Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: A, page: 0203. Adviser: Maryellen Bieder. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed Dec. 12, 2006)."

Orientador: Wilton Carlos Lima da Silva / Banca: Cristiane Coppe de Oliveira / Banca: Áureo Busseto / Resumo: O presente trabalho dissertativo tem como objetivo apresentar o Oriente criado por Malba Tahan ao longo de sua carreira literária e intelectual. Partindo da análise de parte de sua extensa bibliografia o texto parte da premissa que o conjunto de sua criação foi elemento facilitador da aceitação da cultura árabe/oriental em terras brasileiras. Criado por Júlio César de Mello e Souza o pseudônimo Malba Tahan, diferente de outros autores nacionais que inseriram ou trataram da cultura arábica em suas obras, não apenas buscou a inserção de personagens orientais na realidade nacional, mas, apresentou e fez o leitor aproximar-se daquela realidade. A alteridade construída pelo pseudônimo baseou-se na criação de cenários mágicos, longínquos e com aspectos religiosos e sociais que diferenciavam-se da realidade vivida pelo leitor, mas que eram misturados com características conhecidas pelos mesmos. Esta mistura de realidades fez com que sua obra fosse consumida nas mais variadas faixas etárias e em diferentes suportes, como páginas de jornais e livros a partir da segunda década do século passado até os dias atuais / Abstract: The presented dissertational work has the aim to introduce the East created by Malba Tahan throughout his literary and intelectual carreer. Based on the analysis of part of its intensive bibliography. The text assumes that the set of its creation was a facilitator element of acceptance of the Arab culture/Eastern of Brazil soil. Created by Julio Cesar de Mello the pseudonym Malba Tahan, different from other authors who have inserted or treated the Arabic culture in their works, not only searched for the inclusion of oriental characters on the national reality, but presented and made the reader closer to that reality. The alterity built by the pseudonym was based on the creation of magical scenery, distant religious and social aspects that differed from the reality experienced by the reader, but were mixed with known characteristics by the same. This mix of realities caused his work to be consumed in various age groups and in different media as newspapers and books from the second decade of the last century to present days / Mestre

<p> This project analyzes a long-neglected dimension of Early Modern Peninsular Studies: court theater. My thesis explores theoretical, political, and scenographic frameworks of court drama written for and produced in the court of Carlos II of Spain. I explore the notions of imagined communities and agency in order to understand how the theater functioned within the Habsburg court, and I juxtapose the role of the king as a spectator to that of the individual consumer of the public theater to confirm it is possible not to identify as part of the mass public during theater consumption. From there, my archival research exposes the political conflicts during the 1670s between Queen Regent Mariana of Austria and her illegitimate step-son, Don Juan Jos&eacute;, as their opposing factions vied to dominate the terrain of courtly politics in Madrid. My research investigates how these tensions were reflected in the 1670s works: <i>La estatua de Prometeo</i> and <i>Fieras afemina amor</i> by Pedro Calder&oacute;n de la Barca. This then led me to consider the political anxieties around the topic of succession in the 1690s as well. I illustrate that Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo&rsquo;s political trilogy offered viable options for an heir through his presentation of what I term the nephew-king paradigm. My research illustrates how politics and royal theater production in the 1670s and 1690s were linked due to theater&rsquo;s status as a facet of the royal Baroque identity. My project concludes by establishing court drama as its own genre through an investigation of court performance, the scenographic advancement, and the musical evolution in Baroque Spanish court drama&mdash;a highly original artistic genre in seventeenth-century Spain. I establish staged performance as malleable and trans-dynastic as it outlasts the performance of the monarchs for which the work was staged. Ultimately, this project proves that theater is a part of royal Baroque Spanish identity. </p><p>

In November 1852, Frederick Douglass composed The Heroic Slave , a novella about Madison Washington's leadership of the 1841 Creole insurrection. In the novella, Douglass attempted to justify his adoption of political methods to the antislavery community. As literary models for his story, Douglass drew on portraits of heroic slaves in his own autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), Harriet B. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; Or, Life among the Lowly (1852), Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18), and the deposition of the Creole crew, called the “New Orleans Protest” (1841). The result was an intertextual conversation among Douglass, Stowe, Byron, and the Creole crew, which Douglass used to initiate a series of autobiographical revisions. Reading The Heroic Slave as an intertextual conversation offers an alternative to the current practice of assigning this work either to the genre of fiction or to the slave narrative, which has subordinated discussion of the historical context for the story's composition to contemporary attempts to theorize the genre of autobiography. An intertextual reading shows that Douglass was developing a notion of political discourse and action based on friendship as an alternative to Stowe's emphasis on moral reform based on sympathy. Douglass's emphasis on friendship in the novella was, in part, a response to his collaboration with Gerrit Smith, whom he helped elect to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1852, and the novella reflects Douglass's intellectual and professional development from 1847 to 1852, a period to which his latter autobiographies give relatively little attention. Writing a history of Madison Washington's participation in the Creole rebellion for an audience who had, largely, forgotten the event, offered Douglass the opportunity to examine the connection between enslavement and erasure from national history. His novella attempted to reverse this process by presenting Washington's actions as a battle in an ongoing American revolution.

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This dissertation investigates the literary landscape in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The first chapter provides the historical context and examines the different generations of authors growing up in the GDR. The term 'Wenderoman' is coined through the historical event of the opening of the Berlin Wall, also referred to as turning point or change, and subsequently followed by the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990. The second chapter demonstrates how the assimilation of East German people into the free market economy has been interpreted by scholars such as Paul Cooke in the context of Postcolonialism. This theoretical framework allows for a study of the patterns and structures that guide this new fictional genre within Wende-literature. In the prototypical Wenderoman viable individual identities are created by taking its main protagonist/s through the historical Wende which also provides the context for a personal Wende. The GDR Secret Police, whether in the background or foreground of the plot, is an essential element in the plot, as is a major city, generally Berlin. Each chapter, from chapters three to seven, provides an analysis of a Wenderoman according to these categories. Chapter eight concludes that one of the most important consequences of the Wende is the requirement to create a German history and identity which accepts responsibility for Nazism (the GDR by and large repudiated any such responsibility) and GDR state repression (West Germans do not see this as a common German heritage). The reverse side to this is that West Germans must accept East Germans' positive evaluations of aspects of their GDR past, just as East Germans must accept both the positive and negative consequences of a market economy and democracy. Coming from very different angles to the definition of German identity, East and West Germans define themselves in very different ways in Wenderomanen.

The trials of the Basque witches conducted during the 16th and early 17th centuries had a significant effect on the development of Golden Age Spanish Literature. Taunts and jests alluding to the punishment and humiliation of witches abound throughout many texts, as do scenes where characters are questioned about family histories that include connections to witchcraft; all this at a time when state and church authorities took the matter very seriously. In spite of this, many characters in the Spanish literature of the period were directly associated to magic. The most famous and imitated of these is la Celestina, who helped shape many subsequent female characters that exhibited magical abilities. Although magical characters are fairly abundant in the literature, witches per se, who would be portrayed as characters that violate Christian dogma or renege on their faith and engage in a pact with the devil, were not often seen in Golden Age Theater. This project will study a number of plays known today that feature witches; among them, Entremés famoso de las brujas (1675) by Agustín Moreto, Las brujas fingidas y berza en boca (late 17th century), an anonymous work, and Amazona en las Indias (1635) by Tirso de Molina. A fourth play will also be studied, Entremés de las brujas (1742) by Francisco de Castro. Although this fourth play was published in the 18th century, it makes use of the aquelarre as a narrative element, as seen in the work of Moreto and in Las brujas fingidas. Having selected these works, this project will focus on the socio-historical context under which they existed in order to determine if the witches they portray violate established social norms or if, on the contrary, they help preserve and strengthen them. We also seek to determine whether they uphold or challenge the perceived need to eliminate and/or punish social disorder. To answer these and other questions, we will study how beliefs and myths about witches are incorporated into these plays, how witches and witch-like characters interact with other dramatic personae, and how given social norms are inverted, especially when practices forbidden or regulated by the Spanish Inquisition are concerned. Lastly, this dissertation analyzes the social paradox that emerges from the portrayal of female characters associated with witchcraft in these four theatrical works. These characters are framed as contradictory figures that correspond, in one way or another, with the contrasting cultural forces of the era. Their presence on stage communicates the crisis of the baroque, under which the plot aligns with the mechanisms of control of patriarchal culture. To this end, we analyze the representation of witches not only as sources of divergent discourse, but also as a means of disseminating mainstream discourse and propaganda; since the portrayal of these women highlights their identity as “the other” to an audience that at the same time applauds them.

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The purpose of this study of Azariah de'Rossi's Me~or Enayim is primarily to establish the precise scholarly context of de'Rossi's historical investigations by means of an analysis of the author's use of sources. The first section is devoted, for the most part, to de'Rossi's study of the origins of the Septuagint and to his use and evaluation of the work of Philo and Josephus. In relation to his Septuagint studies it is argued that his work bears greater affinity to northern European than to Italian antiquarian scholarship of his time. The original nature of de'Rossi's critique of Philo is demonstrated and is considered in the light of Christian attitudes towards the Hellenistic Jew. As regards de'Rossi's Jewish sources attention is given to his controversial analysis of the Aggadoth and to his evaluation of some post-Talmudic sources. Further clarification as to the scholarly framework of de'Rossi's researches is provided in the chapter on his use of the work of two Christian writers - Augustinus Steuchus and Annius of Viterbo. A re-appraisal of the Jewish reaction to the publication of the Me'or (Enayim is given in the Postscript. In the second par~ an annotated English translation of five ~ c chapters of the Me'or _Enayim have been provided as illustration of the discussions of the first part of the thesis.

<p> For more than fifty years, the <i>Meditationes Vitae Christi (MVC) </i> and the most famous of its illustrated manuscripts (Paris, Biblioth&egrave;que nationale, Ms. ital. 115) have been employed by scholars to exemplify late medieval female spirituality. The mid-fourteenth century ilhuminated manuscript of the <i>Meditationes</i> in the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame that is the subject of this dissertation provides valuable evidence of the popularity of the famous text originally written for a woman religious and its appropriation by urban laity. As an example of the shorter text, in Italian, with 43 chapters plus prologue, its 48 large colored miniatures and the decorated initials that begin each chapter, point to a wealthy patron quite unlike the Poor Clare to whom the <i>MVC</i> text was initially directed. The style of the miniatures indicates that the manuscript was illuminated ca. 1350 in Bologna, site of the pre-eminent European university for the study of law.</p><p> The dissertation explores how the <i>Meditationes Vitae Christi </i> was adapted for an educated and prosperous husband and wife. While written in the vernacular, the Snite <i>MVC</i> illuminations bear a strong resemblance to the illustrations in fourteenth-century Bolognese legal manuscripts. Despite the vivid and often unconventional imagery of the text that is designed to stimulate the reader's affective response to its re-telling of the story of the life of Christ, the miniatures tend to preserve traditional iconographies. The superficially conventional Snite miniatures, which often seem indifferent to the visual specifics of the text, serve to align it with orthodox doctrine and underscore the veracity of its contents. </p><p> An analysis of the illuminations of the Snite <i>MVC</i> reveals a particular attentiveness by the illuminator to the representation of male exemplars that would appeal to an elite educated patron, who might have been a judge or lawyer, or law professor. The Infancy miniatures in particular depict St. Joseph in a prominent role and dressed as a late medieval professional man The dignified representation of St. Joseph is consistent with his scriptural appellation as a "just man " By attending to the themes of justice and wisdom in both the <i>MVC</i> text and in its scriptural sources, the Snite miniatures prove to be much richer in meaning than first glance would suggest, and their affinity with legal manuscript illumination hardly accidental.</p><p> The iconographic analysis of the Snite miniatures is complemented by the study of the social and intellectual context in which the manuscript was produced. Despite the seeming simplicity of the miniatures, the illuminator and his advisor prove to be theologically sophisticated and scripturally literate. By means of the illuminations, the <i>MVC</i> is made compatible with the religious and professional concerns of the elite laity, providing access for men wielding worldly authority into the life of Christ in which powerful and learned men play largely negative roles. The Snite manuscript responds to the lay patron's desire to see in the example of Christ and the events of his life confirmation of late medieval social, juridical, and political structures. In its miniatures, it provides saintly models for the educated laity desirous of reconciling their Christian commitments with the demands of an active, urban, professional life.</p>