'The virgin, the temptress and the godess' is a visual exploration of love, longing and beauty from the carnal though to the sublime. The narrative of the research has several subtexts: one that explores female archetypes, the muse as figurative source of inspiration and also beauty as a transcendental catalyst. I have sought to represent a comprehensive vision of the female muse that embraces both the spiritual and the sensual and explores the duality of corporeal and metaphysical yearning. This is done through photographic imagery; the journey that it evokes is an interior landscape that takes place in the purgatory that is longing and ascends to a sublime state of stillness and peace through the experience of the divine.

Universidade Castelo Branco / A presente dissertação objetiva a comparação proposta no Prelúdio do romance Middlemarch por sua autora George Eliot entre a protagonista da obra, Dorothea Brooke, e a figura histórica Teresa dÁvila. A partir de tal estudo, busca-se compreender de que modo a situação específica da mulher na Era Vitoriana é articulada no romance de modo a espelhar a crise ontológica e epistemológica do próprio ser humano diante das transformações consolidadas com o Iluminismo e as revoluções liberais do século XVIII que culminariam na morte de Deus. Dorothea mostra-se uma cristã tão fervorosa quanto a Teresa quinhentista, mas faltam-lhe certezas e a resolução para concretizar as reformas sociais que defende, pois ela encarna o mito de feminilidade oitocentista batizado de Anjo do Lar ideal de sujeição feminina à ordem falocêntrica cujas funções são a proteção e difusão da moralidade burguesa e a substituição de elementos cristãos no universo do sagrado a uma sociedade cada vez mais materialista e insegura de valores absolutos. As aflições de Dorothea representam as aflições da mulher vitoriana, mas o momento crítico desta mulher reflete, em Middlemarch, uma crise muito maior do Ocidente, que teve início com a Era da Razão / The present dissertations purpose is the comparison proposed by George Eliot in the Prelude of the novel Middlemarch between its protagonist, Dorothea Brooke, and the historical character Teresa of Avila. Such study endeavors to understand in which way the specific situation of the Victorian woman is articulated within the novel as to mirror the ontological and epistemological crisis of the human being itself during the transformations consolidated by the Enlightenment and the liberal revolutions of the eighteenth century which culminated in the death of God. Dorothea is as ardent a Christian as the fifteenth century Teresa, but she lacks the certainties and the resolution to concretize the social reforms she defends, because she incarnates the nineteenth century myth of womanhood known as the Angel in the House an ideal of feminine subjection to the phalocentric order whose functions are the protection and diffusion of the bourgeois morality and the replacement of Christian elements within the imaginary universe of the sacred to a society progressively more materialistic and insecure of absolute values. The afflictions of Dorothea represent the afflictions of the Victorian woman, but the critical moment of this woman reflects, in Middlemarch, a much greater crisis in the Western thought, which began with the Age of Reason

Universidade Castelo Branco / A presente dissertação objetiva a comparação proposta no Prelúdio do romance Middlemarch por sua autora George Eliot entre a protagonista da obra, Dorothea Brooke, e a figura histórica Teresa dÁvila. A partir de tal estudo, busca-se compreender de que modo a situação específica da mulher na Era Vitoriana é articulada no romance de modo a espelhar a crise ontológica e epistemológica do próprio ser humano diante das transformações consolidadas com o Iluminismo e as revoluções liberais do século XVIII que culminariam na morte de Deus. Dorothea mostra-se uma cristã tão fervorosa quanto a Teresa quinhentista, mas faltam-lhe certezas e a resolução para concretizar as reformas sociais que defende, pois ela encarna o mito de feminilidade oitocentista batizado de Anjo do Lar ideal de sujeição feminina à ordem falocêntrica cujas funções são a proteção e difusão da moralidade burguesa e a substituição de elementos cristãos no universo do sagrado a uma sociedade cada vez mais materialista e insegura de valores absolutos. As aflições de Dorothea representam as aflições da mulher vitoriana, mas o momento crítico desta mulher reflete, em Middlemarch, uma crise muito maior do Ocidente, que teve início com a Era da Razão / The present dissertations purpose is the comparison proposed by George Eliot in the Prelude of the novel Middlemarch between its protagonist, Dorothea Brooke, and the historical character Teresa of Avila. Such study endeavors to understand in which way the specific situation of the Victorian woman is articulated within the novel as to mirror the ontological and epistemological crisis of the human being itself during the transformations consolidated by the Enlightenment and the liberal revolutions of the eighteenth century which culminated in the death of God. Dorothea is as ardent a Christian as the fifteenth century Teresa, but she lacks the certainties and the resolution to concretize the social reforms she defends, because she incarnates the nineteenth century myth of womanhood known as the Angel in the House an ideal of feminine subjection to the phalocentric order whose functions are the protection and diffusion of the bourgeois morality and the replacement of Christian elements within the imaginary universe of the sacred to a society progressively more materialistic and insecure of absolute values. The afflictions of Dorothea represent the afflictions of the Victorian woman, but the critical moment of this woman reflects, in Middlemarch, a much greater crisis in the Western thought, which began with the Age of Reason