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In light of often derogatory and unqualified assessments of Yiddish literature adapted from German narrative models, this thesis will propose a different approach to viewing these adaptations. Building on methodologies and frameworks of analyses developed in contemporary medieval scholarship, this thesis pushes for a re-assessment of this literature and suggests a flexible model of adaptation that views adaptation as a creative interaction between two texts. In response to unsatisfactory approaches to judaizing strategies found in Yiddish texts adapted from German literature, this thesis also suggests a different approach. Judaizing processes can either be part of overall processes of adaptation aimed at coding the text as Jewish within an overarching framework of renewed cultural specificity; or, they can function as translation principles by achieving equivalence with the original model. To illustrate both ends of this scale of adaptation, this thesis centres on two early modern Yiddish texts: the Kuhbukh (Verona, 1595) and the Siben weisen mainster bichel (Basel, 1602). The four chapters at the core of this thesis develop and apply extensive frameworks of literary analyses which enable us to rigorously assess the differing levels of adaptations (translation and Wiedererzählen) of both texts. This thesis pushes for a future reassessment of other popular Yiddish narratives adapted from German models. This could ideally be achieved by a positioning of each individual Yiddish text based on German narratives on the proposed scale of adaptation. This should be backed by verifiable methodologies and analyses devoid of unjustifiably dismissive opinions. This would consequently move scholarship towards structured, methodological analyses of early Yiddish secular literature.

The aim of the present study is to paint an overall picture of how Voltaire interacted with the books that made up his personal library. Situated at the crossroads between history of the book, literary history and literary studies in the standard meaning of the term, it seeks to deepen our understanding of the ways in which Voltaire used his books and of the different types of notes that he left in them. These notes are of course texts in themselves – short ones, to be sure, but texts all the same – and their material, literary and polemical significance have never before been studied in depth. We begin by classifying the marginalia according to the function they seem to have played for Voltaire and, based on their material characteristics, by developing methodologies to analyse these short manuscripts, along with the non-verbal markings that accompany them. An analysis follows of the ways in which Voltaire used the white spaces in his books, then of the links that can be established between the signs of his reading and the genesis of his published works. Finally, we study the poetics of the marginal notes as well as the dynamics at work in the annotated library as a whole. Throughout, Voltaire’s notes and reading habits are placed in the context of the critical literature that has grown up around the subject of marginalia. Along the way, we compare his marginal notes to those of other literary figures of the period, for the subject of this study is clearly the marginalia of a writer, which are necessarily inextricably linked to his principal activity – writing. Indeed, one might speak of an interpenetration, of a blurring of boundaries between reading and writing. Beyond the marks of Voltaire's reading, the study of marginalia raises questions that are relevant for other non-canonical and paratextual materials. To place them in the spotlight transforms their status, and a note that was 'marginal' comes to be considered a text in its own right.

‘Poetry’ insisted Ezra Pound, ‘is a composition of words set to music’: his Cantos remembered ‘Uncle Willie’ downstairs composing, singing poetry to himself. This study examines the nature and effects of W.B.Yeats’s idiosyncratic but profound sense of music. For his poems were compositions set to music. They were saturated with musical themes; syntactically he professed to write for the ear rather than the eye; and he flung himself repeatedly into the breach between music and words, composing ballads, songs, and plays with music, and performing poetry with musical instruments. My thesis is that nature of poetry, spoken, read or sung, obsessed Yeats, and I hold it self evident that such an acutely self-conscious poetry will articulate this obsession: to use his own imagery, will bear the scars of its own birth. What follows is a study of meaning, obsession, and influence, beginning with what Yeats knew and how he came to poetry: his father’s and his own vocalizations of the musical preoccupations of Scott and Shelley, viewed through the annotations of ‘the first book [he] knew Shelley in’ and the solipsistic singers and instrumentalists of his early verse. The theme of chapter two is Ireland: the musical resonances of Anglo Irish ballads and Irish verse are viewed through Yeats’s aurally-oriented canon-formation, as we examine his instinctual recitations and deliberate approach to Irish folksong through the mediation of Douglas Hyde. The aesthetics of Wagner, Pater, and the French symbolistes frame the third chapter, which describes how poetry might approach the condition of music in the motivic organization of The Wind Among the Reeds. In chapter four the impact of Nietzsche’s profoundly musical philosophy is correlated for the first time with the exact moments of Yeats’s discovery of his texts, as Yeats’s plays and poetry move from ‘Apollonian’ languor to ‘Dionysian’ energy, from dream to song and dance. My final chapter uncovers the long history of the practical experiments Yeats made to perform poetry with a ‘psaltery’, and their resonating afterlife in subsequent poetry and poets. No musician himself, Yeats’s musical sense has until now been entirely dismissed: this study shows how central it is to his art and to an understanding of the dominant aesthetic of the age.

This is the first full-scale study of Robert Greene’s drama, offering a new interpretation of the dramatic oeuvre of one Shakespeare’s most neglected literary predecessors. Recent criticism has emphasised Greene’s pioneering role as an author of Elizabethan romance. Yet, in contrast to the numerous prose works which were printed during his life time, his drama, which was printed posthumously, has received little attention. Greene’s plays are visually magnificent: madmen wander on stage waving the severed limbs of their victims (Orlando Furioso, c. 1591), the dead are resurrected (James IV, c. 1590), tyrants gruesomely mutilate their subjects (Selimus, c. 1591-4), extravagant stage properties such as the mysterious brazen head prophesy to the audience (Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, c. 1589), and sinners are swallowed into hell accompanied by fireworks (A Looking Glass for London and England, c. 1588). This thesis will examine the way in which these stage images evoke astonishment, which in turn encourages the audience to contemplate their symbolic significance. The triumph of Greene’s drama is not one of effects over affect; it lies in the interaction between effect and affect. My principal objective in this thesis is to develop a methodological strategy which will allow critics of non-Shakespearean plays, which frequently lack a substantial performance tradition, to study drama through the lens of performance. Engaging purposively with anachronism as an enabling mode of linking old and new, this thesis will draw analogies between the early modern stage and modern cinema in order to emphasise the relevance of early modern drama to today’s ocularcentric world, a relevance that more historical theoretical approaches would seek to deny. My opening chapter will try to establish Greene’s dramatic canon and assess the critical reception of Greene’s plays. Drawing on material from Greene’s entire oeuvre, Chapter Two will outline my methodological and conceptual approach. This chapter will include an extended analysis of Friar Bacon’s discussion of the ‘strategy with cunning shows’ in John of Bordeaux (JB. 735). Launching into detailed studies of specific spectacles, Chapter Three focuses on Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene’s collaborative effort, the biblical drama A Looking Glass for London and England. During the play, Prophet Jonah is ‘cast out of the whale’s belly upon the stage’ (LG. IV.i.1460-1). Focusing on this stage spectacle, this chapter seeks to emphasise the commercial appeal of this biblical drama. Examining another stage property, Chapter Four will explore the melodramatic and sensational potential of the tomb stage property in Greene’s James IV. Examining the apparent tension between the play’s two presenters, I will demonstrate that Bohan, a cynical Scot, and Oberon, the King of the Fairies, proffer two distinct, but not mutually exclusive, ways of conceiving of and interpreting theatrical spectacle. Completing my study of spectacular stage properties, Chapter Five examines the symbolic significance of the brazen head, which appears in two of Greene’s plays: Alphonsus, King of Aragon and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. In both plays, the brazen head becomes an object of excessive or supreme devotion as either a religious idol or a secular deity. The brazen head is perceived as monstrous not simply because it is a source of horror or astonishment but because it represents the misplaced veneration or worship of something other than God. Turning away from stage properties, my final two chapters look at how Greene exploited specific stage conventions. Directing my attention towards Greene’s Orlando Furioso (c. 1591), I will argue that the figure of Orlando Furioso bequeathed an enduring legacy to early modern theatrical discourse, contributing to the convention of the mad poet, which would be replicated and parodied by a new generation of dramatists. Orlando’s behaviour, which rapidly alternates between that of a madman and that of a poet, forces the audience to contemplate the link between the mania of the mentally ill and the melancholia of the creative genius. Ridiculing the concept of furor poeticus, Greene’s play interrogates the belief that great writers are divinely inspired by God through ecstatic revelation. My final chapter will explore the aesthetics of violence in Selimus. A relatively recent addition to the Greene canon, Selimus depicts the rise of an anti-hero amidst a cycle of brutal violence. My reading of this play posits Selimus as a surrogate playwright, arguing that the semiotics of dismemberment allows Greene to interrogate the concept of artistic autonomy. Widespread indifference to Greene’s work has facilitated critical blindness to the powerful aesthetic appeal of spectacle in early modern drama. This reassessment of Robert Greene’s dramatic oeuvre offers a new perspective on the aesthetics of spectacle in early modern drama.

Throughout history, there have been playful prefaces to literature (or in classical oratory, before display pieces). But German examples written by authors around 1800 to their own works, together with contemporary, self-authored prefaces to speculative philosophy, constitute a peculiarly paradoxical text type. Once literature was conceived as an autonomous domain rather than as a branch of general learning; as a popular book market took hold; and once systematic philosophy competed with literature’s broad acclaim as well as intellectual independence, the preface became not only a pragmatic, but also a creative and conceptual problem. Hence the preface became complicated as a form, in a broadly Romantic tradition of thought in which every act of genuine reflection was understood to expose epistemological contradiction. After my general, theoretical Preface and my comparative, historical Introduction, I focus on three preface paradoxes and three case studies of remarkably complex textuality: on Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel. Most notable among their prefatory texts are the prefaces to Werther (1774), to a fictive second edition of Quintus Fixlein (1797) and to Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807). This trajectory is a story that begins with literary creativity and moves towards greater philosophical intricacy. The significance of my study is threefold. First and foremost, considering prefaces in this period of German literature and philosophy complements and augments the negative, subjective Early German Romantic idea of irony, Romantic textual fragmentation, as well as Jean Paul’s and Hegel’s literary and philosophically informed attempts to render both concepts and their manifestation on the page more positive and objective. Fragments are conventionally conceived as additive pieces, fortifying or undermining works. This conception can hold true for prefaces, including those by Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel. At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, though, a number of writers of fragments argued that their works should be understood as wholes. Precisely some prefaces by Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel can be read so paradoxically: as unifying, wholesome (in a Sentimental sense) and systematic fragments respectively. Second and third, I show the wider importance of the German preface at the turn of the nineteenth century. Authors around 1800 not only displayed, but discovered and debated a prefatory paradoxicality that we encounter in post-Romantic, post-Structuralist and post-modern literature, theory and philosophy, too. Moreover, I demonstrate the ways in which prefaces by particularly Jean Paul and Hegel influenced especially Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Derrida.

This thesis brings to light evidence for the circulation and first-hand reception of Aristotle's Poetics in sixteenth-century England. Though the Poetics upended literary thinking on the Continent in the period, it has long been considered either unavailable in England, linguistically inaccessible to the Greekless English, or thoroughly mediated for English readers by Italian criticism. This thesis revisits the evidentiary basis for each of these claims in turn. A survey of surviving English booklists and library catalogues, set against the work's comprehensive sixteenth-century print-history, demonstrates that the Poetics was owned by and readily accessible to interested readers; two appendices list verifiable and probable owners of the Poetics respectively. Detailed philological analysis of passages from Sir Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poesie proves that he translated directly from the Greek; his and his contemporaries' reading methods indicate the text circulated bilingually as standard. Nor was Sidney’s polyglot access unusual in literary circles: re-examination of the history of Greek education in sixteenth-century England indicates that Greek literacy was higher and more widespread than traditional histories of scholarship have allowed. On the question of mediation, a critical historiography makes clear that the inherited assumption of English reliance on Italian intermediaries for classical criticism has drifted far from the primary evidence. Under these reconstituted historical conditions, some of the outstanding episodes in the sixteenth-century English reception of the Poetics from John Cheke and Roger Ascham in the 1540s to Sidney and John Harington in the 1580s and 1590s are reconsidered as articulate evidence of reading, thinking about, and responding to Aristotle's defining contribution to Renaissance literary thought.

L’influence littéraire exercée par l'Espagne du Siècle d’or sur la France du premier XVIIe siècle est liée à un ample mouvement éditorial. Cette thèse, qui associe histoire du livre et histoire littéraire, étudie les traductions françaises de textes espagnols qui ont circulé en France entre 1600 et 1660 – traductions qui concernent des textes de toute nature (religieux, littéraires, scientifiques, techniques...). Pour évaluer l’ampleur de ce mouvement éditorial, une enquête bibliométrique est d’abord réalisée. Elle permet de reconstituer l’histoire de cette diffusion par l’imprimé. On identifie les principaux foyers de production et on examine la production des officines de librairie engagées dans ce marché. L’analyse se porte ensuite sur l’activité de traduction elle-même, dans la diversité de ses pratiques. Les profils des principaux traducteurs d’espagnol en français sont distingués : le traducteur professionnel, l’amateur éclairé, l’imprimeur, le religieux, le médecin etc. Une attention particulière est accordée aux hommes de lettres qui tentent de concilier un travail de plume mal considéré avec leurs ambitions littéraires. Les pratiques des traducteurs sont enfin cernées par l’analyse des textes et de leur « mise en livre », en comparant différentes traductions (concurrentes ou successives) d’un même texte. Les motivations diverses de ces versions et la spécificité de chaque projet d’écriture et de publication sont ainsi cernées. Portant sur un large pan de la production écrite en français souvent délaissé par l'histoire littéraire, ce travail sur la pénétration de la culture espagnole en France et sur le monde des traducteurs interroge aussi la relation entre écriture et publication, et sur le rôle de « l’éditorial » dans la construction de l’autorité littéraire. / The literary influence exercised by Golden Age Spain on France in the first half of the 17th century is related to a very considerable mass of editorial activity. This thesis, which combines the history of the book and literary history, studies French translations of Spanish texts which circulated in France between 1600 and 1660 - translations concerning texts of all kinds (religious, literary, scientific, technical, etc.).In order to evaluate this editorial activity, a bibliometric enquiry must first be carried out. This enquiry allows us to reconstitute the history of of the circulation of this material in print. The principal centres of production are identified and the production of the workshops of the booksellers’ operating in this market are examined. The analysis then shifts to the activity of translation itself, in all its diversity. The profiles of the different principal translators from Spanish to French are laid out: the professional translator, the enlightened amateur, the printer, the cleric, the physician, etc. Particular attention is paid to men of letters who attempt to conciliate what is perceived as lowly hackwork with their literary ambitions. Finally, the translators’ practices themselves are the object of study, through comparison, using textual analysis as well as examining questions of format and layout, of different (concurrent or successive) translations of the same text. Account is thus made of the diverse motivations of these versions and the specificity of each writing project and publication. Taking as its base a large swathe of writing produced in French often neglected by literary history, this study of the penetration of Spanish culture in France and of the world of translators looks anew at the relation between writing and publication, as well as at the editorial role in the construction of literary legitimacy.

O objetivo deste trabalho é perscrutar a construção do lugar leitor no universo escolar por meio da análise dos discursos de professores e alunos a respeito da leitura. A reflexão levada a cabo norteou-se pelas seguintes questões: de qual maneira o discurso sobre essa prática institui-se nas coordenadas escolares? Quais significados de leitura e de leitor constituem-se nos/pelos discursos dos professores e alunos? A fim de aprofundarmos o tema, focalizamos inicialmente a emergência do leitor na Literatura. Esse aspecto norteou, sob um determinado viés, a concepção sobre leitor e leitura que se produziu teoricamente, principalmente no século XX, a partir da Teoria Literária, da Lingüística e da própria História da Leitura. Como procedimento metodológico, foram eleitos dois pilares mestres: a Análise de Discurso e a Psicologia Institucional. Foi então analisado o material discursivo oriundo de 12 entrevistas (seis em escola pública, seis em escola privada) realizadas com um professor e um aluno de cada série inicial dos ciclos de Ensino Fundamental I primeira série; Ensino Fundamental II quinta série; e da última série do Ensino Médio terceiro ano. Considerando a esfera institucional das práticas escolares de leitura, organizaram-se categorias temáticas que possibilitaram a análise dos depoimentos. Essa categorização tomou como base três temas associados à arquitetura que, por analogia, descrevem algumas dimensões daquelas práticas: o arquiteto, o morador e a casa. Dessa visada sobre os dados, pode-se notar que a construção do lugar leitor no universo escolar edifica-se a partir de tensões, as quais constituem uma espécie de paradoxo instituinte desse lugar. O lugar leitor encontra-se fortemente edificado, mas sempre incompleto. Ele nunca parece resultar pleno; antes se apresenta como ocasião de descontinuidade, instabilidade e, portanto, (re)construção permanente. / The aim of this paper was to scan the construction of reader place at scholarly universe. It was possible by the analysis of teachers and pupils discourses about Reading. This theme was proposed based on the following questions: how is the discourse about reading practice inserted into school coordinates? How does the reading practice work at school? Which meanings of Reading and of Reader can be found at teachers and pupils discourses? In order to deepen our knowledge about the theme, we focused on the reader as they were treated in Literature. This aspect has driven the studies about Reading, mainly in the 20th Century, in Literature Theory, Linguistics and History of Reading itself. Methodologically, this study was based on two theories: Discourse Analysis and Institutional Psychology. They were the basis for the analysis of the discursive material from 12 interviews. These interviews were made with one teacher and one pupil from each class of first, fifth and eleventh grades from six public schools and six private ones. From these interviews, and considering the institutional sphere as well as the value of Reading for school, analytical categories were organised. Using these categories, it was possible to analyse the interviews and the discourses emergent from them. The categorical classes were based on three themes, analogically related to Architecture, which can describe the Reading practice at school: the architect, the inhabitant, and the house. From the point of view of the data collected, it was possible to realise that the construction of reading place at scholarly universe is structured on the same tensions which build up a kind of institutionalised paradox of reader place. It never seems to be plain, although strongly built, it is always incomplete. It shows instability, a reason for its permanent (re)construction.

Cette thèse de doctorat se fonde sur l'analyse d'un corpus de 157 recueils manuscrit s utilisés en France ou en Angleterre entre le XIIIe et le XVe siècle, et dont le contenu, majoritairement en français ou en anglais, est marqué par une certaine diversité. A travers l'analyse codicologique de la forme matériel le et du contenu de ces recueils, elle vise à comprendre leurs modes de composition et la diversité des intérêts des lecteurs dans le domaine vernaculaire. Une première partie méthodologique expose la méthode de constitution du corpus, le cadre de classement utilisé pour catégoriser les textes, et les différents types de recueil du point de vue matériel. Une typologie synthétique des recueils est ensuite proposée. Dans un deuxième temps est analysée la place de ces recueils dans la production manuscrite, puis les logiques à l'œuvre dans l' utilisation des livrets (unités codicologiques produites séparément ou ensemble) et des rajouts manuscrits pour leur composition. Les analyses de la troisième partie se concentrent sur les intérêts, les catégories culturelles et les pratiques d'écriture des lecteurs, tels que ces recueils les révèlent. Après avoir tenté une étude globale des intérêts des lecteurs en fonction de leur position sociale, on propose une analyse de la divergence des modes de réception del' histoire en France et en Angleterre . La dimension pragmatique des recueils anglais est ensuite étudiée dans son contexte social et historique, de même que les interactions entre le droit, la médecine et la culture vernaculaire. / This thesis studies a corpus of 157 manuscript miscellanies used in France and in England between the 13th and the 15th century, and which contents, mostly in French or in English, are somehow diverse. Through the codicological analysis of the material form and the contents ofthose miscellanies, this thesis aims at understanding their mode of composition and the diversity of the readers's interests in vernacular matters. The firsl part explains the way the manuscripts were selected, the categories used to classify their texts, and the different physical types of miscellanies. A comprehensive typology of those miscellanies is then proposed. The second part focuses on the importance of miscellanies in the global manuscript production , and on the logic of their composition through the use ofbooklets, tillers and notes. The third part of this thesis studies the interests, the cultural framework and the writing habits ofreaders as they are revealed in the corpus.First, their interests are tentative ly confronted to their social starus. Then, a comparison between the ways history was received in France and in England shows a divergence in this regard. The pragmatic habits and tastes ofEnglish readers is then studied in its social and historical context, as are the interactions between law, medicine and vemacular culture.