Following recent critical work on writers' representations of sociability in Romantic literature, this thesis examines in detail the textual strategies (such as allusion, acts of address, and the use of 'coterie' symbols or references) which writers used to seek to establish a friendly or sympathetic relationship with a particular reader or readers, or to create and define a sense of community identity between readers. The thesis focuses on specific relationships between pairs and groups of writers (who form one another's first readers), and examines 'sociable' genres like letters, manuscript albums, occasional poetry, and periodical essays in a diverse series of author case-studies (Anna Barbauld, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, John Keats and Leigh Hunt). Such genres, the thesis argues, show how manuscript and print culture could frequently overlap and intersect, meaning that writers confronted the demands of two co-existing audiences - one private and familiar, the other public and unknown - in the same work. Rather than arguing that writers used manuscript culture practices and produced 'coterie' works purely to avoid confronting their anxieties about publishing in the commercial sphere of print culture, the thesis suggests that in producing such 'coterie' works writers engaged with and reflected contemporary philosophical and political concerns about the relationship between the individual and wider communities. In these works, writers engaged with the legacy of eighteenth-century philosophical ideas about the role (and limitations) of the sympathetic imagination in maintaining social communities, and with interpretative theories about the best kind of reader. Furthermore, the thesis argues that reading literary texts in the specific, material context in which they are 'published' to particular readers, either in print, manuscript, or letters, is vital to understanding writer/reader relationships in the Romantic period. This approach reveals how within each publication space, individual texts could be placed (either by their writers, by editors, or by other readers) in meaningful relationships with other texts, absorbing or appropriating them into new interpretative contexts.

The author of the diploma work Parish and dean library in Velké Meziříčí. A list of manuscripts and old prints aimed to organize a part of the book collection and to present one of the forgotten church libraries in Moravia. The introduction presents shortly individual parts of the work with the criticism of used sources and literature, then four chapters succeed and the conclusion that evaluates the defined targets. The first chapter tells the historical story of the parish of Velké Meziříčí from the beginnings to the present days in the context of history of the same domain. The second chapter deals briefly with the history of church libraries in Moravia focusing on the parish libraries. The history of book culture in the parish and history of the parish and dean library itself are the topics of the third chapter. In the last fourth chapter the list of manuscripts and old prints is analysed in terms of language, time, place, topic, edition, palaeography, art and provenance. The final conclusion is followed by the list of used abbreviations, the list of used sources and literature and the supplements that include not only tables, graphs and photographs but also an extensive list of manuscripts and old prints with the commentary itself.

The dissertation work examines the roots and development of the medieval learned weather forecasting in the context of ancient and medieval sources and its reception in the central European space, respectively in medieval Bohemia. The work can thus enrich our knowledge of history of natural sciences in the Middle Ages, medieval erudition and written culture in general. At present weather forecasting is a subject of meteorology, based on the analysis of air pressure, temperature and air density and the physiological conditions of the Earth's surface. A detailed analysis of these factors was practically infeasible in the past. Therefore weather forecasting was achieved by means of other methods and premises. We would also hardly find texts concerning weather forecasting between manuscript treatises on the origin and nature of meteorological phenomena: these surprisingly contain a minimum of weather forecast references. At that time weather forecasting was not a part of meteorology; it was the subject of other treatises appearing in the manuscripts frequently entitled De pluviis. These were primarily based on other tradition, respectively on other traditions that were different from that of Aristotle. The aim of the dissertation is to discover and to bring together the various traditions which formed...

The Ph.D. thesis deals with the Czech author František Gellner. It deliberately endeavours not to exclude any of the segments of his both literary and visual work out of consideration, but to present them all in their heterogeneity, yet in mutual connections. Works of Gellner's art are therefore interpreted in novel ways, especially in consideration of the contexts of the period from which they origin (and above others those contexts that have become obscure and forgotten in the nearly hundred years since the original publication of Gellner's work). The first chapter summarizes the previous critical reception of Gellner's work and at the same time deals with this author's image in the Czech cultural milieu. Analysing some of Gellner's manuscripts, the second chapter aims to describe the specific type of the author's creativity. The third chapter is devoted to the problem of ambiguously constructed national identity of František Gellner and to the impact it had on the ways he dealt with the themes of Jewishness and anti-Semitism. The fourth chapter describes the various relations between Gellner's works and the periodicals these were prepared for. The next chapter is dedicated solely to Lidové noviny, as this was the newspaper periodical with which Gellner co-operated most intensely; the detailed...

In Czech historiography Queen Kunhuta has been quite neglected. Her figure has not been investigated in monographs or specific studies. She can be somehow included within the group of defamed queens, which is especially rich in the Middle Ages. This negative image of the queen finds its origin in medieval chronicles, which blamed Kunhuta for her love affair with Záviš of Falkenštejn, who was accused of being one of the promoters of the defeat of Otakar II. Kunhuta's negative portrayal has been very stable and despite its rehabilitation in the most recent studies, it probably influenced scholars' disinterest in the part she performed as a political agent. The documentary material preserved shows that her active role in Bohemian society of the thirteenth century deserves more attention. She was involved in various administrative and political tasks. The first chapter of the thesis should provide an approach to the study of the queen, which mediates between a partial point of view and Kunhuta's multi-faceted image. It should introduce a figure to whom is linked a letter collection, which represents the main theme of the present dissertation (i.e. the letter collection of master Bohuslav, probably a chaplain and notary of the queen). The analysis and the critical edition of the source can be found in...

Writing in the 1890s, in an early account of Tennyson’s poetry, the Victorian anthologist F. T. Palgrave was keen to maintain the myth of the spontaneous singer. ‘More than once’, he recorded, Tennyson’s ‘poems sprang’ from a ‘nucleus’, ‘a brief melodious phrase’ or ‘song’, which, if not transcribed immediately, ‘fled from him irrecoverably’. It has long been the case with poets of ‘lyrics’ and ‘songs’ that their skills have been depicted as improvisatory, fleeting, or inspired. Their skills have been understood, variously, as indicative either of the most dexterous of intellects, or of brilliant but uncontrolled visions, a ‘flash’ of prophetic insight or revelation – a feel of what Shelley likens to ‘the interpenetration of a diviner nature through our own’. For many poets, however, the reality is one of inspiration that gives birth to intense manuscript activity and revision. It is now well known that Tennyson revised and re-revised, even after publication, until only weeks before his death; and yet no book-length study has pursued the significance of his manuscript revisions for the development of his style. This thesis traces the poet’s stylistic evolution through his notebooks, drafts, and printed volumes. Uncovering new literary manuscripts from Harvard, Lincoln, Cambridge, and New York, the study offers a more comprehensive picture of the poet’s craft: one alert to his evolving ambitions, and to the immense shifts that he effected in the landscape of English verse. The thesis begins by excavating how the notion of poetic ‘song’ fuelled a creative process at the heart of Tennyson’s revisions. In tracing the diverging fates of ‘lyric’ and ‘song’ across his notebooks, the opening chapter restores an important discourse for Tennysonian sonority that has comparatively declined in recent years. Chapter II examines Tennyson’s aesthetic control over the Victorian lyrical canon, drawing on a new manuscript of ‘The Golden Treasury’, the most significant anthology of the nineteenth century. Chapter III studies the notebook containing Tennyson’s first collection of verse, ‘Poems, by Two Brothers’. It reveals how much of the poor punctuation that sparked vehement attacks – and which is reproduced in modern editions – was not, in fact, inserted by the poet. Chapter IV explores how Tennyson’s most famous early songs and lyrics, published in ‘Poems, Chiefly Lyrical’, developed in tandem with his blank verse style. Chapters V and VI illuminate Tennyson’s ‘ten year silence’, which witnessed profound innovations in form, the revision of his 1832 Poems into his celebrated collection of 1842, and the creation of ‘In Memoriam’. Chapters VII and VIII piece together the notebooks, proofs, drafts, and revision copies of ‘The Princess’, Tennyson’s medley of songs and voices, lyrics and blank verse. By its end, the study reveals how the ringing qualities of his works emerged through manuscript revision: in the interplay between sonorous forms and narratives that came, over decades of change, to shape the distinctive drama of Tennyson’s style.

The topic of the diploma thesis is the Malostranský gradual (hymnal, collection of religious songs for the laity), a significant Renaissance illuminated manuscript made in the second half of the 16th century for the literary confraternity at the church of St. Nicholas in the Lesser Town of Prague. In the introductory chapters, the author describes the contextual methodological approach through which she interprets the work, continues with the historical context of its creation, and provides an overview of the current research on this subject. In the main part of the thesis, she presents the individual donors, whose names are recorded on the folios of the manuscript. Based on written sources, the author discloses not only their identity, and profession, familial and friendship ties, or their economic background and social standing, but also answers the question, what is the motivation behind their donation, how did they influence the gradual's decoration, and how did they present themself in this artistic medium.

La présente thèse propose une recherche sur la tradition textuelle et l’édition critique du discours Εἰς Ῥώμην (En l’honneur de Rome) d’Aelius Aristide (IIe siècle apr. J.-C.). Le discours, prononcé à Rome en 144 apr. J.-C., est un éloge de l’Empire romain. La première édition critique du discours fut publiée par B. Keil en 1898 ; au cours du XXe siècle deux philologues ont préparé des éditions comportant un texte critique, en s’appuyant sur l’apparat de Keil. La thèse est organisée en une introduction générale et deux parties, suivies par la bibliographie et quatre annexes. La première partie est consacrée à la recherche sur la tradition textuelle du discours, et est structurée en six chapitres. La deuxième partie consiste dans l’édition critique du discours En l’honneur de Rome, avec apparat critique et des témoignages de la tradition indirecte. Le texte grec est suivi par un apparat complémentaire donnant les leçons des manuscrits mineurs et des notes critiques. / The purpose of the present thesis is to perform a research on the textual tradition and the critical edition of Aelius Aristides’ speech Εἰς Ῥώμην (To Rome) (2nd century CE). Delivered in Rome in 144 CE, this speech is a praise of the Roman Empire. The first critical edition of the speech was published by B. Keil in 1898; in the 20th century, two philologists prepared editions with critical text, based on the apparatus of Keil. The thesis consists of a general introduction and two parts, followed by the bibliography, and four appendices. The first part explains the research on the textual tradition of the speech, and is structured in six chapters. The second part consists of the critical edition of the speech To Rome, with critical apparatus and the testimonies of the indirect tradition. The Greek text is followed by a complementary apparatus offering the variant readings of the minor manuscripts and some critical notes.

The objective of this project was to establish a provenance for two Indian manuscripts that were recently discovered in the collections at Scripps College. Based on their illuminations, script, and binding structure, I was able to conclude that these two manuscripts are Hindu religious texts created around the 19th or 20th century. To determine an approximate origin and the significance of these volumes, my research focused on the syncretism of religion, material history, and power dynamics in India. Their context was specifically framed within the history of manuscript construction and conservation.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:07:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CassiaFMS_TESE.pdf: 3187053 bytes, checksum: 7e5d2fd083a136c82403cb120f2d3736 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-11-22 / Universidade Estadual do Rio Grande do Norte / This thesis analyses the poetry of Jo?o Lins Caldas (1888-1967), in Brazilian literature context, aiming at describing and understanding the main features of his poetry. Thus, this research presents a corpus to be worked on: the poems in Poeira do c?u e outros poemas (2009). Our study is characterized by a biographical, historiographical and critical tendency, by trying to organize the manuscripts of the author and biographical aspects while analyzing his poems. It is showed the relation between Brazilian poetry written by some authors, since the parnasianism and symbolism period until the twentieth century. On the one hand, our analysis is based on the ideas and criticism by Antonio Candido (2006; 2002; 1985), discussing the process of formation of Brazilian literature and the procedure to analyse poetry. It is also based on the concept of poetry and resistance, developed by Alfredo Bosi (2000; 2002), and the notion of Brazilian matter, identified by Roberto Schwarz (1987, 1997, 1999). On the other hand, this work focuses on melancholy under the theoretical ideas of authors such as Aristotle (1998), Walter Benjamin (1984), Jaime Ginzburg (1997) and Moacyr Scliar (2003). This focus on melancholy contributes to a better understanding of one of the main themes found in the poems analysed. By studying the poetry of Jo?o Lins Caldas, it was perceived the relevance of melancholy and resistance in his verses. This can be seen in his dissonant language, characterized by the broken syntax in his verses, as well as contradictory images and complex meanings in his poetry. This causes the effect of unfamiliarity on the reader. His poetry is the result of a style that finds its place in the best moment of modern Brazilian poetry and reveals its singularity through the inverted syntax with powerful themes such as love, death, pain, delusion, loss, memory, nature and God. All of them are aspects of Brazilian historicity. Finally, the work of Jo?o Lins Caldas is part of a multifaceted poetry / Esta pesquisa situa e analisa a poesia de Jo?o Lins Caldas (1888-1967) no contexto da literatura brasileira, visando tra?ar e compreender as principais linhas que a comp?em. Para isso, toma como corpus os poemas reunidos em Poeira do c?u e outros poemas (2009). O estudo caracteriza-se por um vi?s biogr?fico, historiogr?fico e cr?tico, ? medida que objetiva delinear um perfil biogr?fico do poeta, organizar os seus manuscritos e realizar uma an?lise de sua poesia. Assim sendo, estabelecem-se rela??es com a poesia brasileira de alguns autores, desde o per?odo parnasiano-simbolista ao modernismo no s?culo XX. As an?lises fundamentam-se, por um lado, nos estudos de Candido (2006; 2002; 1985), em que discute o processo de forma??o da literatura brasileira e os procedimentos de an?lise de poesia, no conceito de poesia-resist?ncia apontado por Bosi (2000; 2002) e na no??o de mat?ria brasileira identificada por Schwarz (1987, 1997, 1999). Por outro, o enfoque da melancolia, sob a perspectiva te?rica de v?rios autores como Arist?teles (1998), Benjamin (1984), Ginzburg (1997) e Scliar (2003), contribui para a compreens?o de uma das principais tem?ticas presentes na l?rica do poeta. O estudo de sua po?tica indica que ela se caracteriza pela melancolia e pela resist?ncia, cuja express?o formal se d? por meio de uma linguagem dissonante: sintaxe arrevesada e invertida, cortes de sentido, imagens paradoxais, provocando estranhamento no leitor. O resultado ? um estilo que, al?m de dialogar com o melhor da produ??o po?tica moderna, revela sua peculiaridade por meio dessa forma invertida em que se entrela?am temas fortes, como a morte, o amor, a dor, o desencanto, a perda, a mem?ria, a natureza, Deus, aspectos da historicidade brasileira, dentre outros, configurando-se, portanto, em uma l?rica multifacetada