understand the deserved popularity that Lope's autos clearly enjoyed in their original setting, scholars need to return to the texts themselves and not merely rely on criticism.

The core of House M.D. is its assertion that current Western civilization lives in a perpetual state of dissonance: we desire to have the rawness of emotion but we can only handle this rawness when we combine it with intellect, even if that intellect lies to us. This is the ontological paradox that the televisual text grapples with. Through the use of archetypal analysis and allegorical interpretation, this thesis reveals that dissonance and its relationship to contemporary Western society. Through House M.D. we realize that there are structures to the paradoxes that we live and there are paradoxes in our structures. Dr. House is a trickster in an allegory of American capitalist culture. The trickster metaphorically pulls away from society the rules protecting cultural values. Dr. House and House M.D. participate in revealing the cultural disruption of the current moment of Western society. While playing on the genres of detective fiction and hospital dramas, House M.D. is an existential allegory exposing the paradox that we can never be free while still seeking our own self-interest.

No description available.

One of the most innovative and original Hasidic leaders and thinkers, Rabbi Nachman of Braslav (1772 – 1810), related thirteen long, complex fables during the final four years of his life. This doctoral thesis presents an analysis of the quest for the Lost Princess in Rabbi Nachman of Braslav's "Book of Stories in Ancient Times." The image of the Lost Princess and the quest to find and rescue her, which appear in four of these stories (including the first and the last ones), are central symbols in Rabbi Nachman's thought. The most important key to an analysis of this image and theme lies in understanding the symbols and concepts of the Jewish mystical tradition (the Kabbalah), as Rabbi Nachman himself suggested. / Classsics, Near & Far East & Religious Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Judaica)

I sette libri del "De opificio mundi" dell'alessandrino Giovanni Filopono (metà VI p.Ch.) sono il primo commento speculativo alla pericope cosmopoietica del Genesi mediante la fruizione di categorie filosofiche aristoteliche. Presentandone la prima traduzione italiana, si illustra il conato di novità che il Filopono esercita nell'esegesi biblica giacché interpreta Genesi non già attraverso il paradigma demiurgico del "Timeo" platonico, come in àmbito giudaico (Aristobùlo e Filone Ebreo) e nella produzione esameronale patristica (Cappàdoci), bensì attingendo alle opere fisiche e logiche dello Stagirita. Invece della struttura mitico-allegorica sottesa alla lettura cristiana del "Timeo" si impone l'approccio analitico di Aristotele: Filopono rifiuta l'interpretazione allegoretica, impiegando l'argomentazione sillogistico-deduttiva dell'"Organon" aristotelico, ricorrendo a filosofemi cardinali in Aristotele e nella tradizione scientifica che dal medesimo fiorì in Alessandria. Così Filopono in-venta un nuovo modello esegetico: superando l'allegorismo tradizionale (arbitrario e infedele al messaggio rivelato) e il letteralismo della scuola antiochena di Teodoro di Mopsuestia, Teodoreto, Cosma (banalizzante e senza metodo critico) Filopono conia un letteralismo metodologicamente forte, ove il metodo proviene formalmente dalla logica aristotelica e contenutisticamente dalla fisica aristotelica. Già commentatore dello Stagirita, Filopono fa incontrare Rivelazione e filosofia aristotelica, lasciando nel "De opificio mundi" un singolarissimo prodromo della scolastica cristiana. / The present essay is meant to illustrate the philosophical and exegetic work intitled "De opificio mundi" (seven books) written by John Philoponus in Alexandria in the middle of the sixth century A.D. about the kosmopoiesis of the first chapter of Genesis. It is argued this treatise is the first evidence of Biblical exegesis led not according to Plato's "Timaeus" but according to Aristotelian corpus, specially "Physics" and "Organon". Philoponus rejects the allegorical method based upon demiurgic "Timaeus" since he thinks it is arbitrary and untrue compared with the Revelation literalism; therefore Philoponus passes the limit of Aristoboulos, of Philo's "De opificio mundi" and also the limit of Christian tradition of Hexaemerons (Fathers of the Church just like Cappadocians). Philoponus replaces allegorism with a new kind of Biblical literalism: not the trivializing one led by the school of Antioch (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Cosmas Indicopleustes) but a scientific and methodic literalism relied on Aristotelian logic and on the (meta)physical concepts derived from Aristotle (kinesis, dynamis, hexis, hypokeimenon, etc.); so "De opificio mundi" has a syllogistic and deductive structure, not a mythic-allegorical one. Last philosopher in Late Antiquity, Philoponus is in-ventor of a striking Christian-Aristotelian scholasticism.

Unmasking the heroes: sources of power in Afrikaner mythologising is a personal, visual and theoretical exploration of the underlying sources of power which governed the development of Afrikaner nationalism, particularly the years spanning the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The practical work, a series of drawings and relief cut-outs, sets out to unmask the beliefs, customs, traditions and attitudes particular to Afrikaner culture. It does so through the processes of deconstruction and reconstruction of selected mass mediated images whereby different symbolic paradigms are juxtaposed through the devices of collage and allegory to uncover layers of meaning. This art-making approach was informed by theoretical and visual research into the tradition of Western mythology, including related topics such as linguistics, psychology and sociology, Afrikaner history and historiography, and the mechanisms of contemporary cultural reproduction, particularly the South African mass media and fine arts. / History of Art and Fine Arts / M.A. (History of Art and Fine Arts)

The use in pictorial art of visual reference to prototypes and conventions in encoding reality forms the crux of the theoretical research. The theoretical component complements the practical research, which focuses on the interplay between perceptions of 'reality' and visual conventions in landscape art. The existence of diverse realities, based on individual ideological and sociocultural perspectives, is acknowledged. In encoding these realities, artists may draw on a reservoir of stylistic, formal and conceptual prototypes. Visual reference constitutes an allegorical procedure because the artist refers to an antecedent text in the representation of a particular 'reality'. Pictorial signs also rely on conventions to convey meaning. Both the perception and the artistic recreation of different realities may thus be regarded as recycling processes. In a world saturated with visual information, reference to prototypes is a powerful procedure which assists contemporary pictorial artists in the creation of meaningful images of current realities. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / M.A. (Fine Arts)

Brevard Childs argues for the inner logic of scripture’s textual authority as an historical reality that gives rise to the material condition by which the church apprehends and experiences God in Christ. The church’s use of (or by) scripture thus has a larger interiority: the shaped canon of scripture, Old and New Testaments, is a rule of faith which accrues authority in the church, through the vehicle of the sensus literalis. Childs’ work has been misplaced, however. Part one locates it internationally, attending to the way it has been read in English and German and finding that it has enjoyed a more patient reception in Europe than in Britain or North America. To illustrate, Childs’ definition of biblical theology is contrasted with that of James Barr. Their differences over gesamtbiblische theology involve opposite turns toward and away from Barthian dogma in biblical inquiry. Part two examines Childs on biblical reference, introducing why intertextuality is not midrashic but deictic—pointing to the res. This coincides with an understanding of the formation of biblical literature. Childs’ argument for canonical shaping is juxtaposed with Hermann Gunkel on tradition history, showing “final form” to be a deliberate inversion of form critical principles. Childs’ interest in the Bible as religious literature is then set alongside his studious confrontation of Judaism, with implications for inter-religious dialogue. Barr and Childs are compared again in part three, which frames their respective senses of indirect and direct biblical reference in terms of allegory. Both see allegory at work in the modern world under certain rules (either biblical criticism or the regula fidei). Their rules affect their articulations of trinitarian dogma. Finally, Psalm102 highlights divergences between modern and pre-modern interpreters. If scripture comprehends the present immediately, some postures of the church toward the synagogue may be excluded.

This thesis explores the most basic purpose of education and how it can be advanced. To begin to analyze this fundamental area of concern, this thesis associates notions of education with notions and experiences of truth and authenticity, which vary historically and culturally. A phenomenological analysis, featuring the philosophy of Heidegger, uncovers the basic conditions of human experience and discourse, which have become bent upon technology and jargon in the West. He draws on Plato's account of the 'essence of education' in the Cave Allegory, which underscores human agency in light of truth as unhiddenness. Heidegger calls for ontological education, which advances authenticity as it preserves individuals as codisclosing, historical beings.

This thesis explores the most basic purpose of education and how it can be advanced. To begin to analyze this fundamental area of concern, this thesis associates notions of education with notions and experiences of truth and authenticity, which vary historically and culturally. A phenomenological analysis, featuring the philosophy of Heidegger, uncovers the basic conditions of human experience and discourse, which have become bent upon technology and jargon in the West. He draws on Plato's account of the 'essence of education' in the Cave Allegory, which underscores human agency in light of truth as unhiddenness. Heidegger calls for ontological education, which advances authenticity as it preserves individuals as codisclosing, historical beings.