This thesis aims to engage with the poetry of Scotland and Greek-speaking Cyprus, and examine the relationship between poetry defined as high culture and articulations of national identity in the two places. Scotland and Cyprus share characteristics that make the establishment of a single, coherent national identity with the appearance of permanence challenging, including their relationships with culturally dominant neighbours, competition between local and official languages, and the insecurity of their status as nations. Both Scotland and Cyprus have historically had hybrid identities; in Scotland, British identity is made problematic by England's cultural dominance, while in Cyprus Greek-speakers have a conflicted relationship with Greece. This is made more complex by the fact that Scotland's political union with England may be ending, while Cyprus is divided in half as a result of tensions between Christian and Muslim populations and the unsubtle past involvement of Greece and Turkey in the island's affairs. This thesis aims to locate trends of national identity through the analysis of poetry and its reception in three distinct contexts. Part 1 analyses the evolution of Scottish and Greek-speaking Cypriot 'national character' through the poetry of national poets Robert Burns and Vasilis Michailidis, and the poets Walter Scott and Dimitris Lipertis. Part 2 explores the effects of modernity on the expression of national identities in literature through the lens of the Modernist movement, and how this was adopted and modified in Scotland and Cyprus. This is discussed with reference to three poets, Hugh MacDiarmid, Kostas Montis and Edwin Morgan, and their treatment of the national past and search for a national literary language. Finally, Part 3 analyses deliberate engagements of poets with national identity and issues of national importance, using Seamus Heaney's idea of 'adequate' poetry as a guide. Two functions of poetry are considered: the role it can play in transforming the landscape into the national homeland, and its potential to address communal trauma, and transform it into a unifying experience.

L’objectif de ce travail est l’étude de la démarche artistique du mouvement surréaliste et de la peinture métaphysique en Grèce pendant la période des années 1930. En particulier la thèse étudie le cas des peintres Nikos Engonopoulos, Gerassimos Steris et Georges Gounaro. Tout en examinant « l’idiome pictural » des artistes, ce travail vise également à élucider les influences reçues des artistes Grecs tant par le mouvement surréaliste en France que par les aspirations métaphysiques de la peinture de Giorgio de Chirico. Ainsi orientée, la mise en relation s’effectue sur deux axes, premièrement thématique et deuxièmement stylistique. Dans la première partie, la thèse considère la réception du surréalisme et de la peinture métaphysique en Grèce, effectuée dans des conditions hostiles. Il s`agit donc d`étudier le concept de la « Grécité » et le contexte historique et sociopolitique qui a marqué l’implantation retardée et l’expression affaiblie de cette peinture qui, affranchie des contraintes de l’académisme, a provoqué un scandale sans précédent, combinant Modernisme et Tradition. Dans les parties suivantes, ce travail aborde des thèmes communs dans l`œuvre des artistes du corpus, à savoir l`espace pictural surréel, méta empirique, et onirique, les visions métaphysiques, le rôle du Mythe Orphique, et finalement la représentation et le symbolisme de la figure humaine, historique et mythique, dans son inquiétante étrangeté. De surcroît, la thèse révèle l’originalité de cette création artistique subversive (thèmes choisis, techniques, dessin, et couleurs utilisées) qui a oscillé entre les influences occidentales et la revendication d`une spécificité nationale et culturelle. / The objective of this work is the study of the artistic process of the surrealist movement and the metaphysical painting in Greece, during the 1930s. In particular, the thesis examines the case of painters Nikos Engonopoulos, Gerassimos Steris, and Georges Gounaro. While examining the artists’ « pictorial idiom », it also seeks to elucidate the influences received from Greek artists by the surrealist movement in France and by the metaphysical aspirations of Giorgio de Chirico’s painting. The method of approach is based on the parallel, performed on two axes, firstly thematic and secondly stylistic. In the first part this work considers the reception of surrealism and the metaphysical painting in Greece, at the time of the inter-war period, which was carried out in adverse conditions. The reasons for the weak expression of Surrealism and its delayed implantation in Greece are attributed to the socio-political context and the imperatives of the time. This surreal and metaphysical creation, freed from the constraints of academic painting, caused a scandal as she approached Greek tradition in an innovative way. In the following sections the research deals with common topics in the pictorial work of Greek artists’, namely the surreal, meta-empirical, and dreamlike pictorial space, as well as painters’ metaphysical visions, the role of the Orphic myth, and finally the presence and the symbolism of historical and mythical human figures which often follow the principle of metamorphosis. In addition this work reveals the originality of this art (topics, drawing and colours used) mainly due to its Greek character. It’s a particular case study of that thoroughly subversive artistic creation, oscillated between Western influences and claims of national and cultural specificity.

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This thesis offers an approach to the history of mythographical discourse through the figure of Theseus and his appearances in texts from England, Italy and France. Analysing a range of poetic, historical, and allegorical works that feature Theseus alongside their classical and contemporary intertexts, it is a study of the conceptions of Greco-Roman mythology prevalent in European literature from 1300-1600. Focusing on mythology’s pervasive presence as a background to medieval and early modern literary and intellectual culture, it draws attention to the fragmentary, fluid and polymorphous nature of mythology in relation to its use for different purposes in a wide range of texts. The first impact of this study is to draw attention to the distinction between mythology and mythography, as a means of focusing on the full range of interpretative processes associated with the ancient myths in their textual forms. Returning attention to the processes by which writers and readers came to know the Greco-Roman myths, it widens the commonly accepted critical definition of ‘mythography’ to include any writing of or on mythology, while restricting ‘mythology’ to its abstract sense, meaning a traditional collection of tales that exceeds any one text. This distinction allows the analyses of the study’s primary texts to display the full range of interpretative processes and possibilities involved in rewriting mythology, and to outline a spectrum of linked but distinctive mythographical genres that define those possibilities. Breaking down into two parts of three chapters each, the thesis examines Theseus’ appearances across these mythographical genres, first in the period from 1300 to the birth of print, and then from the birth of print up to 1600. Taking as its primary texts works by Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate and William Shakespeare along with their classical intertexts, it situates each of them in regard to their multiple defining contexts. Paying close attention to the European traditions of commentary, translation and response to classical sources, it shows mythographical discourse as a vibrant aspect of medieval and early modern literary culture, equally embedded in classical traditions and contemporary traditions that transcended national and linguistic boundaries.

This thesis places Chaucer within the tradition of philosophical poetry that begins in Plato and extends through classical and medieval Latin culture. In this Platonic tradition, poetry is a self-reflexive epistemological practice that interrogates the conditions of art in general. As such, poetry as metapoetics takes itself as its own object of inquiry in order to reinforce and generate its own definitions without regard to extrinsic considerations. It attempts to create a poetic-knowledge proper instead of one that is dependant on other modes for meaning. The particular manner in which this is expressed is according to the idea of the loss of the Golden Age. In the Augustinian context of Chaucer’s poetry, language, in its literal and historical signifying functions is an effect of the noetic fall and a deformation of an earlier symbolism. The Chaucerian poems this thesis considers concern themselves with the solution to a historical literary lament for language’s fall, a solution that suggests that the instability in language can be overcome with reference to what has been lost in language. The chapters are organized to reflect the medieval Neoplatonic ascensus. The first chapter concerns the Pardoner’s Old Man and his relationship to the literary history of Tithonus in which the renewing of youth is ironically promoted in order to perpetually delay eternity and make the current world co-eternal to the coming world. In the Miller’s Tale, more aggressive narrative strategies deploy the machinery of atheism in order to make a god-less universe the sufficient grounds for the transformation of a fallen and contingent world into the only world whatsoever. The Manciple’s Tale’s opposite strategy leaves the world intact in its current state and instead makes divine beings human. Phoebus expatriates to earth and attempts to co-mingle it with heaven in order to unify art and history into a single monistic experience. Finally, the Nun’s Priest’s Tale acts as ars poetica for the entire Chaucerian Performance and undercuts the naturalistic strategies of the first three poems by a long experiment in the philosophical conflict between art and history. By imagining art and history as epistemologically antagonistic it attempts to subdue in a definitive manner poetic strategies that would imagine human history as the necessary knowledge-condition for poetic language.

The nature of trials, tests, and temptation in the Epistle of James has been extensively debated in New Testament scholarship. However, scholarship has underexamined the tension between the author’s mitigation of divine agency in testing ( Jas 1:13–14) and the author’s appeal to well-known biblical testing narratives such as the creation account (1:15– 18), the Binding of Isaac ( Jas 2:21–24), and the Trials of Job ( Jas 5:9–11). is juxtaposition between the author’s theological apologetic and his biblical hermeneutic has the potential to reveal either the author’s theological incoherence or his rhetorical and hermeneutical creativity. With these tensions of divine agency and biblical interpretation in mind, this dissertation compares the Epistle of James against other examples of ancient Jewish interpretation, interrogating two points of contact in each Jewish work: their portrayals of the cosmic drama of testing, and their resulting biblical hermeneutic. The dissertation assembles a spectrum of positions on how the divine, satanic, and human roles of testing vary from author to author. These variations of the dramatis personae of the cosmic drama exercise a direct influence on the reception and interpretation of the biblical testing narratives. When the Epistle of James is examined in a similar light, it reveals a cosmic drama especially dependent on the metaphor of the divine law court. Within this cosmic drama, God stands as righteous judge, and in the place of divine prosecutor stand the cosmic forces indicting both divine integrity and human religious loyalty. These cosmic and human roles have a direct impact on James’ reading of biblical testing narratives. Utilising an intra-canonical hermeneutic similar to that found in Rewritten Bible literature, the Epistle appeals to a constructed ‘Jobraham’ narrative in which the Job stories mitigate divine agency in biblical trials such as those of Abraham, and Abraham’s celebrated patience rehabilitates Job’s rebellious response to trial. In conclusion, by closely examining the broader exegetical discourses of ancient Judaism, this project sheds new light on how the Epistle of James responds to theological tensions within its religious community through a hermeneutical application of the dominant biblical narratives of Job’s cosmic framework and Abraham’s human perfection.

The Sermo antequam iret in exilium and the Sermo cum iret in exsilium are two homilies allegedly pronounced by John Chrysostom in Constantinople at the end of summer 403, some time between the verdict of the Synod of the Oak and the day he left the city for his first exile. The aim of the thesis is to demonstrate that a new critical edition of these texts is needed before any study of their literary and historical value can be conducted. Chapter one sketches the historical background to which the text of the homilies refers and a concise survey about previous scholarship on the homilies on the first exile, from the time of Montfaucon’s edition until our days. The problem of the authenticity occupies the last part of the chapter. Chapter two investigates the history of the texts and takes into account both the direct and indirect traditions. It discusses the existence of double recensions hitherto unknown and provides the prefatory material for the new critical edition of recensio α of Sermo antequam iret in exilium and of the Sermo cum iret in exsilium. Chapter three comprises the Greek editions of the two homilies, as well as a provisional edition of the Latin version of the Sermo antequam iret in exilium. Chapter four is divided into two parts, each presenting a philological commentary on the text of the new editions. Systematic analysis of all the most important variant readings is offered. The final chapter summarizes the new findings and assesses the validity of previous criteria used for discerning the authenticity of the homilies on the exile.

The thesis is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the manuscript Marcianus graecus 524, the second looks at the Greek text of the dedicatory epigrams on works of art from the same manuscript, and the third puts these texts in their context. In the first part, the compilation of the manuscript is analysed. I suggest that the manuscript was copied mainly by one individual scribe living in Constantinople at the end of the thirteenth century. He copied the quires individually, but at some point he put all these quires together, added new quires, and compiled an anthology of poetry. The scribe’s connection to the Planudean School and the Petra monastery in Constantinople is discussed. Although their relationship remains inconclusive, the manuscript provides evidence regarding the literary interests of late-thirteenth-century intellectuals. The second part contains thirty-five unpublished dedicatory epigrams on works of art. New readings are offered for the text of previously published epigrams. The third section analyses the dedicatory epigrams on works of art in their context. The first chapter of this section discusses the epigrams as Gebrauchstexte, i.e. texts with a practical use. The difference between epigrams intended to be inscribed and epigrams intended to be performed is highlighted. In the next chapter of this part, La poésie de l’objet, the composition of the dedicatory epigrams is discussed. The conventional character of the epigrams suggests that the poetics express the ritual aspect of the epigram. The last chapter considers the texts from a more pragmatic angle. After a short discussion of the objects on which the epigrams were written, the mechanisms of the twelfth-century art market are presented based on evidence taken mainly from the epigrams. At the end of this part, conclusions are drawn on the understanding of these texts in the twelfth century.

This thesis provides a fresh investigation of a collection of Roman imperial biographies conventionally known as the 'Historia Augusta'. The thesis supports the authenticity of the texts included in this corpus, in particular the claims they make about their dates, authorship, and scope, through philological, literary, prosopographical, and historical arguments. It shows that this corpus of texts, if the main conclusions are accepted, potentially improves our understanding of the tetrarchic-Constantinian era. It also explores the wider implications for the historiography of the fourth century; the transmission and formation of multi-author corpora in antiquity and the middle ages. It also suggests that the canon of Latin imperial biographies be widened. The thesis has two parts. Part I explores the actual state of the corpus, its textual transmission, and relation to other texts. It shows that the ancient and medieval paratexts presented the corpus as a collection of imperial biographies. The paratexts are compatible with the authorial statements in the main text. It then explores the corpus' medieval transmission, and the interest medieval scholars had in such texts. This part suggests that the corpus’s current state explains well the inconsistencies found in it. Finally, it shows that words and phrases, once thought peculiar to the corpus and the holy grail of the forgery argument, are intertextual links to earlier texts. Part II explores chronological statements and historical episodes relevant to the Diocletianic-Constantinan period. It establishes the actual dates of each author, and suggests that the confusion found in these biographies is similar to that of other contemporaries. The few apostrophes are shown to be authentic, and the historical and prosopographical passages are shown to represent, and improve our understanding of, the zeitgeist and history of the period. The final conclusion weaves the various arguments together, and emphasises the authenticity and significance of the corpus' texts. It suggests separating the composition of the texts from the disinterested formation of the corpus as a whole, as part of a new hypothesis and further lines of enquiry.

La problématique de la protection de la vie personnelle est très ancienne et a fait l’objet d'études dans diverses disciplines scientifiques. Un principe d’indifférence à la vie personnelle a été reconnu dans l’ensemble des systèmes étudiés à partir desannées 1980. Malgré l’existence d’un cadre juridique protecteur à première vue, avec la reconnaissance d’un droit à la protection de la vie personnelle - qui limite et rationalise indubitablement les pouvoirs de direction de l’employeur - la protection connaît des tempéraments et des restrictions, afin d'atteindre un équilibre avec les intérêts légitimes et les droits de l’employeur. La vie personnelle se trouve donc limitée par les pouvoirs patronaux, aspect très largement sous-estimé. Tant le législateur que la pratique et la jurisprudence cherchent à définir les conditions de cet équilibre, que cette étude s’attache à décrire, en soulignant les obstacles techniques et en proposant des solutions pour les résoudre. Son objectif est de démontrer qu’il y a une tendance claire et nette à reconnaître à l’employeur un droit de plus en plus poussé à la restriction de la vie personnelle du salarié et que ceci risque de mettre en péril l’ensemble de la construction. / The notion of the protection of personal life has already been the subject of various scientific disciplines. A principle of immunity of the employee’s personal life has been recognized in all the systems compared in this study, since the early 80’s. Despite the establishment of a protective legal framework, acknowledging a right to the protection of privacy, which undoubtedly limits and rationalises the employer’s powers, the actual protection is often limited, so as the employer’s legitimate interests and rights to be balanced with such protection of privacy. Personal life is, thus, limited by the employer’s powers. Both the legislation and the legal theory and practice seek to define the conditions of this balance. This study attempts to describe and highlight the various aspects of this balancing, as well as its technical barriers. It seeks to demonstrate that there is a clear and strong tendency torecognize an advanced right of the employer to restrict the employee’s personal life and that this puts the whole framework of protection into question.