The following study of history through literature uses a French text composed by and for the court of Burgundy in the mid fifteenth century: the Cent nouvelles nouvelles. It demonstrates that philological interpretation of the text has floundered when it has ignored the historical context in which the work was composed. Alongside this critique, the thesis comes to the positive conclusion that it is valuable to restore an appreciation of the benefits of historical scholarship to the discipline of philology. In the first chapter, the case is made for reclaiming the text as a historical document on the basis of its context. Recent studies, which have insisted that the historical context of the work is unimportant, are examined critically, to establish the need for a historical reappraisal of the text, beginning where the pioneer archiviste-palaeographe Pierre Champion left off. In the second chapter, we see that both the traditional and more recent assumptions about the text, its authorship, date, and place in the canon of western European literature have to be reassessed. Through close study of manuscript and printed text, the textual tradition is asserted, and the Cent nouvelles nouvelles is restored to its historical milieu. Antecedents and analogue texts are examined in the context of the moral vision of the work as one which is similar to the Decameron's, though it involves an unrecorded deliberative process, which allows it to be considered as more of an aesthetic unity than philologists have recognised. The question of the Nouvelles' relationship to the contemporary literary context is examined in detail, particularly through an analysis of the issues of fashions in literary style, and the interplay of courtly with popular culture. This section is partly based on archival work. The third chapter, which is heavily based on chronicles and unpublished archival material, moves from the world to the text, to consider the men who made the text, and for whom the text was made. The immediate political context in which the work was conceived is shown to have a bearing on its form, and the raconteurs are replaced in their courtly milieu. We see that they were the closest to the duke, serving him in his household, his political network, his armies, his ideological aspirations, and his diplomacy. The network of sociability which underpinned the text made the Cent nouvelles nouvelles what it is: a Burgundian work from a particular time and place. Lastly, this chapter considers the raconteurs' contributions to the collection as extensions of their personalities, and as extensions of their careers of service, giving two particular examples in detail. The fourth chapter moves from the text to the world using the literature to throw light on the circumstances under which it was created. A sequence of individual stories (Nouvelles 2, 19, 53, 60, 63, 78, 83) are examined in their historical context, and explained in terms of the meaning they had when they were first recounted. The raconteurs' historical backgrounds, established in the previous chapter, prove invaluable in unlocking the particular significance of motifs, plots and jokes in the stories. We also see that philological appraisals which lack historical awareness are unable to appreciate the texts on their own terms. Nouvelles which have a basis in historical fact are considered alongside those which form part of a longstanding textual tradition. Both sorts of texts are shown to have a Burgundian specificity - a historical accent. The fifth chapter argues, on the basis of what has preceded it, that the method of restoring literary texts to a historical milieu is universal, even though not all texts may be as susceptible to such detailed analysis which was brought to bear on the Cent nouvelles nouvelles. It is contended that the evidential value of literature as historical document is more specific than it is general. Moreover, it is vital to ascertain what the literary text is most informative about, as well as what its limitations are as historical evidence. We see how postmodern ideas have taken root in philological theory. Cutting against postmodern theories about textuality and evidence, which have insisted that the historical context of the work is not merely unimportani but that it is irrelevant and unascertainahle, the conclusion argues for a return to the practice of setting texts in context. Appendix 1 deals with the codicology of MS Hunter 252, and compares the Verard text. Appendix 2 presents transcriptions of Nouvelle 63 from the manuscript, and two early printed versions. Appendix 3 demonstrates Verard's reuse of the woodcuts with which he decorated the Cent nouvelles nouvelles and emphasises that the commercial nature of his business impacted on aesthetic concerns. Appendix 4 deals with the question of the raconteurs that are difficult to identify, particularly the lords of Beauvoir and Villiers, and Caron.

The starting point for this dissertation was the fact that the Old English poem The Descent into Hell had received so little critical attention and was generally omitted from anthologies of Old English poetry. From close examination of the poem it became evident that the central focus was not the apocryphal story of Christ’s Descent, but on John the Baptist and Baptism. This thesis offers a reinterpretation of the poem’s central theme and emphasizes its poetic and stylistic qualities. In order to do that, a new edition of the poem was required. Also addressed in this thesis is an examination of the vexing question concerning the various lacunae that were the result of damage to the manuscript. This thesis focuses on re-interpretation, and the established text and translation included is the base for the subsequent literary analysis. The core of this thesis is a critical edition of the poem; the editorial methods used are described in detail on pages 11-20. Central to the main argument is that the poem’s current title, assigned by ASPR in 1936, misrepresents the theme of the poem, causing the reader to expect a work on the Descent, and thus being confused as a result. I argue rather that the poem illuminates the central Christian sacrament of Baptism. This study addresses the questions: What is the main theme? What is the poem’s didactic function? What literary approaches help convey the central message? What evidence suggests that a name change is justified? and What benefits can result from a name change? The first chapter highlights various linguistic features relevant for the editing of the poem and provides a summary of the main codicological characteristics of the manuscript in which the poem is preserved. Chapter II provides an examination of the theme of the descensus, and assesses its historiographical prominence in religious thought leading up to and including the Anglo-Saxon period. My argument disproves the current interpretation of the poem as a descensus narrative, although the image of the Descent still plays a symbolic role. Chapter III provides a literary analysis of the poem. The purpose of this chapter is to enrich modern scholarly perceptions of the Exeter Book poem, offer a more suitable title and contribute to continued scholarly discussion and analysis of the Exeter Book and its compilation. Chapter IV assesses the poem within a relevant comparative context, whilst further reinforcing its central theme and function. With respect to editing the text, effort has been made to retain the manuscript reading except where there are obvious errors, lacunae or strong evidence necessitating change. As this is a critical edition, the Anglo-Saxon poem has been presented here using modern conventions of capitalization, punctuation, caesuras and line divisions. However, since the manuscript that contains the poem is damaged, I have not included conjectures in instances where little or no evidence would justify emendations. In instances where there are identifiable alterations to the original text then such emendations have been noted in the Apparatus and Commentary. The translation offers a clear and idiomatic rendition of the poem which endeavours to convey the meaning of the text rather than sacrifice meaning for stylistic reasons. This dissertation also provides a diplomatic transcription and presents digital reconstructions of the manuscript, offering a variety of interpretations of the poem. The guiding principles for this dissertation have been to create an edition that reveals the poem’s main theme of Baptism and to demonstrate that the liturgical structure, aided by allusions and dramatic effects functions didactically. Undoubtedly because of the lacunae and contextual problems, The Descent into Hell has become a somewhat marginalized poem in the study of Anglo-Saxon verse; however, the textual analysis in this dissertation provides a guide towards understanding the poem’s main theme and offers fresh insight into its place and significance within the corpus of Old English poetry.

This collation of 8 of von Soden's manuscripts is a companion work to my earlier investigation into his manuscripts. A similar division of this thesis is employed, with the nucleus in sections III, IV & V. Section III, with the general and individual descriptions of the MSS involved, is an attempt to bring together in one place all the known details about the history, the format, the scribe, the script and any other relevant material. Section IV contains the Synoptic Collation of the Group in Acts and the Catholic Epistles. Section V is itself divided into six parts and is concerned with the singular and subsingular readings. The conclusion is that neither can logically be separated from one another as the interrelationship of individual MSS is far more complex than von Soden makes evident.

Une traduction fictive (ou pseudo-traduction) est un texte qui, ayant été directement écrit dans une langue, se présente comme traduit d’une autre, réelle ou imaginaire. Peu étudié jusqu’à la fin du XXe siècle, le cas n’en est pas moins fréquent, illustré par un bon nombre de romans célèbres : Don Quichotte, les Lettres persanes, Le manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse, Le château d’Otrante, parmi d’autres. Pendant longtemps on a tenu pour négligeable la fiction de la traduction, la considérant comme un procédé inoffensif, un amusant artifice littéraire. Convention souvent assumée de manière explicite par les auteurs qui y recourent, le phénomène n’a encore été que peu envisagé dans sa dimension historique. C’est donc à retrouver les raisons de l’émergence d’un tel motif dans le genre romanesque et à décrire les moments de sa formalisation topique que l’on voudrait s’attacher. L’enquête, qui remonte aux premiers romans médiévaux pour aboutir à leur dernier retentissement dans l’œuvre de Cervantès, s’apparente ainsi à une généalogie, au sens rigoureux que lui donnait Nietzsche, puisqu’il s’agit de réinjecter l’histoire dans un lieu commun, de redynamiser ce que la tradition a figé en un canevas immédiatement reconnaissable. / A fictitious translation (or pseudo-translation) is a text written in a peculiar language but introduced as a real or imaginary translation in a foreign language. While such fictitious translations did not go through frequent studies until the end of the twentieth century, they are quite common and regularly illustrated by many famous works, among which Don Quijote, Le Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse and The Castle of Otranto to name a few. For long translation as fiction has only been considered as literary device to entertain. Hence, this attitude towards the fictitious translation may partially explain why such literary phenomenon was never perceived within its historical context, notwithstanding it was explicitly used as a literary convention by many authors. Therefore, we should devote ourselves to discern the motivations that drove the emergence of pseudo-translation in the novel ’genre. Besides, it is also important to highlight the course it took to finally become known as topos. From this perspective, this research, which is a genealogical one as defined by Nietzsche, explores the role of translation from the first medieval novels to their last echo in Cervantes’s work; in an attempt to reinject a historical dynamic in a common place long unchanged.

The thesis aims to analyse the reception of the ancient Greek drama by the Italian scholar Ettore Romagnoli (1871-1938), considering his critical essays, translations, and theatre performances. The mutual interaction of these three aspects represents the methodological approach to understand how Romagnoli conceived the interpretation of Greek theatre and its dramatic production in the modern age. The thesis consists of three parts. The first one analyses Romagnoli’s ideas on classical studies and the modern translations of ancient Greek poetry within the Italian culture in the early 20th Century and in opposition to the positivist approach in the classical philology and the Neo Idealistic Aesthetics. Furthermore, an exam of the entire work of Romagnoli as stage director is offered, along with the reconstruction of a mainly unknow controversy after his dismissal from the National Institute of Ancient Drama. The second part analyses Romagnoli’s academic studies on the hypothetical performance of ancient tragedy and comedy and the evolution of Greek poetry from music. It also identifies the possible influence of these theories within his own translations and performances. The last part deals with two examples of translations for the stage: the "Agamemnon" (1914) and the "Bacchae" (1922). On the basis of theatre translation studies and thanks to Romagnoli’s editions of the two works, both placed at his archive and library in Rovereto and rich of notes by the translator himself, the analysis attempts to examine the hypothetical performability and speakability of the two texts and whether cuts or modifications were introduced during the stage productions. / La ricerca si propone di condurre un esame il più possibile esaustivo dell’opera del grecista Ettore Romagnoli (1871-1938) come esegeta, traduttore e metteur en scène del dramma antico. Grazie all’analisi della reciproca interazione di questi tre aspetti si è tentato di comprendere come il grecista abbia concepito l’interpretazione del teatro greco e ne abbia progettato la ‘reinvenzione’ drammatica. Il lavoro si suddivide in tre parti. Nella prima viene condotta una ricostruzione della carriera di Romagnoli nel contesto storico-culturale di inizio Novecento, analizzando le sue idee sul rinnovamento degli studi classici e sull’aggiornamento delle traduzioni della poesia greca. In questo quadro assumono notevole rilievo le polemiche condotte da Romagnoli in opposizione alle maggiori correnti accademico-culturali dell’epoca: l’estetica crociana e la filologia scientifica. Inoltre, l’analisi prende in esame l’idea di messinscena e le produzioni dirette da Romagnoli a partire dagli spettacoli universitari (1911-1913) fino alle rappresentazioni teatrali svolte a Siracusa e in altri teatri e siti archeologici d’Italia (1914-1937), insieme alla ricostruzione di una terza polemica, definita ‘siracusana’, che coinvolse il grecista in seguito alla sua estromissione dall’Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico. La seconda parte prende in considerazione gli studi scientifici e divulgativi di Romagnoli circa la ricostruzione dell’ipotetica performace della tragedia e della commedia di quinto secolo a.C. e l’evoluzione della poesia greca dalla musica, individuando, inoltre, le possibili rielaborazioni di queste teorie all’interno delle traduzioni e degli spettacoli teatrali. Nella terza parte si analizzano le traduzioni di "Agamennone" e "Baccanti" che Romagnoli portò in scena a Siracusa. Si è tentato di valutare, anche sulla base degli studi teorici relativi alla traduzione per il teatro, quanto l’attenzione alla ‘performabilità’ e alla ‘dicibilità’ del testo ne avesse influenzato la composizione oppure se fossero stati introdotti tagli e modifiche in fase di produzione degli spettacoli. Le due edizioni di "Agamennone" (1914) e "Baccanti" (1922) che facevano parte della biblioteca privata di Romagnoli presentano infatti annotazioni dell’autore riconducibili proprio ai suoi allestimenti per gli spettacoli al Teatro greco di Siracusa. Il lavoro ha potuto avvalersi di scritti inediti, articoli di giornale e documenti privati custoditi negli Archivi della Fondazione INDA e presso il Fondo Romagnoli, dal 2016 proprietà dell’Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati e attualmente in catalogazione presso la Biblioteca civica “G. Tartarotti” di Rovereto.