The formal satire of the late English Renaissance is a complex phenomenon, modelled upon the classical genre but also profoundly influenced by medieval homily and Complaint. It is connected with other literary vehicles for social criticism and is a means of protesting against change, embodying the struggle between hierarchy and mobility that marks the period. Types are represented in a realistic manner and assigned parts in miniature dramas unified by the presence of a narrator, by imagery and often by a thesis statement. Critical theories about the derivation of the term "satire" and the nature of the genre helped to shape the form, tone and organization of these poems. This study focuses on the major writers of Elizabethan formal satire, Donne, Hall and Marston, and examines their relative merits. Donne is easily the most complex and the greatest poet, but the problem of which is the most effective satirist has yet to be resolved. Donne creates "humourous" and brilliantly sardonic portraits of types and with exhaustive detail localizes the satiric scene in Elizabethan London. However, his satires are a kind of metaphysical poetry, concerned with first principles and the narrator's psychological processes. Intense subjectivity and metaphysical subtlety are perhaps better suited to lyric and devotional verse than to social satire, in spite of the poet's mastery of the art of caricature. Hall's style, lending an Augustan quality to Virgidemiae, is the measure of the differences among the writers. Hall's assimilations of classical sources, modified Neo-Stoicism, intense conservatism and references to a Golden Age and academic retreat fuse together in a witty and amusing satiric creation marked by the quiet insult, the polite sneer, contempt for the targets. Marston's use of language foreshadows certain important trends in the early Jacobean drama. Although he is sometimes incoherent in his efforts to combine satirical rage and the pose of the malcontent with moral exhortation, Marston produces an impressive, ultimately unified structure and vision of man dominated by his animal nature. In conclusion, Donne is the superior poet, Hall the most effective satirist, while Marston writes the most dramatic works, and only his lack of artistic control prevents him from surpassing his contemporaries' satire. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Common to certain poems of John Donne and T. S. Eliot is the expression of a desire for a unity of experience which will involve a reconciliation of the apparently contradictory demands of flesh and spirit. In an early poem, Eliot aligns himself with the poetic sensibility he perceives in Donne, a spiritual suffering expressed in sensory terms in the image of “the anguish of the marrow". The poetry of each poet develops the analysis of thought and feeling involved in the search for unifying, transcendent experience: in the poems of Donne dealing with profane and divine love, the relationships between man and woman, and man and God, are explored with wit and dramatic fervour; in the dramatic dialogues of the early poems of Eliot, the poetic persona seeks spiritual purpose in a world apparently devoid of belief and meaning. Comparison of poetic vision and method in Donne and Eliot is most valid in examination of the two long poems, Donne's Anniversaries and Eliot’s Four Quartets. In these poems, an anatomization of the mutable, spiritually dead world is contrasted with the progress of the poet's own soul toward an understanding of divine love; divine love is seen to demand imitation of the suffering incarnate principle of virtue, symbolized by Donne as the maiden Elizabeth Drury, and by Eliot as the Incarnation of God. Similarity of technique in each poem consists in the use of a dialectical method of developing themes and definitions of "death", "birth", "wisdom", "love" and "joy". The imagery used by both poets involves paradoxes basic to Christian theodicy: death-as-life, darkness-as-light, ignorance-as-wisdom, suffering-as-love. The expression of his belief is seen by each poet as a holy task, in which the drawing of all experience into a new unity is imitative of the divine unifying order. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

John Donne was indisputably the foremost English preacher of his day. Many studies have focussed on his instructional methods; fewer have concentrated on how he tries to move his hearers. Donne especially liked preaching on the psalms. Since Christian antiquity, the seven psalms known as the penitential psalms have enjoyed a privileged place in church worship. They are central to the sacrament of penance. By Donne's time, changes in the Church of England's sacramental theology had all but eliminated the practice of penance. Nevertheless, Donne considers penance or, as it had become known, repentance, to be a crucial part of believers' lives. With his sermons on the penitential psalms Donne contributes to the vast body of literature surrounding the sacrament of penance, but his contribution is unique. He thinks that since the second person of the Trinity is identified with the Word of God, the institution of preaching God's Word is incarnational. In the sacraments, the priest ushers in the Body of Christ; in the sermon, Donne believes, the preacher's role is similar. For Donne, sermonizing is sacramental in effect. In his sermons he attempts to bring the real presence of God to his listeners. Moreover, his sermons display a "sacramental mimesis": they enact their subject matter by their very words and try to effect change in the listeners as the words are uttered. Further, Donne thinks that since God established all the ordinances of the church, none of them should be ignored. Therefore, Donne's twenty-one sermons on the penitential psalms reveal a preacher who is on the one hand a conservative churchman and on the other a startlingly innovative preacher. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

La tesi si propone di indagare, con un approccio descrittivo, il ruolo delle pratiche di accoglienza, inclusione, aiuto e cura, espressione ed emancipazione delle donne migranti in Italia, partendo da una riflessione sulla dimensione drammatica del fenomeno migratorio femminile. Cuore della ricerca è l’indagine sulle arti e pratiche performative, e specialmente sul teatro sociale, la cui metodologia si rivela particolarmente efficace nell’inclusione sociale delle donne migranti, in quanto si concentra più sui processi che sui prodotti, più sulle azioni che sulle rappresentazioni, più sulla comunità che sul pubblico, più sulle relazioni che sulle mediazioni. Il ruolo del teatro sociale nelle pratiche di inclusione per le donne migranti viene indagato in particolare nell’ambito della Città Metropolitana di Milano, in cui, a fronte di un’accurata mappatura dei casi più significativi di progetti di ordine mediale, artistico, teatrale e performativo per l’inclusione dei migranti, realizzata in connessione con il progetto di ricerca di Ateneo Migrations|Mediations e con il progetto PRIN Per-formare il sociale, si arriva a mettere in luce e a discutere le criticità di alcune esperienze di teatro sociale con donne migranti che, per ragioni diverse, non hanno potuto avere piena realizzazione. / The thesis aims to investigate, with a descriptive approach, the role of the practices of welcoming, inclusion, help and care, expression and emancipation of migrant women in Italy, starting from a reflection on the dramatic dimension of female migration. The heart of the research is the investigation of performing arts and practices, and especially of social theatre, whose methodology is particularly effective in the social inclusion of migrant women, as it focuses more on processes than on products, more on actions than on representations, more on the community than on the audience, more on relationships than on mediations. The role of social theatre in the practices of inclusion for migrant women is investigated in particular in the context of the Metropolitan City of Milan, in the face of an accurate mapping of the most significant projects that use media, arts, performance and culture for the inclusion of migrants, carried out in connection with the University Research project Migrations|Mediations and with the PRIN project Performing the social. In particular, we get to highlight and discuss the critical issues of some social theatre experiences with migrant women which, for different reasons, could not have a full realization.

Hester Pulter’s (1605-1678) work was discovered in 1996 in the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds. Pulter composed her poetry in the 1640s-1650s, but her works were not compiled until the 1660s. Overall, her manuscript contains one hundred and twenty poems and emblems in addition to an unfinished prose romance. Pulter recalls her personal life in her poems, and the collection includes her elegiac and lyrical poems on different topics such as politics, religion, childbirth, and the death of her children. In her elegiac poetry, Pulter explores of the experience of childbirth and sickness through a set of conventional Christian ideas about death. However, Pulter’s elegiac poetry also breaks away from Christian conventions, often through the use of astronomical imagery. In this thesis, I argue that Pulter’s grief and consolation strategies sometimes differ from her contemporaries; however, she eventually finds consolation using imagery drawn from her knowledge of the new astronomy, allowing her to reconstruct her identity. Through comparing Pulter with her contemporaries such as George Herber, Katherine Philips, and John Donne, Pulter’s poetry, which has been unstudied until recently, provides an example of a woman writer who is familiar with the seventeenth century poetical conventions; however, she is able to alter them to what is relevant to her condition.

Much has been written in the past fifty years about John Donne and his work. His troubled life and enigmatic writings have made him seem a kindred spirit to a confused age. To our day the dissonant, abrupt, and calculatedly reckless style and the concern with the harsh realities of love and death have relevance which heretofore had been misunderstood or ignored.

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Oggetto della mia dissertazione sono i processi matrimoniali della parte italiana della diocesi di Trento, prodotti dal tribunale ecclesiastico matrimoniale locale dal 1857 al 1868 e sedimentatisi nell’omonimo fondo archivistico dell’Archivio Diocesano Tridentino. Loro presupposto è la stipula, nel 1855, del Concordato tra Chiesa cattolica e Impero asburgico, nel quale rientrava anche la diocesi di Trento, che sancì nuovi equilibri nelle relazioni tra le due istituzioni e il passaggio alla giurisdizione ecclesiastica della materia matrimoniale, che dal 1857 sarebbe stata sottoposta al giudizio degli appositi tribunali ecclesiastici. La ricerca si concentra così sul periodo intercorrente tra il 1857, anno di inizio di attività anche per il tribunale tridentino, e il 1868, quando si assistette a un cambiamento nella politica religiosa austriaca col ritorno in mano secolare della gestione della disciplina nuziale. Cuore del progetto sono dunque i procedimenti matrimoniali. Questa tipologia documentaria è stata oggetto di indagini ampie e varie per approcci e metodologie, fra storia giuridica, istituzionale, sociale, economica, di genere, ma con principale attenzione per l’età moderna. Un interesse che solo in tempi recenti si sta estendendo anche alla documentazione ottocentesca. Il mio lavoro si inserisce in questo indirizzo, con l’intenzione di portare alla luce un oggetto pressoché sconosciuto nelle sue peculiarità spazio-temporali. Il fondo “Tribunale ecclesiastico matrimoniale” e il suo ente produttore, infatti, non hanno ancora trovato spazio in storiografia. La condizione di trovarsi ad operare entro un terreno documentario vergine, e dunque non indagato nemmeno nei suoi cardini istituzionali e giuridici, quindi archivistici, mi ha spinto ad impostare il lavoro su più livelli analitici, con una duplice finalità. In primo luogo, ho inteso produrre uno scavo nella storia interna del tribunale come istituzione, con le sue premesse politiche e le sue fondamenta normative, e dei processi nei loro aspetti teorici e pratici. In secondo luogo, il mio intento è stato indagare la storia esterna al tribunale, ovvero alcuni scenari della realtà sociale, culturale e antropologica del Trentino di metà Ottocento che irrompono in aula con la loro vitalità e complessità. Sebbene tra storia interna e storia esterna vi siano un fitto dialogo e una significativa interdipendenza, ho concretizzato questi propositi in un’elaborazione costituita da quattro parti, di cui le prime tre concernenti la storia interna e l’ultima quella esterna. La prima ricostruisce le vicende istituzionali dell’Impero asburgico e del Trentino ottocentesco, con specifica attenzione per gli sviluppi della normativa e della gestione della disciplina matrimoniale tra potere ecclesiastico e secolare. Nella seconda parte esamino il tribunale locale, soffermandomi sulla sua storia, sulla sua composizione, sulla prosopografia dei suoi componenti e sui criteri della loro nomina. Si indagano inoltre i rapporti intessuti dal foro con le autorità secolari durante il periodo di vigenza del Concordato e le sfere di competenza sul matrimonio tra foro ecclesiastico e civile. L’approfondimento della fisionomia del fondo archivistico, in relazione ai meccanismi di funzionamento dell’ente produttore, e l’esame della procedura delle diverse categorie processuali, nel rapporto tra norme e prassi, compone la terza parte. Infine, la quarta parte, il fulcro della mia ricerca: in essa si svolge la disamina di alcuni processi scelti secondo un’organizzazione problematica e tematica, privilegiando lo studio del singolo caso al fine di scandagliare col maggior dettaglio possibile i numerosi risvolti delle vicende processuali. Gli argomenti affrontati sono: la pazzia, nelle sue pieghe sia procedurali sia extragiudiziarie sociali, culturali e mediche; il magnetismo animale, nella specificità del contesto giudiziario e socio-culturale in cui trova espressione; la violenza contro le donne, con l’esame delle sue narrazioni giudiziarie offerte dai vari attori coinvolti nei processi, a partire dai contendenti fino ai membri delle comunità e alle autorità secolari ed ecclesiastiche.

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Partendo da una concettualizzazione multidimensionale della povertà, il presente lavoro di ricerca studia l’effetto prodotto dalla partecipazione a programmi di microcredito su specifiche dimensioni di genere: l’empowerment delle donne e la violenza domestica. Il primo capitolo analizza la letteratura empirica sul tema in un’ottica critica, gettando le basi per lo sviluppo dei successivi. La seconda parte esamina la relazione fra partecipazione al microcredito e due distinte dimensioni di empowerment utilizzando un modello ad equazioni strutturali (SEM). Accanto alla partecipazione a tali programmi, considero, quale potenziale causa del processo di empowerment femminile, le attitudini maschili in merito al ruolo svolto dalle donne all’interno e al di fuori del contesto familiare. Dai risultati emerge un’associazione positiva fra microcredito e dimensioni di empowerment considerate, ma l’effetto delle attitudini maschili non è significativo. Infine, nell’ultimo capitolo esamino come la partecipazione al microcredito, congiuntamente ad altri fattori socio-demografici, influenza il subire violenza domestica e le attitudini femminili circa la giustificazione della stessa in determinati contesti. Dall’analisi empirica emerge un’associazione positiva tra microcredito e violenza domestica, mentre il partecipare a tali programmi non produce alcun effetto significativo sulle attitudini femminili in merito alla giustificazione della stessa. / The focus of this dissertation is about the influence of participation in microcredit programs on gendered dimensions of poverty. Specifically, I refer to multidimensional poverty in terms of women’s empowerment and domestic violence. The first chapter reviews the empirical literature on microcredit and poverty in a critical perspective and lays the foundations for the two later chapters. The second part explores the relationship between participation in microcredit programs and two distinct dimensions of women’s empowerment using a structural equation model with categorical observed variables. I consider a set of potential causes of the empowerment dimensions including participation in microcredit programs and men’s attitudes towards women’s role in intra-household relationships and in the social context. Interestingly, the former is positively associated with empowerment while the men’s perception about the women’s role do not produce a significant effect on both empowerment dimensions. The last chapter investigates how participation in microcredit programs along with other socio-demographic factors affect the likelihood to experience physical violence and the likelihood of women’s beating justification in different situations. The most interesting result concerns the influence of microcredit on the outcomes variables: it doesn’t affect women’s beliefs about beating justification but it is positively associated with physical violence.