Closure is one of the most important putative goals for highly structured Renaissance verse. Elements of structure—for example, sophisticated prosody or the embedding of a poem within a web of intertextual relationships—determine how poets work toward closure. This project explores how verse forms and genre manifest poets’ attempts to create resolution, and, significantly, how often the challenges of the process instead become the object of focus. Developing a New Formalist approach that focuses on how literary forms are inherently responsive (both to the social conventions that inform various genres and to the expressive goals of individual authors), I examine texts in four important Renaissance poetic genres: epyllion (William Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis [1593]), satire (Joseph Hall’s Virgidemiae [1598, 1599]), religious lyric (George Herbert’s The Temple [1633]), and pastoral elegy (John Milton’s Epitaphium Damonis [1639] and Lycidas [1637, 1645]). These works illuminate some of the most significant strategies of authors who often meditate on the appeal of definitive, resolved conclusions and also on the complex ways their works become conditioned by the hope and struggle for resolution.

This thesis comprises a study of the Venetian sculptured altarpieces during the period 1460 - 1530. During the course of research a surprisingly large number of examples were identified, many of which have so far received little attention. As well as providing an analysis of individual works, the thesis has the wider aim of examining the sculptured altarpiece as a genre, and hence also of contributing towards a greater understanding of the role of sculpture in Italian Renaissance art and society. The main objectives of study are a) a survey of the chronological and formal development of the altarpieces, b) an investigation of their material and the application of polychromy and gilding, as well as of their manufacture and cost, and c) an analysis of the patrons and their interest in sculpture. The thesis, which draws on various archival sources, further includes an appendix of documents, which illustrates in detail the making of a sculptured altar. A catalogue provides a corpus of the major sculptured altarpieces of the period between 1460 and 1530 which can still be identified. The discussion of the objects accompanied by an extensive photographic documentation. Several altars have been reconstructed through careful reading of the documents. Others, which have not hitherto been published, are reproduced and discussed here for the first time. Rather than providing attributions of individual works on the basis of style, the emphasis lies on the cultural-historical analysis of a genre, and on the assessment of the aesthetic and financial value of sculptured altarpieces and the appreciation of sculpture in Venice in general. Complementing previous studies of Venetian painted altarpieces, the results of research presented here aim to contribute to a fuller composite picture of the art market around 1500, and of the whole artistic environment in Venice of the period.

The Renaissance festival is an interactive venue which utilizes popular and fantastic views of history to encourage audience members to participate in the performance. While these festivals share much in common with living history presentations, the open use of myth and romanticized history at the Renaissance festival, while sometimes criticized, allows the festivals to incorporate people in the performance in ways that other venues cannot. Living histories, usually heritage sites, seek to confirm and validate identity or membership within a specific community. Their methods of presentation leave little room for playing with or questioning these historically predetermined roles. The Renaissance festival, based as it is in a much earlier history and a romanticized one at that, creates more flexible group and individual identification. Because the Renaissance festival encourages the exploration of identity and community beyond those determined by the history of the historical performance, it carries the potential to change the ways in which individuals view themselves, performance, history, and community. It does so through encouraging new constructions of identity for the individual as well as new group affiliations based on interpersonal interactions, commerce, and myth. These will be viewed through the use of three case studies of the Scarborough Faire, Texas Renaissance Festival, and Michigan Renaissance Festival. Participation in these performances can encourage a questioning of how community and identity can be built and what they mean. / text

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This thesis argues that Raphael's portrait, Baldassare Castiglione, is three portraits in one: 1) a "speaking likeness" of the subject, 2) a portrait of the "perfect" courtier, and 3) a "shadow" portrait of the Court of Urbino in the early sixteenth century. The formal analysis of the painting is presented in the context of the paragone of word and image expounded by its subject in his masterpiece, Il Cortegiano. Both author and artist demonstrate the concepts of sprezzatura (an artful artlessness) and grazia (graceful elegance) in the creation of their portraits, as well as avoidance of affetazione (affectation). It is concluded that Raphael's response to the challenge of the text/image paragone in Il Cortegiano determined the formal choices he made as he painted his friend Baldassare Castiglione.

This dissertation examines Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s knowledge and interpretation of the Italian Renaissance during the 1860s. I argue that there is a relationship between Rossetti’s Aestheticism and his understanding of the Italian Renaissance and that this relationship is visibly manifested in his images of women from the period. In Victorian England, Aestheticism and the philosophy of beauty for its own sake became increasingly popular throughout the 1860s. I challenge the idea that Aestheticism and an interest in Renaissance art are mutually exclusive aspects of the artist’s work. Rossetti’s images of women expressed both his understanding of Renaissance art and the central place of beauty in painting. Based upon Rossetti’s interpretation of Renaissance art and poetry, his criticism, and the criticism of his peers, this dissertation argues that the beauty of women in Rossetti’s paintings came to stand for the beauty of art. Rossetti’s paintings promoted sensual Aesthetic experience in their conflation of formal and female beauty. Using the historically idealized conventions of female portraiture, Rossetti created images of women that privileged Aesthetic beauty over narrative or moral meaning. His use of vibrant, rich color, a quality he and his peers inexorably associated with Venetian Renaissance painting, revealed the connection between Renaissance art and his Aestheticism. Color helped to define his paintings of women as examples of beautiful, sensuous painting. For Rossetti, the representation of alluring, beautiful women was the most powerful way to express the experience of Aesthetic beauty as intoxicating, sensual, and even morally ambiguous.