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The tumulus tale of Troilus and his lover Cressida has left readers intrigued in renditions written by both Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare due to their subversive nature of the authors’ chosen generic forms. Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde challenges the expectations and limitations of the narrative of the chivalric romance. Shakespeare took the story and turned Troilus and Cressida into one of his famous “problem plays” by challenging his audience’s expectations of the tragic genre. I endeavor to draw attention to the ways in which both Chaucer and Shakespeare use the conventions of the chivalric romance and tragedy to play with the imbalances in the central relationship of Troilus and Criseyde/Cressida in the story. These imbalances are the source of experimentation in both texts that allows Chaucer to imbue tragedy in the chivalric romance and allow Shakespeare to undermine tragedy itself.

Du Roland furieux de l’Arioste (1516-1532) au Songe de Kepler (1634), cette thèse propose une étude des récits de voyages aériens dans la fiction narrative de la Renaissance (romans, poèmes épiques, satires) ainsi que des discours théoriques abordant la question du vol et de l’élévation (démonologie, cosmographie, astronomie, discours sur la possibilité du vol humain ou le vol des oiseaux, etc.). Trois principaux objets sont mis en valeur : les voyages célestes écrits dans la lignée de récits comme le Songe de Scipion de Cicéron ou l’Icaroménippe de Lucien de Samosate ; les voyages aériens de la fiction chevaleresque ; le motif du transport diabolique. L’étude montre ainsi l’importance prise par l’imaginaire du vol à la Renaissance, à la croisée de la fiction et des discours savants, et dessine une « pré-histoire » des fictions d’envol avant les récits de Godwin (The Man in the Moone, 1638) et de Cyrano de Bergerac (Etats et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil, 1657 et 1662). Au cœur de cette rêverie se loge tout à la fois le désir de prendre la mesure du monde et les inquiétudes suscitées par ce même désir. / From Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1516-1532) to Kepler’s Somnium (1634), this thesis offers a study of aerial and celestial voyages in Renaissance narrative fiction (romances, epic poems, satires) as well as of learned treatises related to the question of flying (demonology, cosmography, astronomy, learned discourses on human and bird flight, etc.). It focuses on three main subjects: cosmic voyages in the tradition of Cicero’s Dream of Scipio or Lucian of Samosata’s Icaromenippus; aerial voyages in chivalric romance; diabolical transvection (eg. fly to the sabbath). It thus shows the extent to which flight captured the Renaissance imagination, at the cross-roads between fiction and learned discourse, and it traces a « pre-history » of fictional flying before Godwin’s Man in the Moone (1638) or Cyrano de Bergerac’s Etats et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil (1657 and 1662). At the heart of this fantasy lies a desire to measure the world from above – together with the anxieties produced by the same desire.

The aim of this thesis is to introduce the popular puppet theatre called Opera dei Pupi, which was developed mainly in Sicily in the second half of the 19th century. The first part desrcibes literary influences that nourished this tradition, from which puppeteers derived topics for their repertoire. These stories were primarily about the French king Charlemagne and his knights and were called paladins. I am trying to map the form of an adaptation of this topic for Opera dei Pupi needs and the way of connection with oral tradition. Furthermore I am going to mention the secondary repertoire of the theatre for example farce. Next chapter focuses on a formal side of the Opera dei Pupi including puppeteer's personality, his work and activities, structure of the theatre itself, characteristics of puppets and handling them. Furthermore this section also describes a specific concept of everyday's performances "to be continued" and how were these performaces organized in practice. The analytical part focuses on a process of putting plot on a scene, which includes both improvisation and fixed rules approach. The principal theme of this part is the so-called copione, which are the puppeteer's own handwritten notes, on which the show was based. This section also includes numerous excerpts not only from copione but also...

The master thesis presents and analyses a range of different ways in which the motif of the forest was treated in late-medieval literary sources as an element of thematic and compositional construction of the text. At the theoretical basis of the thesis is the concept of diachronic text reception and adaptations which bring along the transmission and simultaneous transformation of the use of topoi, while this process is being related to the development of the literary chronotopos signalizing a change in the public's horizon of expectation. The majority of sources for analysis are drawn from Czech sources of the long 14th century - courtly and chivalric romance, the Old Czech verse legend of St. Procopius and the Dalimil Chronicle - while a shorter part of the thesis is devoted to the presentation of individual tendencies in the development of the use of the forest topos in English and French literary allegory of the 14th and 15th centuries. In detailed comparison of specific passages from Old Czech texts with their actual models in other languages (Old Middle German, Latin), the thesis demonstrates, upon the example of the forest topos, that topoi do not represent fixed, inalterable clichés, but actually exhibit intense shifts in function, content and theme.

Nesta dissertação investigamos como a ficção envolve o leitor. Para isso, partimos da rejeição a Homero declarada por Calímaco, observando que a suposta diferença entre a literatura preferida pelo público e a literatura preferida pela crítica depende de dois fatores distintos. O primeiro é o simples fato de a crítica ler profissionalmente e o público ler por prazer. O segundo está relacionado à distinção entre recepção e uso da literatura proposta por C.S. Lewis. Na recepção, a obra tende a ser admirada por si; no uso, tende a ser instrumentalizada como suporte para um devaneio em que os desejos do próprio leitor são vicariamente satisfeitos. Observamos que essa devaneio, que Lewis chama de construção egoísta de castelos, e que inclui uma variante mórbida, tem um paralelo na noção girardiana do duplo angélico. Contudo, o devaneio depende da simpatia como definida por Adam Smith, a qual por sua vez depende de certa aprovação moral. Investigamos portanto o tipo de personagem que conquista a aprovação moral do leitor, contrastando os heróis homéricos com os cavaleiros cristãos a fim de verificar como o cristianismo dirige a aprovação moral para as vítimas, fazendo com que os heróis da ficção sejam pessoas perseguidas ou marginalizadas. / In this dissertation we investigate how fiction involves the reader. Starting Callimachuss rejection of Homer, we note that the supposed diference between the literature favoured by the public at large and the literature preferred by critics is actually twofold. First, critics read for business and the public reads for pleasure. Second, as proposed by C.S. Lewis, there is a distinction between the reception and use of literature. In reception, a work tends to be admired in itself, whereas in use it becomes a mere support for a sort of daydreaming in which the readers own desires are vicariously satisfied. We discuss this daydreaming called egotistic castle-building by Lewis, highlighting its morbid variant, which finds a parallel in the Girardian notion of the angelic double, developed from a reading of Proust. Now, as egotistic castle-building in its turn depends on sympathy as defined by Adam Smith, a concept which includes moral approval, we investigate the types of characters who obtain the moral approval of readers, contrasting the warriors from Homers poems with Christian knights in order to show that Christianity directs moral approval towards the victims. In a Christian society, fictional heroes must be people who are persecuted or at least marginalised.

Nesta dissertação investigamos como a ficção envolve o leitor. Para isso, partimos da rejeição a Homero declarada por Calímaco, observando que a suposta diferença entre a literatura preferida pelo público e a literatura preferida pela crítica depende de dois fatores distintos. O primeiro é o simples fato de a crítica ler profissionalmente e o público ler por prazer. O segundo está relacionado à distinção entre recepção e uso da literatura proposta por C.S. Lewis. Na recepção, a obra tende a ser admirada por si; no uso, tende a ser instrumentalizada como suporte para um devaneio em que os desejos do próprio leitor são vicariamente satisfeitos. Observamos que essa devaneio, que Lewis chama de construção egoísta de castelos, e que inclui uma variante mórbida, tem um paralelo na noção girardiana do duplo angélico. Contudo, o devaneio depende da simpatia como definida por Adam Smith, a qual por sua vez depende de certa aprovação moral. Investigamos portanto o tipo de personagem que conquista a aprovação moral do leitor, contrastando os heróis homéricos com os cavaleiros cristãos a fim de verificar como o cristianismo dirige a aprovação moral para as vítimas, fazendo com que os heróis da ficção sejam pessoas perseguidas ou marginalizadas. / In this dissertation we investigate how fiction involves the reader. Starting Callimachuss rejection of Homer, we note that the supposed diference between the literature favoured by the public at large and the literature preferred by critics is actually twofold. First, critics read for business and the public reads for pleasure. Second, as proposed by C.S. Lewis, there is a distinction between the reception and use of literature. In reception, a work tends to be admired in itself, whereas in use it becomes a mere support for a sort of daydreaming in which the readers own desires are vicariously satisfied. We discuss this daydreaming called egotistic castle-building by Lewis, highlighting its morbid variant, which finds a parallel in the Girardian notion of the angelic double, developed from a reading of Proust. Now, as egotistic castle-building in its turn depends on sympathy as defined by Adam Smith, a concept which includes moral approval, we investigate the types of characters who obtain the moral approval of readers, contrasting the warriors from Homers poems with Christian knights in order to show that Christianity directs moral approval towards the victims. In a Christian society, fictional heroes must be people who are persecuted or at least marginalised.

La thèse constitue la première étude d’ensemble de l’œuvre poétique yiddish d’Élia Lévita (1469-1549) qui cherche à définir sa place dans la littérature de la Renaissance en analysant les transferts esthétiques et culturels ayant présidé à sa production. Elle situe l’œuvre vernaculaire de ce savant hébraïste, proche des humanistes chrétiens, dans les traditions poétiques juives hébraïques et yiddish et dans la logique d’une affirmation du rôle de l’écrivain et de la langue vernaculaire dans la société juive. Elle analyse également la portée des modèles extérieurs, chrétiens, en insistant sur l’inscription des romans de chevalerie de Lévita dans l’évolution générale du genre chevaleresque en Italie, et met en évidence le rôle fondamental qu’a joué l’Arioste, et en particulier le Roland furieux, dans le raffinement progressif du projet esthétique de l’auteur. Enfin, elle propose la première analyse d’un certain nombre de textes de la littérature yiddish ancienne, conservés dans des manuscrits, et fournit des arguments pour l’attribution de nouvelles œuvres à Lévita, dont un long poème satirique sur les femmes. Par son ampleur et par sa variété, l’œuvre vernaculaire d’Élia Lévita constitue non seulement la première œuvre moderne de la littérature yiddish mais aussi un cas particulièrement éclairant sur la diffusion des modèles esthétiques de la Renaissance dans des catégories ethniques (les juifs) et sociales (les classes populaires) que l’on aurait pu croire éloignées de ces mutations culturelles. / This PhD dissertation is the first study entirely dedicated to the poetical creation of Elia Levita in Yiddish (1469-1549) and aims at defining its place in Renaissance literature by proposing a detailed analysis of the esthetical and cultural transfers this work illustrates. It locates the vernacular production of this renowned Hebraist, who was acquainted with numerous Christian Humanists, inside the Yiddish and Hebrew poetical traditions and sheds light on the new functions endorsed by the writer and the vernacular language in Jewish society at the beginning of the modern era. It also discusses the influence of external – i.e. Christian – models on the poet and insists on the participation of Levita’s chivalric romances to the global evolution of this genre in Italian literature, by underlying, in particular, the essential role played by Ariost, and his Orlando Furioso, in the progressive refinement of the author poetical practice. Finally, it analyses, for the first time, some texts of Old Yiddish literature which were still buried in manuscripts, and argues for the attribution of new works to Elia Levita, among them, a long satire about women. Elia Levita’s vernacular work not only constitutes, by its size and variety, the first modern work of Yiddish literature but it is also a rich and enlightening example of the diffusion of Renaissance esthetical models inside ethnic and social groups (the Jews and popular classes) which one might have thought untouched by such cultural transformations.

Ce mémoire est une analyse comparative écocritique entre Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut, composé par Joseph Bédier en 1900, et ses sources médiévales principales : les poèmes du XIIIe siècle de Béroul, de Thomas d’Angleterre, d’Eilhart d’Oberg et de Gottfried de Strasbourg. L’objectif principal de notre étude est de chercher à savoir si la perception de la Nature dans le roman de Bédier diffère de celle des textes médiévaux. Pour atteindre ce but, nous dirigeons notre attention sur les descriptions des paysages sauvages et sur les épisodes où les forces de la Nature semblent influencer le déroulement des évènements du récit. Nous analysons ces passages, et nous les comparons avec les descriptions correspondantes tirées des sources de Bédier. Nos résultats montrent que, même si la représentation de la Nature est chez Bédier loin d’être unilatérale, elle témoigne généralement d’une vue plus positive de la nature sauvage par rapport aux textes médiévaux. De ce fait, le roman de Bédier s’éloigne de la tradition médiévale, qui consiste à voir les environnements sauvages comme étant inhospitaliers et périlleux, et s’approche plutôt de la tradition romantique qui célèbre les merveilles de la Nature. / This essay is a comparative ecocritical analysis of The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, composed by Joseph Bédier in 1900, and its principal medieval sources: the thirteenth-century poems of Béroul, Thomas of Britain, Eilhart von Oberge and Gottfried von Strassburg. The overall aim of the study is to investigate how the perception of Nature in Bédier’s work differs from that in the medieval texts. To meet this aim, we turn to the textual descriptions of wild landscapes and the episodes where the forces of Nature seem to have a powerful influence on the unfolding of the events in the story. These passages are analysed and compared with the corresponding descriptions in Bédier’s sources. Our results show that, while Bédier’s portrayal of Nature is by no means one-sided, it generally displays a more positive view of Nature and wilderness than the medieval texts. In this regard, Bédier’s novel moves away from the medieval tradition of imagining wild environments as inhospitable and perilous and approaches the romantic tradition of celebrating the wonders of Nature.