This work deals with the existence of a wide body of ballads in Italy during the romantic era. It disproves Giovanni Berchet's contention in his "Lettera semiseria", the manifesto of Italian Romanticism. He argued that Italy did not have popular literature and, being unaware of an existing tradition, he translated and proposed two of Burger's ballads as examples to be followed. / The first two chapters of this thesis concentrate on the origins of the popular ballad and its first occurrence in Italy. / The third chapter examines the major ballad writers in Italy. Particular attention is given to Luigi Carrer and Giovanni Prati. / The final chapters are a discussion of Italy's minor ballad writers, followed by a conclusion.

The purpose of the present work is to analyze the function of three major conventional scenes, broadly termed topoi, in three pastoral plays: the Aminta of Tasso, Guarini's Pastor Fido and the Bergerie by Montchrestien. The initial part of this study presents the basic features of pastoral drama in the last quarter of the sixteenth century in both Italy and France. It is concerned especially with some of the theoretical dicta expressed at that time and with the manner in which they may have influenced the handling of major dramatic scenes by different playwrights. Particular attention is devoted to the acrimonious querelle that took place around the Pastor Fido. The successful defense of Guarini's tragicommedia pastorale was, in fact, of great significance in the development of the pastoral dramatic genre because it guaranteed the dignity of pastoral tragicomedy alongside the established forms of tragedy and comedy. The main part of the dissertation is a detailed textual study of three major recurring scenes in pastoral drama; namely, those involving Cupid, the Golden Age theme and the Satyr. The use of each of these famous topological structures reveals, of course, the dramatist's conception of them and, more importantly, his audience's expectations. Whether a particular topos is elaborated more decoratively than dramatically, it must have an integral function in the structure of the play. Contrary to the entrenched opinion on pastoral drama, these were plays that were written in order to be staged, an important fact which is too often forgotten and only recently, thanks to the work of such critics as Clubb, Igliozzi and Dalla Valle, has been given due emphasis. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Fashion in the Renaissance became intensely political, highly gendered, and anatomized (i.e. emphasizing human anatomy rather than masking it). Court culture placed a particular emphasis on the body of the courtier, as skills such as dancing and dressing fashionably became crucial to political success in states throughout Europe. In sixteenth-century Florence, the Medici attempted to install a duchy in what was at the time a republican city (with strong republican heritage). Florentine fears of foreign domination and resentment towards non-republican forms of government made the Medici’s task nearly impossible. Fashion became a primary pillar of the Medicean political agenda, as the first members of the Medici family to hold official power in the Florentine Grand Duchy (and their wives) dressed quite modestly in comparison to other sixteenth-century heads of state, so as not to appear to have imperial or monarchical pretensions and thus arouse dangerous levels of antipathy from their Florentine subjects. The first Grand Duchess, Eleonora di Toledo, and the second, Giovanna d’Austria, faced an additional challenge as foreign brides marrying into the Medici duchy, as they were themselves representatives of the influence of imperial power in Florentine politics. They both were faced with countless factors to consider as they made choices about how to dress, and each choice had political, social, and economic implications and consequences.

While personal accounts and interpretive overviews have been written about the allied invasion and occupation of Italy during World War II, this study is the first to utilize recently published American Foreign Relations volumes dealing with the wartime conferences. Organized into five chapters, the study surveys allied conferences leading to the invasion of Italy, Italian political developments during occupation, and allied relief and rehabilitation efforts. The conclusions are that Churchill, while correct in .assessing Italy's strategic value, undermined his own policy through political meddling and a desire for revenge. In combination with Roosevelt, whose interest in Italy was political and at best marginal, Churchill needlessly delayed stabilization of Italian economic and political conditions.

The study examines cognitive rationality as to()l for problemsolving within the context of a movement from determinism and monolithic universal Reason towards indeterminism and plurality. It is contended that theories of literature do not provide an adequate conceptual framework, and therefore, extensive use is made of pluralist fallibilism (Popper, Helmut Spinner) and chaos theory. The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche is viewed as a decisive influence in the shift towards plurality and scepticism. In chapter 2, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, a novel by Agatha Christie and Gaston Leroux's Le mystere de Ia chambre jaune are discussed as examples of optimistic rationalism. Chapter 3 indicates that Eco's II nome della rosa emphasizes the conjectural nature of truth and objective knowledge, underpinned by a 'soft' rationalism which amounts to monopolistic pluralism. Chapter 4 analyses the defeat of cognitive rationality by the complex interaction of a multiplicity of independent causal series. The detectives' relationship with the feminine exemplifies the interpenetration of rationality and the instinctual, while the mystery of the feminine is a metaphor for impenetrable complexity. Chapter 5 shows that hypotheses concerning random complex systems remain inconclusive. However, as the trajectory of a complex system can be regulated, so reason can be viewed as the underlying regulative pattern (strange attractorl for an infinite proliferation of hypotheses. Thus, despite .shifting conceptions of rationality and order, all the detectives in the study accept objective truth as regulative principle and are involved in a search for objective knowledge / Afrikaans & Theory of Literature / D.Litt. et Phil. (Theory of literature)

The study examines cognitive rationality as to()l for problemsolving within the context of a movement from determinism and monolithic universal Reason towards indeterminism and plurality. It is contended that theories of literature do not provide an adequate conceptual framework, and therefore, extensive use is made of pluralist fallibilism (Popper, Helmut Spinner) and chaos theory. The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche is viewed as a decisive influence in the shift towards plurality and scepticism. In chapter 2, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, a novel by Agatha Christie and Gaston Leroux's Le mystere de Ia chambre jaune are discussed as examples of optimistic rationalism. Chapter 3 indicates that Eco's II nome della rosa emphasizes the conjectural nature of truth and objective knowledge, underpinned by a 'soft' rationalism which amounts to monopolistic pluralism. Chapter 4 analyses the defeat of cognitive rationality by the complex interaction of a multiplicity of independent causal series. The detectives' relationship with the feminine exemplifies the interpenetration of rationality and the instinctual, while the mystery of the feminine is a metaphor for impenetrable complexity. Chapter 5 shows that hypotheses concerning random complex systems remain inconclusive. However, as the trajectory of a complex system can be regulated, so reason can be viewed as the underlying regulative pattern (strange attractorl for an infinite proliferation of hypotheses. Thus, despite .shifting conceptions of rationality and order, all the detectives in the study accept objective truth as regulative principle and are involved in a search for objective knowledge / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / D.Litt. et Phil. (Theory of literature)

Jusqu’en 1481, Marseille fait partie d’un Etat indépendant, le comté de Provence et en est la plus grande ville sans en être toutefois la capitale. Or, en 1481, le dernier comte de Provence meurt sans héritier et il lègue l’ensemble de ses territoires au roi de France, Louis XI. Cependant, en Provence, les structures et pratiques politiques sont différentes du royaume de France, et Marseille appartient à un espace politico-culturel méditerranéen où la vie politique des villes est marquée par le modèle de la commune, également présent en Italie du nord et du centre. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’observer le passage d’un espace politico-culturel marqué par l’héritage des comtes de Provence et des cadres politiques de la commune à un espace politico-culturel dominé par le roi de France, où la relation entre le souverain et les villes s’inscrit dans le cadre de la « bonne ville ». Pour mener à bien ce travail, nous avons choisi de nous intéresser au conseil de ville, qui est la pièce maîtresse du pouvoir municipal, et à ses membres, afin d’observer les mutations introduites par ce transfert de souveraineté. Nous avons décidé de voir ces mutations en ce qui concerne la culture et l’identité du groupe dirigeant de la ville afin de s'inscrire dans une histoire culturelle du pouvoir municipal. Toute ville peut se définir comme un système politique où différents pouvoirs coexistent et se réajustent en permanence les uns par rapport aux autres au gré des événements et des changements qui peuvent surgir. La première partie examine les réajustements aux XIVe et XVe siècles à Marseille, qui permettent au pouvoir municipal de devenir dominant à Marseille face aux autres pouvoirs sous le règne de René Ier d’Anjou (1434-1480). La deuxième partie étudie les hommes à le tête du conseil de ville, les fondements de leur pouvoir et leurs modifications autour du rattachement de 1481. Enfin, la dernière partie examine les changements de culture et d’identité du groupe introduits par le transfert de souveraineté et les nouvelles ambitions en Méditerranée du groupe dirigeant, qui jettent les bases d’une véritable thalassocratie qui s’épanouira au XVIIe siècle. / Until 1481, Marseilles is a part of an independant state, the county of Provence and it’s the biggest city, even if it’s not the capital. But, in 1481, the last count of Provence died without a son and he gives in his testament all his goods and territories to the king of France Louis XI. After that, Marseilles, like the rest of the former county is integrated in the French royal domain. But, in Provence the cultural and political structures and practices are different from the kingdom of France, and Marseilles belongs to a politico-cultural space where the political life is influenced by the model of “commune”, we can also see in the north of Italy. My aim in this thesis is to study the mobility between a politico-cultural space influences by the counts of Provence and the political structures and culture of the “commune” to a politico-cultural space dominated by the king of France thanks to a structure called “bonne ville”. I decided to study the council of the city which is the main structure of the municipal power and the leaders who are in this council in order to see the modifications after 1481 about the culture and the identity of this ruling class. I propose with this thesis an essay of cultural history of the municipal power. Each city is a political system, where different powers coexist. Those powers move and fix themselves towards the other ones. In the 1st part, I study how the municipal power becomes the most important one in Marseilles during the reign of René the 1st of Anjou. Then, in the second part, I study the leaders of the council, the foundations of their power and the modifications after 1481. Finally, in the 3rd part, I study the new ambitions of the leaders of Marseilles which lead in the 17th century to build a real thalassocracy in the Mediterranean world. / Fino al 1481, Marsiglia è la città più grande della contea di Provenza, uno stato indipendente, pur senza esserne la capitale. In quell’anno, l'ultimo conte di Provenza muore senza eredi e dona la sua contea al re di Francia, Luigi XI. Le strutture e le pratiche politiche della Provenza sono però molto diverse rispetto a quelle del regno di Francia: Marsiglia fa parte di uno spazio politico-culturale del Mediterraneo, dove la vita politica urbana è segnata da un modello comunale del tutto simile a quello che si riscontra nelle città dell'Italia centro-settentrionale. L’obiettivo di questa tesi è di studiare il passaggio di questo spazio politico-culturale, segnato dall’eredità angioina e da un governo di tipo comunale, a quello dominato dal re di Francia, nel quale la relazione tra il sovrano e le città è costruita attorno al modello della "bonne ville". Per studiare questo tema, si è scelto di concentrarsi sul consiglio della città di Marsiglia, l'istituzione simbolo del potere municipale, e sugli uomini che lo componevano, al fine di apprezzare le mutazioni dovute al cambiamento di sovranità avvenute al suo interno. L’intento è di analizzare i cambiamenti legati alla cultura e all’identità della classe dirigente, nell’ottica di una storia culturale del potere municipale. Tutte le città possono definirsi come un sistema politico all’interno del quale si trovano a coesistere diversi poteri, che si relazionano fra loro in base agli avvenimenti e ai cambiamenti interni ed esterni alla città stessa. La prima parte della tesi si concentra sul processo mediante il quale il potere municipale ha preso il sopravvento a Marsiglia sotto il regno di Renato I (1434-1480). Nella seconda, invece, si analizzano gli uomini che formano il consiglio della città, l’origine del loro potere e le mutazioni che avvengono dopo il 1481. Infine, l’ultima parte ha per oggetto le trasformazioni nell’identità e nella cultura del gruppo dirigente cittadino in seguito al cambiamento di sovranità, evento che getterà le basi della talassocrazia marsigliese del XVII secolo.