Renaissance Studies Commons^™

A New Language: Apophatic Discourse In John Donne's "Devotions", Jessica M. Farris

Masters Theses

Not much ink has been spilled over John Donne’s relationship to negative, or apophatic, theology. A few scholars have written about apophatic discourse in Donne’s poetry and sermons, but, in general, the subject continues to be overlooked. This thesis seeks to (re)start the conversation by shedding light on Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, a text which has yet to be linked to the negative tradition despite its clear engagement in apophatic discourse. Indeed, throughout Devotions, Donne wields several apophatic strategies when speaking of God including via negativa, predicates of action, linguistic regress, paradox, and a consistent reliance upon metaphorical …

The Labé Question: A New Stylometric Analysis, Ryan Schmid

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In 2006, a theory was put forward concerning sixteenth-century poet Louise Labé and her work- both her prose and her poetry. Mireille Huchon, in her 2006 study Louise Labé, une créature de papier, claims that Labé’s work, and indeed a large part of her identity itself, was a fabrication invented by several poets of the 1500s. Huchon describes Labé as a “mystery” and an “enigma,” noting the relatively scant biographical details that we know of Labé’s life (Huchon, pp. 7-11). Perhaps needless to say, this claim stirred up a bit of controversy- many reacted negatively to Huchon’s thesis, not only …

En El Origen Y La Difusión Europea Del Te Lutherum Damnamus, Parodia Antiluterana De La Primera Mitad Del Siglo Xvi // The Origin And European Dissemination Of Te Lutherum Damnamus, An Anti-Lutheran Parody From The First Half Of The Sixteenth Century, Pedro Martín Baños

Translat Library

This paper traces the history of an anti-Lutheran parody of the Te Deum laudamus hymn, which could have been composed a few years before 1530, probably in Italy, and which had a wide diffusion throughout Europe. A hitherto unknown testimony, preserved in the Archivo Municipal de Burgos, is disclosed, and the two main versions of the text, which circulated in handwritten and printed form, are edited and reconstructed.

Anotaciones Marginales A Un Poema De Antonio De Nebrija // Marginalia To A Poem By Antonio De Nebrija, Daniel Río Lago

Translat Library

This paper examines Latin marginalia found in an elegiac poem composed by Antonio de Nebrija as a paratext to his edition of Prudentius, printed by Arnao Guillén de Brocar (Logroño, 1512). Additionally, this paper aims to make known a valuable copy of the edition that is kept in the Biblioteca Menéndez Pelayo in Santander (sig. 30).

What Could A Trans Book History Look Like? Toward Trans Codicology, J D. Sargan

Criticism

This article draws on critical trans studies and queer archival practice to propose a book historical mode that extends what we know about the premodern trans experience beyond the recovery of individual biographies. Instead of turning to textual sources for the identification of transness, the author looks to Susan Stryker’s call for the “recuperat[ion of] embodied knowing as a formally legitimated basis of knowledge production.” Bibliography, he suggests, makes claims of objectivity that engender a particular reluctance to respond to such calls. But the lived reality of archival research is one of affective embodiment. Affect theory is an area that, …

“In The Cards”: The Material Textuality Of Tarotological Reading, Jesse R. Erickson

Criticism

This article examines deep-seated relationships that inextricably bind the material makeup of divinatory card decks to their multifarious literacy functions. Unpacking the deceptive underlying complexities in these objects requires both an ontological analysis of their multicultural rootedness and a speculative exploration of their propensity for memetic adaptation. The concept of “reading” cards as textual objects has typically existed on the fringes of Western literacy paradigms. In reality, however, considering the rather commonplace use of pedagogical objects such as alphabet cards and flash cards, the practice of reading cards should be recognized for its considerable role in literacy instruction. In looking …

Early Instruments In 21st Century Composition And An Original Composition For Saxophones And Viols, Jacob Bitinas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Composers continually seek new timbres and sonorities to bend to their will. The early music revival of the twentieth century has resurrected dozens of instruments that have gone unutilized in contemporary composition for centuries. The historically-informed-performance movement has now evolved to a point where early instruments and period performance techniques can add extraordinary new characters to twenty-first century compositions. This thesis explores how composers effectively utilize early instruments like the viola da gamba, harpsichord, lute, and recorder in their compositions.

The document also contains interview transcripts from eight composers and performers, including Nico Muhly, Liam Byrne, Martha Bishop, David Loeb, …

A Friend Who Does Me No Good: Aphorism In Matteo Ricci’S On Friendship, Maximilian Chan Weiher

Asian Languages and Cultures Honors Projects

This paper argues that Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) designed his aphoristic compilation, Jiaoyou Lun 交友論–On Friendship (1595)–to serve the Jesuit mission of converting the Chinese to Catholicism and express the conflict he may have felt exploiting friends to forward the Jesuit mission. Utilizing friendships to allow for greater social influence was central to the Jesuit proselytization strategy in China. However, Ricci’s moral education from youth taught him to judge utilitarian friendships as immoral. The extant scholarship regarding Ricci’s On Friendship fails to acknowledge the significance of the aphoristic form to this work. To illuminate the value of aphorism …

A Poor Third? A Reexamination Of Manuscript And Print Markets In Fifteenth And Sixteenth-Century Rouen, Kate Hodgson

School of Art Undergraduate Honors Theses

Manuscript and print scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have deemed Rouen a ‘poor third’ to the workshops in Paris and Lyon. Lacking the cultural status and political influence of these two major centers of book production, Rouen’s manuscript tradition has been coined an “eclectic” group of illuminators who were limited to a local, discontinuous demand for books and whose regional role hardly even bears examination. However, Between 1419 and 1449, Rouen was an epicenter of political and economic exchange between Normandy and England. The city’s manuscript ateliers experienced a period of unparalleled patronage from an international, elite clientele, …

The Hand Of Luis Pedrol In Madrid, Bne, Ms 2985, Albert Lloret

Translat Library

This note identifies the hand of Luis Pedrol in Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, Col·leccions, Autògrafs, II, A, 14 with two of the scripts of Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 2985.

Contagious Animality: Species, Disease, And Metaphor In Early Modern Literature And Culture, Jeremy Cornelius

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In my dissertation, Contagious Animality: Species, Disease, and Metaphor in Early Modern Literature and Culture, I close read examples of Renaissance drama alongside their contemporary cultural texts to examine anxieties around social differences as constructed and mediated through what I call “contagious animality” in early modern English culture. Animal metaphors circulated anxieties around social differences on the early modern cultural stage in English drama where animality elicits uncertainties about identitarian constructions of difference. In this vein, I close read formal elements and their interactions with early modern culture to argue that animal metaphors transmit modes of speciating difference in …

Navigating Femininity: Queen Elizabeth I And The Armada Portrait, Julia Maurer

Capstone Showcase

By analyzing the iconographic program of the Armada Portrait, this essay demonstrates the various visual strategies that Queen Elizabeth I employed in order to navigate certain gendered, cultural barriers present in Early Modern England. I argue throughout this essay that Elizabeth was meticulous in her delicate dance of bolstering her individual authority, while not radically undermining the patriarchal dispensation in which she lived and ruled. In particular, I demonstrate that Queen Elizabeth I effectively utilized the visual arts to control the public perception of her reign in ways unique to female regnants, as she both confirmed and denied her femininity. …

Jewish Presence In The Venetian Empire: A Challenge To Venetian Mythology, Avery Rosensweig

Honors Theses

This paper attempts to explain the significance of Jewish presence in the Venetian Empire in the context of the myth of Venice. Jews were officially permitted to settle in Venice in 1516, but their connection with the Venetian Empire goes further back. Jews were important for the success of the Venetian Empire, particularly from the sixteenth century onward. The permanent settlement of the Jews in Venice directly impacted the very ideology of the Venetian Empire.

Although the phrase "myth of Venice" was developed by twentieth-century historians, Venetians perpetuated the myth and wove its ideals into the foundation of the Venetian …

Early-Stuart Funeral Elegies From Manuscript, James Doelman

Brescia School of Humanities Publications

This document is a collection of English funeral elegies from the years 1603 to 1640, which survive in manuscript but were not published, either in their own time or more recently. It served as the basis for James Doelman, The Daring Muse of the Early Stuart Funeral Elegy (Manchester University Press, 2021).

Art And Power: How The D'Este Family Ruled Renaissance Ferrara, Luke Ziegler

Tenor of Our Times

During the Renaissance, the d'Este family ruled the Northern Italian city of Ferrara. To make up for their modest land holdings, the d'Este chose to exert influence and control over Italian politics through artistic patronage. The court of Ferrara became known for its beauty, intelligence, and sophistication. All the dukes of Ferrara contributed to the city's cultural significance, and elevated Ferrara as one of the dominant cities on the Italian peninsula.

A Nation On The Periphery Of History: A Discussion Of Poland-Lithuania During The Reformation, Dillon Piorkowski

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project hopes to establish several key points. One of which is that Poland is unfairly represented in Western historiography. Specifically, this means that in the English-speaking academic world, Poland is discussed disproportionately. Countries like Germany, France, and Britain have thousands of pages written about them discussing their roles during the Reformation. But Poland does not. This is evidenced by the many Western textbooks that misrepresent the nation. In turn, the project will use these various textbooks as evidence. The second point this project aims to cover is why Poland’s underappreciation is unfair. Simply demonstrating how Poland is underrepresented is …

Esther Inglis: A Franco-Scottish Jacobean Writer And Her Octonaries Upon The Vanitie And Inconstancie Of The World, Jamie Reid Baxter

Studies in Scottish Literature

This article draws attention to the hitherto ignored poetry of the Franco-Scottish Jacobean calligrapher and limner, Esther Inglis (c.1570 -1624). Inglis is the subject of a fast growing body of published scholarship, but though she left a small body of original prose and verse, she has been given no place in Scottish literature. The article falls into six sections. The substantial first section notes first that to date, there has been a tendency to shy away from dealing with her as a writer, and that Inglis’s formative Scottish background has been largely ignored. The second section looks at Inglis and …

Remembering John O'Malley, S.J., John J. Degioia

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

No abstract provided.

Competing Visions Of Fundamental Global Change: Comparative Book Review Of Rethinking Humanity By Seba & Arbib, Cristian Ziliberberg

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Demons & Droids: Nonhuman Animals On Trial, Gerrit D. White

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Nonhuman animal trials are ridiculous to the modern sensibilities of the West. The concept of them is in opposition to the idea of nonhuman animals—entities without agency, incapable of guilt by nature of irrationality. This way of viewing nonhuman animals is relatively new to the Western mind. Putting nonhuman animals on trial has only become unacceptable in the past few centuries. Before this shift, nonhuman animal trials existed as methods of communities policing themselves. More than that, these trials were part of legal systems ensuring they provided justice for all. This shift happened because the relationship between Christian authorities and …