This thesis examines the relationship between human will and divine will as mediated through state divination in the Roman Middle and Late Republic. The nature of ancient evidence for incidents involving state divination, and for divinatory ‘rules’, is scrutinized: the historicity of many divinatory incidents recorded in Roman tradition is defended, and the existence of a body of basic divinatory ‘rules’ posited. Current models of the relationship between human and divine will in Roman divination are examined; the thesis challenges the ‘alignment’ model wherein the outcomes of state divination are assumed routinely to have aligned with the will of their recipients. Cases where divinatory outcomes do not appear to have aligned with recipients’ will are identified in Cicero, Livy, and Cassius Dio. The modern view that state divinatory techniques (auspication, haruspicy in sacrifice, and prodigy-interpretation) routinely generated desired results is called into question. The thesis then re-evaluates the canon of ancient ‘rule-statements’ generally cited as evidence for augural ‘principles’ that the report of a sign was considered as valid as an actual sign, and that it was acceptable for individuals to fabricate or to reject signs at will. Instead, it is suggested that a real sign was preferable to a reported one, and that the validity of an oblative sign depended on the individual’s awareness of it. Finally, the thesis proposes an alternative to the currently-accepted understanding of the auspicial procedure ‘servare de caelo’, arguing that even this procedure need not be seen as invariably generating signs in alignment with human will and as countenancing sign-falsification. These conclusions are held to encourage a re-consideration of the modern understanding of the nature of Roman state divination and of Roman religion.

Thèse de doctorat présenté en vue de l'obtention du doctorat en psychologie - recherche intervention, option neuropsychologie clinique (Ph.D) / Les prodiges musicaux sont des musiciens qui ont atteint un niveau de performance exceptionnel, et ce avant l’adolescence. Les premières études à leur sujet ont été écrites il y a plus de 100 ans. Malgré tout, les données psychologiques sur les prodiges musicaux sont rares. Une des théories influentes concernant l’acquisition de l’expertise est celle de la pratique délibérée, selon laquelle le développement du talent se fait essentiellement avec la pratique. La précocité du talent des prodiges paraît défier cette notion et suggère la présence de prédispositions biologiques. D’autres modèles théoriques proposent une vision davantage multifactorielle du développement de l’expertise. La présente thèse vise à révéler les caractéristiques psychologiques des prodiges en utilisant une méthodologie empirique. L'objectif général est de déterminer en quoi ces musiciens exceptionnels se démarquent des autres. En premier lieu, une étude transversale avait comme objectif de déterminer si la pratique, l’intelligence et la personnalité font des prodiges des musiciens à part. Pour ce faire, nous avons recruté 19 prodiges musicaux et les avons comparés à 35 musiciens qui ont soit débuté leur pratique musicale tôt (vers 6 ans) ou plus tard (vers 10 ans), mais qui ont une quantité similaire d’année d’expérience musicale au moment de l’évaluation, ainsi qu’à 16 non-musiciens. Les participants ont tous complété une échelle d’intelligence de Wechsler, l’inventaire de personnalité du Big Five, le quotient du spectre de l’autisme, le Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire, le Dispositional Flow Scale, et un historique détaillé de leur pratique musicale. Nos résultats indiquent qu’aucun des traits psychologiques ne distingue les prodiges des autres, hormis la propension à être dans un état de flow lors de la pratique musicale. D’autres aspects différenciant les prodiges étaient l’intensité de leur pratique avant l’adolescence, ainsi que la source de leur motivation lorsqu’ils ont commencé à jouer de leur instrument. En second lieu, nous avons étudié un virtuose de la guitare atteint du syndrome de Gilles de la Tourette, qui apprend très rapidement de nouvelles pièces. Pour ce faire, nous avons comparé sa vitesse d'apprentissage d'une nouvelle pièce à 3 autres guitaristes expérimentés et nous l'avons également comparé à un échantillon contrôle de musiciens (N = 15) sur une variété de tâches; apprentissage musical et verbal, perception musicale, mémoire de travail, QI et propension au flow. La structure et le fonctionnement de son cerveau ont également été analysés à l’aide de l’imagerie par résonance magnétique. Les résultats indiquent que le prodige peut apprendre davantage de notes que ses pairs en un temps donné, tout en étant plus musical. Celui-ci était également un des meilleurs pour percevoir et apprendre de nouvelles mélodies. Son QI était comparable à ses pairs, mais sa mémoire de travail auditivo-verbale et visuo-spatiale était supérieure à celle de ses pairs et de la population générale. Mis ensemble, nos résultats indiquent que les prodiges musicaux sont caractérisés par une diversité de trajectoires développementales, et que la pratique seule ne fait pas le prodige. Nos résultats sont compatibles avec les modèles multifactoriels de l’expertise. Plusieurs facteurs sont à l’œuvre ; la pratique intensive précoce, le flow, la motivation, et parfois la présence de conditions neurodéveloppementales et d’habiletés musicales et mnésiques supérieures. Les données suggèrent aussi que la douance musicale est un phénomène distinct de la douance intellectuelle. / Musical prodigies attained an exceptionally high level of performance before adolescence. The first studies on musical prodigies were published more than a hundred years ago. Nevertheless, empirical data on musical prodigies is scarce. An influent theory of expertise development is the deliberate practice view, which stipulates that talent is essentially developed through deliberate practice. Prodigies’ talent precocity apparently defies this assumption and suggests biological predispositions. Other theoretical models offer instead a multifactorial viewpoint of expertise development. This thesis aims to reveal musical prodigies’ psychological characteristics using empirical methods. The general goal is to determine on which levels do these extraordinary musicians stand out from their peers. First, a cross-sectional study aimed to determine if practice, intelligence and personality make prodigies stand out from their musician peers. To do so, we recruited 19 musical prodigies and compared them to 35 musicians who began their musical practice early on (around 6 years old) or later (around 10 years old), but who accumulated similar amounts of years of practice at the moment of testing, as well as 16 nonmusicians. Participants were administered a Wechsler intelligence scale, the Big Five personality inventory, the autism spectrum quotient, the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire, the Dispositional Flow Scale and the history of their lifetime practice. Results indicate that no psychological traits distinguish prodigies, except propension to experience flow during music practice. The other aspects differentiating prodigies were intense and precocious practice as well as the source of their motivation when they began to play. Second, we studied a guitar virtuoso with a Tourette syndrome who can allegedly learn new pieces very fast. To do so, we compared his learning speed of a new guitar piece to that of 3 other experienced guitarists. We also compared him to a sample of 15 control musicians on a variety of tasks; musical and verbal learning, musical perception, working memory, IQ and propension to experience flow. Brain structure and function was also analysed through magnetic resonance imaging. Results indicate that the prodigy can learn more notes than his peers in a given time, whilst being more musical. He was also better to perceive and learn new melodies. His IQ was comparable to his peers, but his working auditory and visual-spatial working memory were superior to his peers as well as the general population. Together, our results suggest that musical prodigies are characterized by a diversity of developmental trajectory. They also suggest that practice alone does not make a prodigy. Our results support multifactorial models of expertise. Multiple factors are at play ; intensive and precocious practice, flow, motivation, and sometimes neurodevelopmental conditions or particular musical or memory abilities. Data also suggest that musical giftedness and intellectual giftedness are two separate phenomena.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-03-31T11:46:07Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel Françoli Yago.pdf: 4532120 bytes, checksum: bbf6172e1fcaff3d65e6b07ea244f616 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-31T11:46:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel Françoli Yago.pdf: 4532120 bytes, checksum: bbf6172e1fcaff3d65e6b07ea244f616 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-22 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / This dissertation aims to make a genealogy of the process of conversion of prodigious and wonderful figures of the past in monstrous and aberrative figures in the West. In order to do so, we accomplished three stages of our itinerary: the paradigm of the Greco-Roman and medieval world of wonders, the birth of the grotesque aesthetic in the light of the modern civilizational process and the disciplinary era of the bodies, moment of therapy and hospitalization of the so-called monsters. In a second moment of our research, we aimed to comprehend the look that women literature concedes to these prodigies in an attempt to synthesize their uses in a critical relation to the patriarchy. The process of disenchantment of the stranger as a facet of this genealogy intersects with aspects of the advent of modern patriarchy, especially in what it refers to the ways of treating its alteritary figures. Recently, such intersection made monsters, freaks, prodigies and marvels described in the women's literature occupy more potent and positive places, often metaphorical, to expose and re-signify various aspects of the female condition. We focused on Angela Carter and, more specifically, her oeuvre from 1984, Nights on the Circus, because her characters demonstrate dynamics of an inverse process to the abjection of the stranger: instead of being disenchanted, they were figures that re-enchanted the world by means of a reappropriation of its prodigiousness / Esta dissertação objetivou fazer uma genealogia do processo de conversão das figuras prodigiosas e maravilhosas do passado em figuras monstruosas e aberrativas no Ocidente. Para tanto, cumpriu três etapas em seu itinerário: o paradigma do mundo de maravilhas greco-romano e medieval, o nascimento da estética do grotesco à luz do processo civilizatório moderno e a era disciplinar dos corpos, momento auge da teratologia e da hospitalização dos chamados monstros. Em um segundo momento de nossa pesquisa, também objetivamos compreender o olhar da literatura de mulheres para essas figuras prodigiosas em uma tentativa de sintetizar seus usos em relação a uma crítica do ideário patriarcal. O processo de desencantamento do estranho como faceta desta genealogia intersecciona com aspectos de surgimento do patriarcado moderno, em especial no que se refere a uma forma de tratamento de suas figuras alteritárias. Tal cruzamento fez com que mais recentemente monstros, freaks, prodígios e maravilhas descritos na literatura de mulheres ocupassem funções potentes e positivas, e frequentemente metafóricas, para a exposição e ressignificação de diversos aspectos da condição feminina. Por fim, nos focamos na autora Angela Carter e, mais especificamente, em sua obra Noites no Circo, de 1984, por compreendermos que suas personagens demonstram dinâmicas de um processo inverso à pejoração do estranho: ao invés de desencantadas, são figuras que reencantam o mundo por meio de uma reapropriação de sua prodigiosidade

ABSTRACT Many unusual phenomena in nature were recorded from the regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea from the second millennium BC up to AD 600. The ancient sources interpreted these as prodigies, messages from the gods, but rarely discussed their causes. Numerous reports of these portents were viewed as the illusions of eyewitnesses or the fabrications of ancient literary sources. Many modern authors have interpreted these portents as fabulous, or as astronomical or meteorological events. This thesis examines the portents that occur in the atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere and proposes that many are geophysical phenomena caused by tectonic activity, in particular earthquakes and volcanoes. Modern research on these incidents is examined to identify characteristics and causes, and texts from ancient philosophers and natural historians are investigated to see whether they were aware of these natural occurrences and if so, how they were produced. Portents that possess the characteristics of seismically-induced lights, cloud, fog, storms, anomalous animal behaviour, noises, and hydrological changes are collated in order to discuss individual events. Where possible, ancient examples are compared with modern well-documented episodes with the same features. In a majority of cases, these events have recurred in the same locations at later times. The proposal that many of these phenomena are caused by seismic activity offers an alternative to the suggestions of many modern scholars, who ascribe many of the luminous events to lightning, meteors or comets and some sonics to exploding meteors or thunderstorms. This reappraisal of the ancient portents vindicates the seemingly fantastic reports that occur in the ancient texts, especially some of the poetic or religious sources, and rehabilitates the reputation of the authors who have documented these events. In the process it also adds to the catalogue of geophysical phenomena caused by earthquakes in the classical world.

La divination est à Rome l’instrument central du dialogue avec les dieux, et les sources témoignent de l’attention que les Romains portent aux signes divins sous la République et sous l’Empire, dans la pratique publique comme privée. Or, loin d’être une simple manifestation de crédulité, ou à l’inverse la coquille vide d’un ritualisme formel, la croyance aux signes divins a un caractère rationnel, attesté par l’existence à Rome de savoirs et de procédures divinatoires très élaborés. Cette rationalité est sensible dans un autre champ, qui n’a pas ou peu été exploré : les récits de signes. La narration d’un signe divin, telle qu’on en trouve en abondance chez les historiens impériaux, se présente sous la forme d’une description factuelle et sèche dont l’intérêt paraît limité. L’objectif de ce travail est de montrer au contraire que le récit de signes est une forme très riche qui traduit et met en œuvre la pensée divinatoire des Romains.Un signe divin ne peut être reconnu, interprété, discuté qu’à condition d’avoir été verbalisé. Puisqu’un signe est toujours mis en mots, la posture d’un sénateur devant un prodige qui lui est annoncé, celle d’un simple particulier face à un présage et celle d’un lecteur vis-à-vis du signe qu’il lit ou entend raconter sont similaires : ils reconnaissent et interprètent un signe à partir de sa traduction verbale. Ce que l’étude du récit de signes éclaire alors, ce sont les enjeux de cette mise en mots et de sa réception : sur quels critères un phénomène était-il reconnu à Rome comme un signe ? Quels obstacles rencontrait ensuite son interprétation ? À quelles conditions un signe divin pouvait-il être chargé d’une signification politique, morale, voire d’un sous-texte comique ? Quelles sont enfin les potentialités esthétiques propres au récit de signes ? Il s’agit là de montrer, en déployant ces strates de sens et en dégageant la structure fonctionnelle d’un signe, comment il pouvait être construit et compris – de montrer, autrement dit, pourquoi la divination est un art de lire et d’écrire les signes divins. / In Rome, divination is the essential instrument of the dialogue with the gods, and sources are witness to the attention that the Romans paid to divine signs under the Republic and the Empire, in the public as well as in the private practice. Yet, far from being a simple expression of credulity, or, conversely, the hollow shell of a formal ritualism, the belief in divine signs has a rational nature, as shown by the existence in Rome of extremely elaborate divinatory knowledge and procedures. This rationality is discernible in another field, which has not, or only partially, been explored: tales of signs. The narratives of divine signs, plenty of which can be found in imperial historians’ works, appear as factual and plain descriptions whose interest seems limited. The aim of this dissertation is nonetheless to show that tales of signs are a rich form of expression which translates and implements the Romans’ divinatory thought. A divine sign cannot be recognised, interpreted, discussed unless it has been verbalised. Since a sign is always put into words, the stances of a senator confronted with a heralded wonder, of an average individual faced with an omen and of a reader vis-à-vis a sign which he reads or hears about are similar: they recognise and interpret a sign from its verbal translation. Thus, the study of tales of signs sheds light on what is at stake in this verbalisation and its reception: what criteria allowed for a phenomenon to be recognised as a sign in Rome? What could impede its subsequent interpretation? Under what conditions could a divine sign be charged with political, moral meaning or even a comical subtext? Finally, what are the aesthetic potentialities specific to tales of signs? We intend to show, by unfolding these strata of meaning and by exposing the functional structure of a sign, how it could be constructed and construed – in other words, to show why divination is a craft of reading and writing divine signs.

The following Thesis is a survey of seventeenth-century uranography, with specific focus on the use of the Pleiades and Charles's Wain by English poets and pageant writers as astrological ciphers for the Stuart dynasty (1603-1649; 1660-1688). I then use that survey to address the problem of irony in John Dryden's 1685 Pindaric elegy, "To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew," since the longstanding notion of what the Pleiades signify in Dryden's ode is problematic from an astronomical and astrological perspective. In his elegiac ode, Dryden translates a young female artist to the Pleiades to actuate her apotheosis, not for the sake of mere fulsome hypberbole, but in such a way that Anne (b. 1660-d. 1685) signifies for the reign of Charles II (1660-1685) in her Pleiadic catasterism. The political underpinnings of Killigrew's apotheosis reduce the probability that Dryden's hyperbole reserves pejorative ironic potential.