This document examines the work in my MFA thesis exhibition. The objects in that installation address specific socio-aesthetic sites of class and power. The personal and cultural narratives examined here further explain the objects’ symbolic potential.

The entity of Lucifer has long been an area of study and confusion throughout history. Among notable literary minds, Dante Alighieri stands out as an illuminating poet who brings to light the essence and nature of this nefarious character and his influence on mankind. In his revelatory work, the Commedia, Dante touches on but does not explicitly detail the scope and importance that music and specifically, song, has on the redemptive purgation of the soul. This work provides a more in depth investigation into the generally overlooked issue, that is, the origin and initial intent of song, the perversion of which, by whom and why, and Dante’s perception of the subject revealed in his missive to mankind. Along scientific theory, along with other works by Dante to provide a link between Lucifer, music, the sin of pride, and the corruption of the divine. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

O objetivo geral desta dissertação é interpretar o corpo enquanto instância semântica no poema O Casamento do Céu e do Inferno (1790), do poeta inglês William Blake. Sustenta-se que uma semântica profunda de TMHH instaura uma forma ativa, integrada e franca de viver. Investigaremos a concepção de corpo presente do poema a fim de validar a hipótese de que é possível ter a vida transformada pela leitura de um texto altamente poético. Essa transformação, em última instância, é uma consequência da apropriação do texto pelo leitor. Tal apropriação se dá não só pela via mental, mas de fato pela incorporação do texto literário. O trabalho será realizado com base na hermenêutica de Paul Ricoeur, especialmente na dialética da conjectura e da validação. Já o livro de artista, ramo da arte conceitual do qual Blake é visto como um dos precursores, será apresentado enquanto performance e demonstração dos sentidos de corporeidade vislumbrados pela presente interpretação do poema. Em termos de embodiment, o papel da gravura em metal do processo criativo completo de Blake abre-nos possibilidades para um amplo horizonte de metáforas relacionadas às especificidades dessa técnica quando em articulação com o poema. / The general objective of this dissertation is to interpret the body as a semantic instance in the poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), from English poet William Blake. It holds that the depth semantics of TMHH establishes an active, integrated, and franc way of living. We will investigate the conception of a present ‘body’ of the poem to validate the hypothesis that it is possible to have lives transformed by the reading of a highly poetic text. This transformation is ultimately a consequence of the appropriation of the text by the reader. Such appropriation is not only mental, but it takes place in the incorporation, or embodiment, of the literary text. The work will be based on Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, especially the dialectics of guess and validation. The artist’s book, a field of conceptual art of which Blake is seen as precursor, will be presented as performance and demonstration of the senses of corporeality foreseen in this interpretation of the poem. In terms of embodiment, the role of engraving in Blake’s complete creative process opens to a wild horizon of metaphors concerning the specificities of this art in relation to the poem.

From the eighth to the fourteenth century, places of wonder and dread appear in a wide variety of genres in Old and Middle English: epics, lays, romances, saints’ lives, travel narratives, marvel collections, visions of the afterlife. These places appear in narratives of the other world, a term which in Old and Middle English texts refers to the Christian afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, even Paradise can be fraught with wonder, danger, and the possibility of harm. But in addition to the other world, there are places that are not theologically separate from the human world, but that are nevertheless both marvellous and horrifying: the monster-mere in Beowulf, the Faerie kingdom of Sir Orfeo, the demon-ridden Vale Perilous in Mandeville’s Travels, or the fearful landscape of the Green Chapel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Fraught with horror or the possibility of harm, these places are profoundly different from the presented or implied home world of the text. My dissertation investigates how Old and Middle English narratives create places of wonder and dread; how they situate these places metaphysically between the world of living mortals and the world of the afterlife; how they furnish these places with dangerous topography and monstrous inhabitants, as well as with motifs, with tropes, and with thematic concerns that signal their marvellous and fearful nature. I argue that the heart of this poetics of marvellous spaces is displacement. Their wonder and dread comes from boundaries that these places blur and cross, from the resistance of these places to being known or mapped, and from the deliberate distancing between these places and the home of their texts. This overarching concern with displacement encourages the migration of iconographic motifs, tropes, and themes across genre boundaries and theological categories.

From the eighth to the fourteenth century, places of wonder and dread appear in a wide variety of genres in Old and Middle English: epics, lays, romances, saints’ lives, travel narratives, marvel collections, visions of the afterlife. These places appear in narratives of the other world, a term which in Old and Middle English texts refers to the Christian afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, even Paradise can be fraught with wonder, danger, and the possibility of harm. But in addition to the other world, there are places that are not theologically separate from the human world, but that are nevertheless both marvellous and horrifying: the monster-mere in Beowulf, the Faerie kingdom of Sir Orfeo, the demon-ridden Vale Perilous in Mandeville’s Travels, or the fearful landscape of the Green Chapel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Fraught with horror or the possibility of harm, these places are profoundly different from the presented or implied home world of the text. My dissertation investigates how Old and Middle English narratives create places of wonder and dread; how they situate these places metaphysically between the world of living mortals and the world of the afterlife; how they furnish these places with dangerous topography and monstrous inhabitants, as well as with motifs, with tropes, and with thematic concerns that signal their marvellous and fearful nature. I argue that the heart of this poetics of marvellous spaces is displacement. Their wonder and dread comes from boundaries that these places blur and cross, from the resistance of these places to being known or mapped, and from the deliberate distancing between these places and the home of their texts. This overarching concern with displacement encourages the migration of iconographic motifs, tropes, and themes across genre boundaries and theological categories.

Both the “crisis of masculinity” and “quality TV” have been popular discourses in academia in recent years. Many of these contemporary quality TV series feature male anti-heroes at the center of their narratives. This dissertation argues that the constructions of masculinity in series such as "Breaking Bad" and "The Walking Dead" are informed by the Western hero. Furthermore, the dissertation links this recourse to an arguably outmoded model of masculinity to recent crisis tendencies in the USA, most notably the recent economic downturn and the aftermath of September 11 2001. Moreover, the return of the Western hero can be understood as a process of remasculinization in light of the crisis of masculinity.

Ce travail interprète les deux premières parties de la Divine Comédie de Dante Alighieri (1261-1321) à partir des valeurs symboliques associées par son auteur à la lumière. L’objectif est de démontrer que, grâce à la représentation de multiples phénomènes lumineux dans l’Enfer et dans le Purgatoire, le redressement moral conçu pour le lecteur est comparable à une véritable conversion, un cheminement de l’esprit qui fuit l’erreur (ténèbres) pour se rapprocher par étapes successives du salut (lumière).Dans la première partie, la nécessité pour l’auteur de placer ces deux espaces eschatologiques chrétiens sur terre est mise en relation avec les vicissitudes rencontrées par Dante qui le conduisent à s’interroger sur le destin d’une humanité en perdition. L’égarement de l’âme ayant perdu le bien de l’intellect, de même que son rachat, sont évoqués dans le monde des vivants par la présence du royaume de la damnation éternelle, l’abîme infernal, et d’un espace de pénitence temporaire, une montagne élevée. En traversant ces deux lieux de l’au-delà, le protagoniste échappe à la forêt obscure et s’apprête à atteindre le colle illuminé ; il suggère ainsi au lecteur un modèle de conduite morale à travers l’interprétation symbolique des phénomènes lumineux.Dans la deuxième et dans la troisième partie, l’exemplarité attribuée à la représentation de la lumière se précise à travers l’expérience exceptionnelle du pèlerin, viator dans le monde des morts : dans l’Enfer, la « poétique du feu » met en scène l’évolution d’une conscience en train de constater les conséquences désastreuses d’un usage malsain de l’intellect (ingegno) ; dans le Purgatoire, la « poésie du ciel » relate la libération progressive d’un esprit à qui sont annoncés les signes de son élection au privilège de la grâce. / This work is an interpretation of the first two parts of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1261-1321) from the symbolic meanings associated to light by the author. The objective is to demonstrate that through the representation of multiple light phenomena in Hell and in Purgatory , moral recovery designed for the reader is similar to a true conversion, a journey of the mind fleeing its error (darkness) in order to approach salvation (light) by stages.In the first part, the necessity to place part of the Christian eschatological space on earth is related to Dante’s vicissitudes that make him question the destiny of a humanity in distress. The error of the soul which has lost the good of the intellect, as well as its redemption, are evoked in the world of the living by the presence of the realm of eternal damnation (the infernal abyss) and a space for temporary penance (a high mountain). By crossing those two places of the afterlife, the protagonist escapes the dark forest and prepares to reach the illuminated colle. Thus he suggests a model of moral behavior through a symbolic interpretation of the luminous phenomena.In the second and third parts, the exemplarity attributed to the representation of light is made clear through the exceptional experience of the pilgrim, viator in the world of the dead : in Hell, the "poetics of fire " stages the evolution of consciousness : an awareness of the disastrous consequences of an unhealthy use of the intellect (ingegno) ; in Purgatory , the "poetry of heaven " traces the gradual release of a mind to which the signs of its election to the privilege of grace are revealed.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:20:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rogerio Costa Miglioni.pdf: 1133457 bytes, checksum: 3b0df0a792b8e97954ff83479d6ca8c7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-03-05 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The intention of this research was to describe, and analyse death ceremonies and collective representations of Brazilian Catholics regarding death and mourning. Our objective was to study the symbolic systems developed in several societies, by starting from tribal cultures, then moving to Early Christianity from the period just before and after the institutionalisation process that gave birth to Catholic Christianity. We analysed both, the Catholic practices and representations related to death and dying, in the Middle Ages, as well as in the Modern and Contemporary times both in Europe and Brazil. We also aimed to depict death rites as a way to give meaning to life, and of keeping and reinforcing social cohesion found whenever death takes a member of a given society, thus provoking disruption and social unbalance. By doing this research on Catholic death rites we had as a goal to develop a little more the knowledge about a social and religious phenomenon that is seldom approached by researchers, the death of the believer, and Catholic groups death practices, their customs and speeches about the dead. Nevertheless, we cared to do all of these in the Brazilian scenery, a setting that grows more and more urban and secular.(AU) / Esta pesquisa procurou descrever, analisar e comparar as cerimônias mortuárias e as representações coletivas de católicos brasileiros da morte e do luto. Tivemos por objetivo estudar os sistemas simbólicos desenvolvidos em várias sociedades, começando com as culturas tribais, passando depois para o cristianismo dos primeiros séculos, antes da instauração do processo de institucionalização que originou o cristianismo católico e durante ele. Analisamos as práticas e representações católicas relacionadas com a morte e o morrer, na Idade Média, Idade Moderna e Contemporânea, tanto na Europa como no Brasil. O objetivo também foi apresentar os ritos mortuários como formas de dar sentido à vida, de reforçar e manter a coesão social, em que indivíduos vivem constantemente os desarranjos gerados pela presença da morte que arrebata um dos seus semelhantes provocando um desequilíbrio social. Ao realizar tal pesquisa sobre os rituais mortuários católicos, a meta consistiu em avançar um pouco mais no conhecimento sobre um fenômeno social religioso nem sempre abordado pelos pesquisadores: a morte do crente, as práticas mortuárias dos grupos católicos, seus hábitos e discurso quanto ao morto, dentro de um cenário brasileiro que se torna cada vez mais urbano e secularizado.(AU)

O objetivo geral desta dissertação é interpretar o corpo enquanto instância semântica no poema O Casamento do Céu e do Inferno (1790), do poeta inglês William Blake. Sustenta-se que uma semântica profunda de TMHH instaura uma forma ativa, integrada e franca de viver. Investigaremos a concepção de corpo presente do poema a fim de validar a hipótese de que é possível ter a vida transformada pela leitura de um texto altamente poético. Essa transformação, em última instância, é uma consequência da apropriação do texto pelo leitor. Tal apropriação se dá não só pela via mental, mas de fato pela incorporação do texto literário. O trabalho será realizado com base na hermenêutica de Paul Ricoeur, especialmente na dialética da conjectura e da validação. Já o livro de artista, ramo da arte conceitual do qual Blake é visto como um dos precursores, será apresentado enquanto performance e demonstração dos sentidos de corporeidade vislumbrados pela presente interpretação do poema. Em termos de embodiment, o papel da gravura em metal do processo criativo completo de Blake abre-nos possibilidades para um amplo horizonte de metáforas relacionadas às especificidades dessa técnica quando em articulação com o poema. / The general objective of this dissertation is to interpret the body as a semantic instance in the poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), from English poet William Blake. It holds that the depth semantics of TMHH establishes an active, integrated, and franc way of living. We will investigate the conception of a present ‘body’ of the poem to validate the hypothesis that it is possible to have lives transformed by the reading of a highly poetic text. This transformation is ultimately a consequence of the appropriation of the text by the reader. Such appropriation is not only mental, but it takes place in the incorporation, or embodiment, of the literary text. The work will be based on Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, especially the dialectics of guess and validation. The artist’s book, a field of conceptual art of which Blake is seen as precursor, will be presented as performance and demonstration of the senses of corporeality foreseen in this interpretation of the poem. In terms of embodiment, the role of engraving in Blake’s complete creative process opens to a wild horizon of metaphors concerning the specificities of this art in relation to the poem.

Este trabalho analisa diferentes concepções da ideia de animalidade a partir de três obras de escritores contemporâneos: Hotel Hell, de Joca Reiners Terron; Húmus, de Paulo Bullar; e Ainda Orangotangos, de Paulo Scott. Os pontos de convergência das diversas animalidades presentes nestas obras são: a indistinção homens/animais e cidade/selva; a pele (superfície) geradora de sentidos; a relação homem/animal mediada pelo devir; a aproximação das ideias de animalidade e de mal. Os principais textos utilizados nas reflexões teóricas foram os Mil Platôs, de Gilles Deleuze e Félix Guattari, e A cultura popular na Idade Média e no Renascimento – O contexto de François Rabelais, de Mikhail Bakhtin. / This work analyses different conceptions of the animality idea from three books of contemporary writers: Hotel Hell, by Joca Reiners Terron; Húmus, by Paulo Bullar; and Ainda Orangotangos, by Paulo Scott. The points of convergence of the various animalities ideas in these books are the indistinctness of men/animals and city/jungle; the skin (surface) that generates senses; the men/animal relationship mediated by becoming; the approximation of the animality and evil concepts. The main texts used in theoretical reflections was Mil Platôs, by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and A cultura popular na Idade Média e no Renascimento – O contexto de François Rabelais, by Mikhail Bakhtin.