Nicolas Petit (c. 1497-1532), originaire de Normandie, étudia et enseigna au collège de Montaigu à Paris (c. 1510-c. 1522). Ce collège avait mauvaise réputation auprès des humanistes qui le disaient hostile au Bonae Literae, mais la modernité de sa poésie (Elegiae de redemptione humana, Paris, Jean Petit, 1517, en collaboration avec Jean Des Fossés ;Sylvae. Arion, Gornais, Barbaromachia cum aliquot hymnis, Paris, Jean de Gourmont, 1522)contredit ces représentations traditionnelles. Petit partit ensuite à Poitiers étudier le droit ; il yfréquenta les cercles littéraires et devint ami du poète rhétoriqueur Jean Bouchet et du jeune François Rabelais.Cette thèse consiste d’une part en l’édition, l’annotation, la traduction des Sylvae et des Elegiae de redemptione humana (1er volume). Un second volume contient une étude du contexte intellectuel du collège de Montaigu qui s’appuie sur la lecture des oeuvres produites dans et autour de ce collège ; j’entame ensuite une étude littéraire des Sylvae (imitation deStace, influence d’Ange Politien, nature pré-rabelaisienne des textes de Petit) ; je termine en analysant l’influence de la poésie de Petit sur les oeuvres de J. Bouchet et F. Rabelais. Dans chacune de ces parties, j’appuie ma réflexion sur un panorama général de la littérature néo-latine du temps, pour mieux situer Petit dans son contexte intellectuel et littéraire. / Nicolas Petit (c. 1497-1532), from Normandy, studied and taught in the college of Montaiguin Paris (c. 1510-C. 1522). This college had bad reputation among the Humanists who said itwas hostile to Bonae Literae, but the modernity of Petit’s poetry (Elegiae de redemptionehumana, Paris, Jean Petit, 1517, in collaboration with Jean Des Fossés ; Sylvae. Arion,Gornais, Barbaromachia cum aliquot hymnis, Paris, Jean de Gourmont, 1522) contradictsthose traditional representations. Afterwards, Petit went to Poitiers (c. 1522-1532) to studylaw ; there, he frequented the literary circles and became friend with the Rhetoriqueur poetJean Bouchet and the young François Rabelais.This Ph. D. consists in the edition, annotation and traduction of the Sylvae and of the Elegiaede redemptione humana (1st volume). A second volume contains a study of the intellectualbackground of the college of Montaigu which bases on a reading of the texts written in andaround this college ; then I begin a literary study of the Sylvae (imitation of Stace, influenceof Angelo Poliziano, pre-rabelaisian nature of Petit’s texts) ; in the last part, I analyze theinfluence of Petit’s poetry on Jean Bouchet’s works and also on Rabelais’s ones. In each partof my study, I base my reflection on a general overview of neo-latine literature of the time, inorder to insert Petit in his intellectual and literary background.

Inaug.-Diss.--Heidelberg. / Vita. Bibliography: p. [143]-145. Also issued in print.

Inaug.-Diss.--Heidelberg. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: p. [143]-145.

Landscape in Roman literature is manifest with symbolic potential: in particular, Vergil and Ovid respond to ideologically loaded representations of abundance in nature that signal the dawn of the Augustan golden age. Vergil's Eclogues foreground a locus amoenus landscape which articulates both the hopes of the new age as well as the political upheaval that accompanied the new political regime; Ovid uses the same topography in order to suggest the arbitrary and capricious use of power within a deceptively idyllic landscape. Moreover, for Latin poets, depictions of landscape are themselves sites for poetic reflection as evidenced by the discussion of landscape ecphrases in Horace's Ars Poetica. My thesis focuses upon the depiction and refiguration of the locus amoenus landscape in the post-Augustan epics of the first century AD: Lucan's Bellum Civile, Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Statius' Thebaid and Silius Italicus' Punica. Landscape in these poems retains the moral, political and metapoetic force evident in the Augustan archetypes. However, I suggest that Lucan's Neronian Bellum Civile fundamentally refigures the landscapes of Latin epic poetry, inscribing the locus amoenus with the nefas of civil war in such a manner that it redefines the perception of landscape in the succeeding Flavian poets. Lucan perverts the landscape, making the locus horridus, a landscape of horror, fear and disgust, the predominant landscape of Latin epic; consequently, the poems of Valerius, Statius and Silius engage with Lucan's refiguration of landscape as a means of expressing the horror of civil war. In the first part of my thesis I examine archetypal landscapes, including those of the Augustan poets and Lucan's Bellum Civile. Taking an approach which engages with literary reception theory and the concept of the â horizon of expectationâ as a framework within which literary topographies can be understood as articulating a response to the thematics of civil war, in the second part of my thesis I demonstrate the manner in which landscapes represent a coherent and paradigmatic response to Lucan's imposition of his civil war narrative within the literary landscape of Roman literature.

The present thesis considers the allusive and narrative function of fate and its associated concepts of providence, free will, necessity, and natural law in Paradise Lost. It argues that the narrative function of these concepts is shaped by Milton's allusions to classical epic, and assesses their impact on the Christian theology of the poem. It identifies unnoted allusions to well-known epic models (Homer, Vergil, Lucan), and examines how Lucretius' account of natural laws and post-Vergilian representations of epic aftermath influence Milton's own depiction of transgression and its aftermath in Paradise Lost. Chapter 1 considers Satan and other fallen angels' definition of fate as a materialist alternative for the personal rule of the Father. It traces several allusions to fate in cosmological and ethical settings, in Lucretius, Vergil, Lucan, and Statius, and analyses how these allusions interact with the Hesiodic mythical material in the opening books of Milton's epic. Chapter 2 focuses on a pattern of previously unnoted allusions to Lucretius' De Rerum Natura in the narrative of the Fall, culminating in Book 9. It argues that in his temptation of Eve, Milton's Satan subverts Lucretian teachings about the boundaries governing the physical universe as he persuades Eve to transgress her natural state in Eden. Chapter 3 discusses the appearance of the Father in an allusive epic council scene in Book 3. In the dialogue between Father and Son, I suggest, Milton evokes negotiations between the Homeric and Vergilian deities, depicting his God as surpassing his pagan epic counterparts who can only delay the fate of mortals, but not change them. Chapter 4 suggests that Milton's depiction of the aftermath of the Fall is indebted to post-Vergilian epic narratives of 'aftermath'. The final Books of Paradise Lost and the portrayal of Adam and Eve's moral freedom as they leave paradise, with providence their guide, should be read, I posit, against the backdrop of scenes and imagery from Lucan's Bellum Civile and Statius' Thebaid.