The essay investigates some stylistic and pragmatic variations across two genres and text-types pertaining to political oratory in Early Modern England. The speaker in question is the Renaissance monarch who, as many studies have shown from a cultural perspective, appropriates the forms of stage performance and, by manipulating them, acts his power and performs a relationship with his subjects. In this respect my study proposes to analyse and compare some aspects of non-literary and literary texts, Queen Elizabeth I's parliamentary speeches and Shakespeare's Henry V's monologues, as text-types which share a strong persuasive and argumentative aim and are both speech-purposed. The working hypothesis of my case study is that, by drawing attention to two specific speech-acts, directives and commissives, the evaluation of the illocutionary force of their speeches will shed light also on some typical features of the political discourse of Early Modern England.
My paradigms in this respect were Lady Anne Clifford and Alice Anne Thornton. They produced texts that have not even been mentioned or considered for centuries, but that have recently been partially rediscovered and appreciated by critics. My intent was to show how cultural factors and ideologies of the time influenced literary production, and to analyse the reasons that led these authors and their texts, first to oblivion, and later to recovery and canonization. When attempting to give a coherent answer to these questions, I kept in mind the background of Renaissance cultural memory and ideology, with particular regard to notions of femininity. Women writers are "mothers of the text", creators of new horizons, expert connoisseurs of the ideologies of their time, but also lonely, isolated, subjected women, ready to record their memories in voices that try to rise above a thousand other voices. ; The reasons that led women to overcome the injunction against cultural expression, including autobiography are one of the most relevant topics of my thesis. We know that many female characters were marginalized, if not made virtually invisible in many cultures and ideologies. That's why I tried to unveil the "counter" itinerary of women's writing from oblivion to canonization. ; English writers then began to deal with secular autobiography in the seventeenth century. Though excluded from the political scene and from public social life, Early-modern women writers seemed to be able to add something new and significant to the memorials and autobiographies of their own contemporary authors. When a woman wanted to be considered a member of a community whose experience was worthy of memory, she was confined by her own culture and family situation in the role of daughter, wife and mother, and she was seen almost exclusively as the subject of stories of religious experience, visions, trances, ecstasies. However, in the late seventeenth century, autobiography began to depart from an exclusively religious background and from the narrative account of the lives of men, and women began not only to record events related to male lives, but also to explore their identity and their own experiences in autobiographical form. Autobiography acquired the modern meaning of personal, introspective, secular writing, and, suddenly, the texts written by daughters, mothers and wives began to be recognized as real contributions to a genre in constant evolution. ; This doctoral thesis deals with the problem of canonisation and/or exclusion of women's writings from the literary canon of the English Renaissance. More broadly, it deals with issues of memory and cultural transmission. The first part of the thesis focuses on memory in different disciplines and on studies of memory in the contemporary critical arena. I tried to give an overview of the most recent progress in this field of study. The following chapters deal with issues of oblivion and recognition (up to the canonisation) of English women's writers in the Renaissance.
This research focuses on collective novels by the group of writers known before as Luther Blissett and afterward as Wu Ming: these literary works constitute a compact corpus as regards both formal features and messages transmitted by the plots. The six novels, as a whole, are expressive of showing to the readers and the critics many references and stimulations of reflection: observing their morphology, considering their expressive potential, they can understand that the literary works are structured as a network of relationships between events and people. The authors handle such a narrative material with audacious ability, by experimenting and innovating models: this research is structured to consider both resemblances persistence and differences diachronic evolution. The Wu Ming's idea of literature social role is substantial. The group cultural activity openly aims at claiming literature political value. Indeed, we investigate the importance in the novels of communities and of the knowledge spread within them. Furthermore, we would verify the coherence between texts substance and reflection sparks that the writers would come to let their audience share. Intending to gather Wu Ming's writing tendencies, we employ a method which is a key of highlighting novels different facets, in order to understand their rich meaning. So this investigation is structured on many levels. At the beginning it is focused on texts morphology and narrative structure elements; then, it is enriched by the comparison with significant resemblances of other literary works; in conclusion, it is oriented to reach the novels specific meaning in relation to necessities and features of the cultural milieu they are produced in. ; L'objet principal de notre recherche sont les romans collectifs du groupe d'écrivains connus auparavant avec le pseudonyme de Luther Blissett et ensuite avec celui de Wu Ming : ces ouvrages constituent un corpus compact tant en termes de caractéristiques formelles que de messages transmis par les intrigues. Les six ...
This research focuses on collective novels by the group of writers known before as Luther Blissett and afterward as Wu Ming: these literary works constitute a compact corpus as regards both formal features and messages transmitted by the plots. The six novels, as a whole, are expressive of showing to the readers and the critics many references and stimulations of reflection: observing their morphology, considering their expressive potential, they can understand that the literary works are structured as a network of relationships between events and people. The authors handle such a narrative material with audacious ability, by experimenting and innovating models: this research is structured to consider both resemblances persistence and differences diachronic evolution. The Wu Ming's idea of literature social role is substantial. The group cultural activity openly aims at claiming literature political value. Indeed, we investigate the importance in the novels of communities and of the knowledge spread within them. Furthermore, we would verify the coherence between texts substance and reflection sparks that the writers would come to let their audience share. Intending to gather Wu Ming's writing tendencies, we employ a method which is a key of highlighting novels different facets, in order to understand their rich meaning. So this investigation is structured on many levels. At the beginning it is focused on texts morphology and narrative structure elements; then, it is enriched by the comparison with significant resemblances of other literary works; in conclusion, it is oriented to reach the novels specific meaning in relation to necessities and features of the cultural milieu they are produced in. ; L'objet principal de notre recherche sont les romans collectifs du groupe d'écrivains connus auparavant avec le pseudonyme de Luther Blissett et ensuite avec celui de Wu Ming : ces ouvrages constituent un corpus compact tant en termes de caractéristiques formelles que de messages transmis par les intrigues. Les six ...
This research focuses on collective novels by the group of writers known before as Luther Blissett and afterward as Wu Ming: these literary works constitute a compact corpus as regards both formal features and messages transmitted by the plots. The six novels, as a whole, are expressive of showing to the readers and the critics many references and stimulations of reflection: observing their morphology, considering their expressive potential, they can understand that the literary works are structured as a network of relationships between events and people. The authors handle such a narrative material with audacious ability, by experimenting and innovating models: this research is structured to consider both resemblances persistence and differences diachronic evolution. The Wu Ming's idea of literature social role is substantial. The group cultural activity openly aims at claiming literature political value. Indeed, we investigate the importance in the novels of communities and of the knowledge spread within them. Furthermore, we would verify the coherence between texts substance and reflection sparks that the writers would come to let their audience share. Intending to gather Wu Ming's writing tendencies, we employ a method which is a key of highlighting novels different facets, in order to understand their rich meaning. So this investigation is structured on many levels. At the beginning it is focused on texts morphology and narrative structure elements; then, it is enriched by the comparison with significant resemblances of other literary works; in conclusion, it is oriented to reach the novels specific meaning in relation to necessities and features of the cultural milieu they are produced in. ; L'objet principal de notre recherche sont les romans collectifs du groupe d'écrivains connus auparavant avec le pseudonyme de Luther Blissett et ensuite avec celui de Wu Ming : ces ouvrages constituent un corpus compact tant en termes de caractéristiques formelles que de messages transmis par les intrigues. Les six ...
This article offers a discussion of two contemporary Icelandic literary works, Woman at 1000 Degreesby Hallgrímur Helgason and The Outlaw by Jón Gnarr, both of which have been subject to discussion and critique regarding the authors' use of real life individuals and events. The reception of these texts is read against the framework of Icelandic laws regarding freedom of expression and rights to privacy. Two Icelandic legal cases, regarding a literary text and cinematic production, serve as case studies for the Icelandic framework.
Current concepts of biopoetics deal with the analogy between evolution theory and literature as well as with the mutual challenges of evolution and aesthetics. These approaches do not take into account the fact that the relationship between bios and the scientific, anthropological and cultural knowledge is not given, i.e. it is not necessary in the metaphysical sense of being unavoidable. Bios is life in itself. Through the concept of "bio-poetics" I thus intend to deny the homology of the domains of bios and poetics, in order to find a method that does not capture life through the aprioris of conceptual frameworks. The affirmative biopolitics by Roberto Esposito, referring to the power and politics of life itself, opens up methodological perspectives for conceiving an "aesthetics of living" which, analogously, is not modelled according to exterior rules based on moral, political, social, scientific or poetological frameworks. Thus, the dynamics of living exceeds such schemes revealing itself as exceeding the operations which produce knowledge. Aesthetics means therefore the activity of material techniques that make visible the traces of life inscribed in the materiality of writings or of pictures. From these premises, I reconceive the bond between knowledge and literature referring to contemporary literary theories and analysing poetical processes and figures such as indeterminacy in literary texts of the 19th and 20th century written in Germany, France and Italy. Eventually, this reading of literary texts demonstrates the fictional production of an "other" knowledge about the dynamics of bios, evolving from the aesthetics of literature.
This open access book explores the translation of children's and Young Adult literature from a gendered perspective. By combining Translation Studies, Literary and Gender Studies, it provides original interdisciplinary analyses on a variety of literary and non-literary texts for children's and Young Adults, translated from French, English and Spanish into Italian. It sheds new light on a research area that has so far been little investigated at international level, and especially in the Italian academic context. The book also includes a document inspired by the "Polite Code" which aims to help publishers and translators to promote inclusion, respect diversities, and adopt a gender-sensitive approach when publishing and translating for young readers. The book is the result of an AlmaIdea research project, funded by the University of Bologna.
This volume investigates interdisciplinary intersections between law and the humanities from the Renaissance to the present day. It allows for fruitful encounters between different disciplines: from literature to science, from the visual arts to the post-human, from the postmodern novel's experimentation to most recent approaches towards the legal interpretation of literary texts. This productive dialogue fosters original perspectives in the interpretation of and reflection upon identity, justice, power and human rights and values, thus underlining the role of literature in the articulation of relevant cultural issues pertaining to specific periods.
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In one of his Treatises on Government, John Locke stated that «every Man has a Property in his own Person». The complex articulation of this apparently matter-of-fact argument has haunted the Western cultural imaginary, and has been transformed into numerous literary texts and figures. Ever since Mary Shelley started investigating an ante-litteram Foucauldian «unfolding»of life, the issues related to the «immortalization of the flesh and the amortization of the body»have become growingly relevant. In this paper, I shall aim at investigating the literary versions of the biopolitics of owning and disowning bodies, of ageing and dying offered by Kazuo Ishiguro, namely in his celebrated Never Let Me Go, and by Hanif Kureishi, who dedicated his novella "The Body" to an interrogation of the marketable value of human bodies and body parts.
The article analyzes the developments of the alternative editorial circuit promoted by the artistic-literary avant-gardes and counter-cultural movements in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s, with specific reference to the production of literary texts. The organization of the production system and the intent of the producers are taken into particular consideration, identifying the cultural objectives defined within a strategy of social and political opposition. The characteristics of the literature born in the countercultural field are also studied in depth. ; Nell'articolo vengono analizzati gli sviluppi del circuito editoriale alternativo promosso dalle avanguardie artistico-letterarie e dai movimenti controculturali in Italia negli anni '60 e '70, con specifico riferimento alla produzione di testi letterari. Vengono presi in particolare considerazione l'organizzazione del sistema di produzione e l'intento dei soggetti produttori, identificando gli obiettivi culturali stabiliti nell'ambito di una strategia di opposizione sociale e politica. Vengono inoltre approfondite le caratteristiche della letteratura nata in ambito controculturale.
Questo articolo riguarda il 'personaggio' di Messalla nella poesia di Tibullo e le trasformazioni di cui esso è oggetto fra primo e secondo libro delle elegie: prima protagonista di azioni belliche, poi trionfatore, infine benefattore della comunità e pater familias che si compiace dei successi dei discendenti. Questo percorso, coerente con la tradizione senatoria, viene interpretato come indizio della progressiva 'integrazione augustea' del nobilis, messo ai margini del testo letterario e della vita politica. ; This paper concerns the 'character' of Messalla in Tibullus' poetry and his transformations in the first and in the second book of Elegies; at first, he is a protagonist of military actions, then a triumphator, finally a benefactor of his community and a pater familias pleased with the success of his descendants. Tibullus' portrait of Messalla is consistent with long-established senatorial paradigms but also neatly encapsulates the gradual 'Augustan integration' of the nobilis, marginalized both in literary text and in political life.
Nei quasi tre decenni dalla nascita della cosiddetta "letteratura della migrazione" gli studi critici sulle scritture in lingua italiana ad opera di autori stranieri si sono consolidati – osservando da vicino le innovazioni stilistiche o le contaminazioni lessicali e semantiche – e ampliati – adottando metodi e teorie filosofiche, etiche e politiche derivanti dagli studi postcoloniali. Nonostante ciò ben poca attenzione è stata dedicata al posto che i testi occupano nella società e nel mercato italiani. Un'analisi complessa delle scritture migranti italiane non può tuttavia prescindere dalla considerazione del testo come oggetto culturale, indagato cioè in quanto creazione individuale e collettiva, prodotto del mercato letterario e del sistema culturale italiano, bene di consumo ad uso di uno specifico pubblico e rappresentazione intesa come produzione di un significato. Sullo sfondo degli studi critici attuali e attraverso lo studio di specifiche opere – si prenderanno in considerazione soprattutto le opere di maggior successo degli ultimi trent'anni – e con l'aiuto di un esame particolareggiato degli elementi paratestuali, si intende dunque interrogare i testi sulle scelte narrative, le influenze socio-culturali e la dimensione valoriale in cui si collocano nella contemporaneità. Accanto alle forme di resistenza e decostruzione si colloca infatti la strumentalizzazione della condizione di marginalità, ottenuta mediante il reimpiego strategico di elementi stereotipati ed esotici come la drammatizzazione della differenza etnica e sessuale: un processo che è bene studiare a fondo, respingendo facili considerazioni di auto-subordinazione, ma misurandone le potenzialità sovversive nei confronti delle strutture di potere dominanti, e intendendolo come forma di agency contemporanea. In breve, l'oggetto – o meglio il soggetto – di questo studio sarà il ruolo assunto dalla produzione letteraria migrante e postcoloniale nel mercato editoriale italiano, al fine di esplorarne le modalità ed evidenziarne il grado di adesione ai paradigmi neocoloniali o le potenzialità di resistenza. ; In almost three decades since the birth "Italian Migration Literature", critical studies on Italian writings by foreign authors consolidated – closely observing stylistic innovations or lexical and semantic contamination – and expanded – by adopting philosophical, ethical and political methods and theories deriving from postcolonial studies. Despite this, little attention has been paid to the place that texts occupy in Italian society and market. However, an exhaustive analysis of migrant writings cannot ignore the consideration of the text as a cultural object, examined as both individual and collective creation, product of the literary marketplace and of the Italian cultural system, consumer good for a specific audience and representation as a production of meaning. Against the background of recent critical studies and through the study of specific works - the most successful works of the last thirty years will be taken into consideration - and with the help of a detailed examination of the paratextual elements, we therefore intend to interrogate the texts on narrative choices, socio-cultural influences and the value dimension in which they are placed today. Alongside the forms of resistance and deconstruction there is in fact the exploitation of the condition of marginality, obtained through the strategic reuse of stereotyped and exotic elements such as the dramatization of ethnic and sexual difference: a process that requires a thorough investigation, rejecting easy considerations of subordination, but by measuring its subversive potentialities against the dominant power structures, and understanding it as a form of contemporary agency. In short, the object - or rather the subject - of this study will be the role assumed by migrant and postcolonial literary production in Italian publishing market, in order to explore its methods and highlight their degree of adhesion to the neo-colonial paradigms or their potential of resistance.
This article presents findings from two qualitative research studies on readers' emotional reactions and empathy towards literary texts. Participants were presented with two fragments from novels by Vigdís Grímsdóttir and then asked about their reactions. In the first study, 20 participants were asked to read a fragment from the novel Þögnin(2000) and half of the participants had some kind of a musical education and the other half with no background in music. Interestingly, having a musical background impacted reactions differently than what was expected. As a result, a second study was carried out where the reactions of visual artists (10) were compared to non-artists (10) to a fragment from the novel Þegar stjarna hrapar (2003). Both novels contain information specific to music (Þögnin) or visual arts (Þegar stjarna hrapar). Cognitive science methods, such as the schema theory, will be used to explain how readers of diverse backgrounds react differently to the same text. This approach also illustrates how useful qualitative methods can be in studying topics beyond only the content of the text.
Si fa qui una lettura comparata di testi letterari latini, in poesia e in prosa: da Claudiano, Agostino e Orosio; da Seneca, Gellio e Macrobio; di documenti storici e legislativi: dalla raccolta di biografie della 'Historia Augusta', da costituzioni dei codici tardoimperiali. Il nostro scopo è raccogliere ed esaminare alcuni casi di alterazioni del testo – minime ma non innocue – introdotte anticamente per iniziativa e volontà di 'scriptores' che erano insieme 'autori' e copisti. ; Presented here is a comparative reading of Latin literary texts, both in poetry and in prose: from Claudian, Augustine, Orosius; Seneca, Gellius, Macrobius; from historiographic and legislative documents: the collection of the 'Historia Augusta' lives, the constitutions in the late imperial codes. Our goal is to gather and investigate some slight – but not innocuous – ancient variants, which have been deliberately introduced by scriptores who were at the same time authors and scribes.
