Modern Languages Commons^™

French Women In Art: Reclaiming The Body Through Creation/Les Femmes Artistes Françaises : La Réclamation Du Corps À Travers La Création, Liatris Hethcoat

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The research I have conducted for my French Major Senior Thesis is a culmination of my passion for and studies of both French language and culture and the history and practice of Visual Arts. I have examined, across the history of art, the representation of women, and concluded that until the 20^th century, these representations have been tools employed by the makers of history and those at the top of the patriarchal system, used to control women’s images and thus women themselves. I survey these representations, which are largely created by men—until the 20^th century. I discuss pre-historical …

The Crafting Of The Self In Private Letters And The Epistolary Novel: El Hilo Que Une, Un Verano En Bornos, Ifigenia, Querido Diego, Te Abraza Quiela, And Cartas Apócrifas, Angelica A. Nelson

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The inherent flexibility of the letter form or epistolary mode of writing frees the writer within the framework of salutations and closings to use vocabulary and language to create, to omit or to invert conventional constraints imposed on women by a patriarchal society. The letter begins as a blank page but becomes the space for writing one’s personal thoughts and emotions to the absent other in a communicative effort to minimize the separation.

This dissertation examines the female narrator in actual letters written during the Spanish emigration to the New World in the sixteenth century and four epistolary novels written …

Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands: Heroic Women Of The Early Reconquest In The Spanish Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

Against the backdrop of the uncertain and troubling history of Christian Spain at the turn of the ninth century, three comedias highlight the heroic deeds of the women of Asturias and León. In Lope de Vega’s Las doncellas de Simancas, women who are to be sent as tribute to the Emir of Córdoba sever their own hands, threaten suicide, and ultimately lead the resistance against the barbaric exchange. In Las famosas asturianas, also by Lope, Sancha, selected, as well, for delivery to the Moors, shames her countrymen by appearing undressed before them but not in the presence of …

Re-Membering Lesbian Desire In Belle Epoque, Soldados De Salamina, And Las Trece Rosas, Debra J. Ochoa

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

The presidency of Jose Luis Zapatero Rodriguez has seen significant legisla tion in Spain that includes the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2005 and La ley de la memoria historica in 2007.¹ Upon consideration of the changes in Spain during the first decade of the twenty-first century, we as critics must pause to consider how literature and film respond to the topics of homosexuality and history. Since the death of Franco in 1975, writers and directors have created a significant body of films and literature that uncovers previously prohibited topics in order to make, "the once hidden visible" (Creekmur …

Gender And The Gaze: Sor Juana, Lacan, And Spanish Baroque Poetry, Matthew D. Stroud

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

There are few motifs more ubiquitous in Renaissance and Baroque poetry than those that link falling in love to the eyes. Based at least in part on Theophrastus, as Halstead has pointed out (113-20), this notion of love describes a process by which one is captivated by looking at the object of desire, prompting an exchange of humors or spirits. If the love is returned, both lovers feel complete and satisfied, but if the object of desire does not reciprocate, one feels empty because one has given one’s soul to another while receiving nothing in return.

Women And Marriage In Corneille's Theater, Nina Ekstein

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

Marriage is ubiquitous in Corneille's theater: there is not a single one of his plays in which marriage is not an issue, in which at least one union is not proposed. In part this state of affairs is due to the fact that the vast majority of Corneille's characters are marriageable. While marriageability is hardly unusual among the young, Corneille inevitably takes his characters at precisely the dramatic moment when the choice of life partner is to be made. For Corneille, that moment is not even limited to the young; not infrequently older characters are in need of a spouse …

Homo/Hetero/Social/Sexual: Gila In Vélez’S La Serrana De La Vera, Matthew D. Stroud

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

There is an ever growing body of criticism noting the homosocial underpinnings of comedia society in which women serve primarily to cement the relationships among men. Barbara Simerka, Harry Vélez de Quiñones, and others have convincingly begun to establish the homosocial nature of the stage society in which women, often as objects given signification only when they acquire exchange value, frequently have little say in their marriages or in other important aspects of their lives. The dama, to borrow a definition from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, is a character who takes her "shape and meaning from a sexuality of which …

The Demand For Love And The Mediation Of Desire In La Traición En La Amistad, Matthew D. Stroud

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

María de Zayas's comedia, La traición en la amistad [Friendship betrayed], presents us with a truly stunning demonstration of intrigue and deception in the service of love. Based on the relationships among nine people, we have women who deceive men, men who deceive women, women who betray each others' friendships, servants who are quick to comment on the absurdity of all these machinations, and a final scene in which most of the principals get married. What distinguishes this play is the presence of the ninth character, Fenisa, who acts and reacts just as the other women do before the …

A Woman's Tragedy: Catherine Bernard's 'Brutus', Nina Ekstein

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

The theater has traditionally been a male domain. The ranks of authors, directors, and even actors have long been overwhelmingly dominated by men. In Western drama, no women playwrights have gained admittance to the literary canon. While never absolute, the relative exclusion of women from dramatic authorship is even greater when the type of theater in question is tragedy. Carol Gelderman asks bluntly: "Why is it that no woman has ever written a great tragedy?". A number of explanations have been put forward that suggest deep-seated links between men and tragedy: Susan Gilbert and Susan Gubar find that "the structure …

Women Writers Of The French-Speaking Caribbean: An Overview, Marie-Denise Shelton

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

The concept of Caribbean literature is relatively recent, validated by the growing awareness in the Caribbean of a common historical, cultural, and geopolitical experience that transcends national diversity. To state that there is a Caribbean literature is to recognize the existence of a certain relationship with language and the world which constitutes what some have called the Caribbean discourse.