This dissertation concerns the reception of the myth of Alexander the Great in Italian art during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In particular, I discuss the turning-point in the tradition which took place in Renaissance Italy around the middle of the fifteenth century: the transition from the medieval imagery of Alexander as a legendary, almost fairy-tale, figure to the historical portrait of him as an exemplum of moral virtue and military prowess. On the basis of the corpus known as the Alexander Romance, during the Middle Ages Alexander was depicted as a fabled explorer and knight, whose marvellous adventures enjoyed huge popularity both in the literary tradition and in the visual arts. Around the mid-fifteenth century, with the changing cultural atmosphere associated with the rise of humanism, this medieval conception was superseded by a different image of Alexander, drawing on the newly discovered ancient historical accounts of Plutarch, Curtius Rufus, Arrian and Diodorus Siculus. There are five chapters, all illustrated, plus an introduction and conclusion. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the literary and iconographic tradition of Alexander in Italy from 1100 to 1400, exploring the most popular episodes from the legend. In Chapter 2, I present examples of the persistence of the legendary tradition in the Quattrocento (especially, some fresco cycles of the Nine Worthies). Chapter 3 is concerned with the humanist recovery of ancient sources and its impact on the received view of Alexander; the important contribution of Petrarch and Boccaccio is also examined. Chapter 4 deals with the emergence of a new Renaissance portrait of Alexander around 1450, notably in paintings on marriage chests. In Chapter 5 I discuss the development of this new image of Alexander in the sixteenth century, with the establishment of an iconographic repertoire, centring on novel episodes taken from ancient historical sources.

Since Truman Capote's In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences was published in 1965, there have been many attempts to define and explain the phenomenon of the "non-fiction novel" as a unified narrative genre. Some of these attempts have been highly theoretical and scholarly, but most have been rather loose definitions referring to an extremely wide range of diverse factual narratives. Over the years, so many different works have been called "non-fiction novels" that it now seems as if the notion of such a unified genre is questionable. Surely it is not generically useful to say that such functionally distinct works as Oscar Lewis's La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty (1967) and Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart ot the American Dream (1971) belong in the same narrative category. The purpose of this study is to show that many of the works routinely referred to as "non-fiction novels" perform fundamentally different narrative functions and do not belong together in a unified genre. Roman Jakobson's model of communication and his notion of the "dominant function" are used to identify three functional categories into which the narratives discussed in the study logically fall: first, there are predominantly sociological works in which the referential function is the most important element of the communication; second, there are predominantly journalistic works in which the opinions of the writer or emotive function constitute the central narrative concern; and thirdly, we have works performing a dominant novelistic or aesthetic function in the sense that the secondary meanings and themes implied are the most important elements communicated. The thesis follows the following structure. In the introductory chapter, a critique of some of the major generic theories of the "non-fiction novel" as unified genre is offered. The purpose here is not to caricature what are sometimes extremely sophisticated studies. (Indeed, in my own analysis of texts, I am often indebted to the critical insights of the scholars whose theories I question in the introduction.) My purpose is merely to show that the corpus of works each writer refers to can be divided more logically between different dominant narrative functions. The introduction ends with a more detailed explanation of the adaptation of Jakobson's notion of "the dominant" and how it relates to the functional categories identified. Chapter 2 offers analyses of a group of documentary narratives that perform a dominant sociological function but have often been referred to as "non-fiction novels." The chapter starts with an analysis of James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), a text widely regarded as the first real American example of the "genre." This is followed by an examination of the anthropological works of Oscar Lewis: Five Families: Mexican Case Studles in the Culture of Poverty (1959), The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family (1964), Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and his Family (1964) and La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty. I conclude the chapter with an analysis of the recent sociological works of Studs Terkel: Division Street: America (1968), Hard Times: An oral History of the Great Depression (1970) and Working: People talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do (1974). In Chapter 3, the notion of subjective participation journalism is explained. This is followed by an analysis of three of the most famous and creative of the works that fall into this functional category: Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (1966), Michael Herr's Vietnam classic, Dispatches (1977), and Norman Mailer's account of a famous protest march, The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History (1968). Chapter 4 offers a discussion of three works that perform a dominant novelistic function in the realistic tradition of Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment. All three are based on actual murder cases, but the facts of the stories are subordinated to the novelistic themes the author wishes to abstract. They are: Meyer Levin's Compulsion (1957), Mailer's The Executioner's Song (1979) and Capote's In Cold Blood. From this outline, it may appear as if the study is loaded in favour of the sociological works discussed in Chapter 2. This is intentional because, although many critics have referred to them as "non-fiction novels", very little systematic and detailed analysis of these works as a corpus has been forthcoming. This long chapter is an attempt to redress the balance.

My dissertation is an investigation of how early Renaissance paintings from Venice and Florence were discussed and appraised by authors and collectors writing in these cities between 1550 and 1800. The variety of source material I have consulted has enabled me to assess and to compare the different paths pursued by Venetian and Florentine writers, the type of question they addressed in their analyses of early works of art and, most importantly, their approaches to the re-evaluation of the art of the past. Among the types of writing on art I explore are guidebooks, biographies of artists, didactic poems, artistic dialogues, dictionaries and letters, paying particular attention in these different genres to passages about artists from Guariento to Giorgione in Venice and from Cimabue to Raphael in Florence. By focusing, within this framework, on primary sources and documents, as well as on the influence of art historical literature on the activity of collecting illustrated by the cases of the Venetian Giovanni Maria Sasso and the Florentine Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri, I show that two principal approaches to writing about the past emerged during this period: the first, adopted by many Venetian authors, involved the aesthetic evaluation of early Renaissance works of art, often in comparison to later developments; the second, more frequent among Florentine writers, tended to document these works and place them in their historical context, without necessarily making artistic judgements about them. A parallel analysis of these two approaches offers a twofold perspective on how writers and collectors engaged with early Renaissance art from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

This thesis is a case study illustrating the circulation of scientific knowledge as achieved through translation in the seventeenth century. Providing the foundation of education in the liberal arts, Latin had an enormous influence on written science in the early modern period. This was evident not just on the level of the vocabulary. Latin grammar structured thought, and thereby extended the influence of the language to an epistemological level. However, the authority of Latin was increasingly contested throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To examine this shift of authority away from Latin to the vernacular languages, and to examine the way this impacted upon both the theory and practice of science, I have focused on the Flemish physician and alchemist Jan Baptista van Helmont (1579-1644). Van Helmont provides a highly revealing case study for multiple reasons: he himself wrote in both Latin and the Dutch vernacular; he had very clear ideas about translation and its relationship to the acquisition of knowledge; finally, his works were translated into English, French and German within forty years after his death. In the first two chapters I examine Van Helmont’s use of language in the two idioms in which he published, Dutch and Latin. I compare his views about language and translation, by closely connecting them to his philosophy of the mind and his practice of (self-)translation, which turns out to deviate markedly from his own theories. Chapter 3 describes how Van Helmont’s son, Francis Mercury (1614-1698), was personally involved with almost all the posthumously printed editions and translations of his father’s works. I argue that Francis Mercury’s influence on the spread of his father’s intellectual heritage is far more extensive than has hitherto been assumed. Chapters 4 and 5 analyse the eight translations of Van Helmont’s works into English, French and German. These translations were written between 1650 and 1683. I examine them with respect to theoretical texts (Chapter 4) and practical texts (Chapter 5) in order to show that there were no clear-cut or standardized methods for translating scientific knowledge and that the translators’ interpretations had therefore a major impact on the way Van Helmont’s ideas were received in different linguistic domains.

Printing had a huge impact on the development of religion and politics in sixteenth-century Europe. Harnessing the printing press is generally regarded as a key factor in the success of the Reformation. The positive role played by printing in Catholic cultural policy, by contrast, has not been sufficiently recognized. While scholars have focused on ecclesiastical censorship, the employment of print by Catholic authorities – especially the Roman curia – has been addressed only sporadically and superficially. The aim of my dissertation is to fill this gap, providing a detailed picture of the papacy’s efforts to exploit the resources of the Roman printing industry after the Sack in 1527 and before the establishment of the Vatican Typography in 1587. After a brief introduction (Chapter 1), I provide an exhaustive account of the papacy’s attempts, over sixty years, to set up a Roman papal press (Chapter 2). I then focus on two main Catholic printing enterprises. Part I is devoted to the editorial activity of Cardinal Marcello Cervini, later Pope Marcellus II. I discuss the extant sources and earlier scholarship on Cervini (Chapter 3), his cultural profile (Chapter 4) and the Greek and Latin presses which he established in the early 1540s (Chapters 5 - 6). Part II concentrates on the projects for a papal press involving the Venetian printer Paolo Manuzio. After an overview of the sources and previous studies (Chapter 7), I analyse Manuzio’s attempts to move to Rome, the establishment of a papal press under his management and the committee of cardinals which supervised it (Chapters 8 - 10). Chapter 11 examines the printing of the first edition of the Tridentine decrees, undertaken in 1564. Chapter 12 contains the overall conclusion to the dissertation. Documentary Appendixes A and B list the publications sponsored by Cervini and the books printed by Manuzio’s Roman press.

This thesis examines the development of Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) religious views and their impact on his programme for the advancement of learning. It aims to address the largely misguided body of scholarly literature on Bacon’s beliefs by situating his understanding of religion within the complexity of its Elizabethan and Stuart contexts, and to show how Bacon steered his own considered course between the emergent pillars of Puritanism and Conformism. To the latter end, it evinces how he drew upon the Christian humanism of his parents, Nicholas and Anne Bacon, as well as the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli, Francesco Guicciardini, and Justus Lipsius. Guided by the same intellectual commitments, he subsequently came to develop his own ideas about the reform of knowledge and the character of nature within the broader context of Christian humanism, Florentine political thought, and the Magisterial Reformation in England. It argues that, contrary to modern categories of thought, Bacon had no difficulty being both a Reformed Christian and a statesman for whom religion was often little more than a social or political currency. This he achieved through a position he set out early in his career; namely, that religion had two ‘partes’: an eternal and a temporal. Christianity could, in this way, be divided into the mysteries of faith, beyond time and the reach of human reason, and civil religion, temporal, political and, in its subjection to natural reason, entirely fair game. This allowed him to anticipate a number of positions that would become central to the religious climate of the later seventeenth-century, including irenicism, religious toleration, and civil religion. It was also through this division that Bacon came to explain the relationship between God and Nature and, in turn, between religion and natural philosophy. In the 1610s, he would develop a theory of the universe which rested upon the division between the eternal and the temporal, the created and the creating. As a result, this thesis offers an examination and contextualization of the relationship between ‘science’ and ‘religion’ within Bacon’s commitment to a twofold vision of religion.

D.Litt. et Phil. / The main aim of this thesis is to study ambiguity in Northern Sotho. Ambiguity, often referred to as 'double or multiple meaning', is, as Scheffler (1979:i) observes, "deserving of systematic study" in its own right. In this study, an attempt is made to give it the attention it deserves insofar as research is concerned. Life is full of verbal (and visual) tricks that are constantly teasing the interlocutors and never allow their interpretative faculties to come to rest. Such verbal tricks sometimes lead to confusions and misunderstandings that often result in unnecessary conflicts. It is the main aim of this investigation to investigate such misunderstandings by revealing what these tricks are, and try to make people aware of such verbal tricks.

No description available.

Olu phando luza kugxila kuphononongo lobume bengqondo ephazamisekileyo, lujonge izimo zabalinganiswa nendlela abacinga nabenza ngayo izinto. Kuza kube kugocwagocwa ubume bengqondo yabalinganiswa abakwezi ncwadi zintathu zilandelayo: Incwadi kaTamsanqa ethi, „Buzani Kubawo,‟ ekaJordan ethi, „Ingqumbo Yeminyanya‟ neka Jongilanga ethi, „Ukuqhawuka Kwembeleko.‟Apha kuza kukhokela intshayelelo equlathe izinto ezininzi eziquka amagama amatsha aza kusetyenziswa, indlela oza kuma ngayo umsebenzi kunye nembali ngababhali. Oku kulandelwa yingcingane eza kuthi ibe sisiseko solu phando, ingcingane yobume bengqondo, ingcingane yemeko engaqhelekanga kunye nezayamileyo; ingcingane yokuqonda kunye nengcingane yenkcubeko nentlalo. Kuza kuthi kutyhilwe iimeko abantu abaphila phantsi kwazo emakhaya nasentlalweni ngokubanzi. Iingcali zophando zizamile ukuza neendlela ezizizo zokwazi unobangela wokuphazamiseka kwengqondo ukuze zikwazi ukuza nonyango oluchanekileyo. Ekugqibeleni kuza kuthi kushwankathelwe wonke lo msebenzi, kuvezwe namacebo anokunceda abafundi nababhali kuncwadi. Kuza kucetyiswa ababhali ukuze babethelele ingcamango yokuba kubekho uncedo okanye unyango kubalinganiswa abanesimo sengqondo esiphazamisekileyo, xa kuphononongwa le ngcingane yesimo sengqondo.

Si nous nous mettons à la place du lecteur devant le titre du présent Essai, nous imaginerons facilement les questions qui peuvent lui venir a L’esprit. Pourquoi Haïti? Pourquoi le vaudou? L'écrivain haïtien Jean Price-Mars a du imaginer la réaction d'un tel lecteur quand il a écrit: [. . .] a quoi bon de se donner tant de peine a propos de menus problèmes qui n'intéressent qu'une très infime minorité d'hommes, habitant une très infime partie de la surface terrestre?¹ Sa réponse à sa propre question est sans équivoque: […] ni l'exiguïté de notre territoire, ni la faiblesse numérique de notre peuple ne sont motifs suffisants pour que les problèmes qui mettent en cause le comportement d'un groupe d'hommes soient indifférents au reste de l'humanité. Une analogie nuancée de la pensée de John Donne ajoute a l'idée de la pertinence d'une étude sur Haïti: tout comme nul homme n'est une lie indépendante du continent, nul peuple n'est indépendant du monde qui l'entouré, surtout en cette époque du "village planétaire" ou rétrécissent les dimensions de l'univers par les communications et l'avion a réaction. Par ailleurs, Haïti, nation surpeuplée, exploitée, nous semble un microcosme qui peut nous apprendre sur nous-mêmes les erreurs à éviter en matière de conservation de ressources naturelles ainsi qu'en matière des droits de la personne. Le déboisement et l'épuisement de la riche terre haïtiennes ont laisse une marque qui imprime jusqu'a l'amé de l'infortune Haïtiens; l'oppression de l'Haïtien par des gouvernements étrangers racistes et des régimes domestiques totalitaires a fait une plaie dont la guérison n'est pas pour demain. Si nous acceptons la pertinence d'une étude sur la culture haïtienne, la justification d'un examen de sa littérature coule de source, la littérature étant une discipline qui enregistre l'essentiel de la pensée, des rêves et des aspirations d'un peuple, a la croisée du cultuel, du mythique et du linguistique. Mais reste la question du vaudou. A-t-elle sa place dans notre étude qui se veut littéraire? En effet, cette religion populaire est ce qu'il y a de plus essentiellement distinctif dans le roman haïtien. Qui plus est, le vaudou racheté les pires défauts du roman haïtien, en général, et en fait oublier les caractéristiques qui ont le plus tendance a lasser le lecteur étranger, dont d'abord l'imitation quasi systématique de modèles qui sont les classiques de la littérature haïtienne, notamment Gouverneurs de la rossée; ensuite la banalité de thèmes rebattus: misère, souffranee et malheur du roman paysan; et finalement, le style qui semble viser a reproduire chez tous les romanciers celui de Jacques Roumain. II existe, bien sur, bien des textes non-romanesques sur le vaudou. Certains d'entre eux sont de haute tenue, d'autres s'embourbent dans le sensationnalisme a la Hollywood, d'autres enfin sont à dormir debout. Un lecteur profane en apprendra plus sur le vaudou par une lecture des romans haïtiens que par ceux-là; car, à travers les personnages se révèle la signification religieuse et affective du culte pour l'individu. Le lecteur se documentera amplement en même temps sur la société haïtienne, pour laquelle le vaudou reste un élément culturel fondamental. La plupart des romans haïtiens - c’est-à-dire écrits par des Haïtiens et ayant Haïti comme référent - et presque tous les romans paysans haïtiens traitent du vaudou, souvent comme thème principal. Par la voie du vaudou romance, le lecteur prend conscience du caractère diglossique et bi-culturel de la civilisation haïtienne, la filiation avec l'Afrique et la France se révélant dans les rites cultuels ou se retrouvent des éléments linguistiques et liturgiques provenant de sources africaine et française. Les propos précédents suggèrent une approche socio-historique. C'est que, aujourd'hui comme autrefois, Haïti reste isolée du reste du monde a plusieurs égards. Le roman n'en fait pas exception: Le romancier haïtien a certes toujours été au courant des nouvelles techniques romanesques mises en œuvré en France ou ailleurs. Mais elles ne semblent l'avoir intéresse qu'accessoirement.² Se souciant peu des nouvelles techniques, le romancier haïtien se concentre Sur les préoccupations de son pays. . Cette présente étude vise done à analyser le roman haïtien d'un point de vue interne plutôt que comparatif. Pour ce qui est de la portée de ce travail, nous proposons un survol de l'histoire physique, ethnique et littéraire haïtienne, suivi d'un compte-rendu du corpus du roman vaudou et finalement, l'analyse de trois visions romanesques du vaudou. Notre conclusion sera une interrogation non seulement sur l'avenir du vaudou mais également sur la direction future du roman haïtien. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate