Italian Language and Literature Commons^™

Staging English Affairs In Early Modern Italy: History, Politics, Drama, Fabio Battista

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation looks at the creation and dissemination of alternative versions of English history through the means of dramatic fiction, and contextualizes them in the panorama of the intellectual debates of seventeenth-century Italy. Staging English Affairs in Early Modern Italy studies the ways in which the reinvention of Tudor and Stuart affairs in dramatic literature mirrored the ambitions, fears, and fantasies of a century in disquieting transformation. This research documents how news and information from England entered the Italian states, how they were perceived, and what their repurposing can reveal about the potentialities of intercultural exchange. Anglo-inspired drama became a …

The Ends Of Plot: Rupture And Entanglement In L’Amica Geniale, Victor X. Zarour Zarzar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation employs narrative theory to contextualize Elena Ferrante’s successful saga, L’amica geniale, within the larger tapestry of European novelistic discourses. It engages with conceptions of narrative structure put forth by critics like Ortega y Gasset, Brooks, and Winnett to understand how L’amica geniale offers cutting commentary on our exegetic practices and advances a geometry of narrative entanglement. I contend that Ferrante recuperates and italicizes nineteenth-century modes of storytelling, displaying a form of epistemological tension rooted in a movement away from a belief in plot’s semantic potentialities and into the postulation of a poetics of smarginatura or rupture. I …

Unlearning Don Carlos: Historical And Fictional Elements Of Innovation In César Vichard De Saint-Réal’S 'Dom Carlos, Nouvelle Historique,' Friedrich Schiller’S 'Don Karlos, Infant Von Spanien,' And Giuseppe Verdi’S 'Don Carlos', Maria-Cristina Necula

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The story of the sixteenth-century Spanish prince, Don Carlos, has inspired numerous literary and musical adaptations that, despite the artistic limitations of historically-based content, reflect an astonishing scope of creative freedom. The myth created around Don Carlos originated in European consciousness as early as 1568. Various theories recorded in political reports and in historical works insinuated that the prince had been murdered while incarcerated by orders of his father, King Philip II. Simultaneously, hatred of Spain, intensified by Philip’s violent suppression of the revolt in the Netherlands, determined exiled Flemish nobles to launch an anti-Philip propaganda. The mystery of Don …

The Manuscript Copy Of Sfera In The Morgan Library, Dana Hart

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the literary origins of the fifteenth century text Sfera, a rhyming Italian treatise by Gregorio Dati, and considers the patronage, creation, and function of the manuscript copy in the Morgan Library and Museum, focusing on the illustrated maps and cities.

The Body And Its Signifiers: Bodily Depictions In Niccolò De’ Conti And Odorico Da Pordenone, Antonella Dalla Torre

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines textual, bodily depictions in two western European, medieval and late-medieval travel accounts, which describe the eastern travels of the Venetian merchant Niccolò de’ Conti and those of the Franciscan friar Odorico da Pordenone. My analysis show how a connection between the characterizations of the body and the process of identity definition is forged and sustained in these texts.

Through a cultural-studies perspective, my work focuses specifically on depictions of the body in Poggio Bracciolini’s account of the travels of Niccolò de’ Conti and in the text of a vernacular rendition of Odorico da Pordenone’s Relatio, the …

Advanced Italian Grammar, Corinna M. Kociuba

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus on Advanced Italian Grammar

Attività Didattica Su "Ciao Amore Ciao" Di Luigi Tenco, Corinna M. Kociuba

Open Educational Resources

Attività didattica sul testo di Luigi Tenco "Ciao amore ciao".

Magic Performances: Rituals And Practice In Italian Theatre And Culture, 1520–1650, Erika Mazzer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation investigates theatrical and historical sources that deal with early modern magic, in order to re-evaluate its role in Italian society between the 16th and the mid-17th century. During this period, many were the attempts carried out by the Catholic Church to avoid the spread of heretical beliefs among people. By the middle of the 16th century, the battle against heresy focused on magic, which was considered a dangerous practice. Despite the Inquisition’s prohibition of books of magic and the condemnation of magic rituals, magic still survived in literary works, especially theatrical. Many performances brought magic on the Italian …

The Body And The Sacred In Contemporary Italian Women Writers, Laura R Feola

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation explores the presence of what has been called the “persistence of the sacred” in modern and contemporary Western culture. More specifically, I focus on the intertwining dimensions of the human body and the experience of the sacred in selected works by Dacia Maraini, Elena Ferrante, Cristina Campo, and Alda Merini. Despite their different voices, and the “secular” or “religious” labels with which each of these Italian authors could be defined or confined, I identify and analyze patterns, similarities, and differences in the interwoven realities of the body and the sacred present in their works.[1]

[1] See Snyder, …

Ansiedades Épico-Criollas Y El Mecenazgo De Indias En El Arauco Domado De Pedro De Oña, Andrea L. Fernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Among the characteristics of epic poetry are the topic of war, love encounters, heroism of exemplary individuals, and the narration of events contemporary to the audience to reinforce a collective historical identity. Arauco domado by Pedro de Oña, born in Angol (modern Chile), reiterates these traditional expectations with its protagonist, characters, setting, and latter theatrical representations within the viceregal context. The poem was made possible by the sponsorship of García Hurtado de Mendoza y Manrique, IV Marquis of Cañete and Viceroy of Peru. If the title of “espíritu cesarino novelo” [Caesar’s new spirit] (V.76.3) corresponds to the patron, Pedro de …

The Cool Medium. The Global Pedagogy Of Eportfolio In The Foreign Language Classroom, Giulia Guarnieri

Publications and Research

The student-centered and integrative pedagogy of ePortfolio finds perfect applicability in the foreign language classroom. In contrast, textbooks for Italian language elementary courses, for the most part, implement a traditional and grammatical based methodological approach which hiders the process of ePortfolio integration which instead places greater emphasis on global and integrative pedagogy. The study discusses the implications these factors hold in preparing foreign languages instructors to use ePortfolio technology underlining its role as a cool medium which provides meaningful impact on student learning and participation

From Amherst To The Other Side: The Integration Of Emily Dickinson Into The Italian Consciousness, Mia Jozwick

Dissertations and Theses

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Emily Dickinson’s poetry appeared in Italy in two key forms: anthologized alongside other American authors and in select translations by prominent Italian intellectuals including poet Eugenio Montale and writer Emilio Cecchi. Dickinson was both touted as one of the great American writers, but also kept as somewhat of an underground poet who spoke to a specific literary identity in Italy. The cross-hairs of history brought together increased knowledge of Dickinson’s poetry just as Mussolini and his fascist agenda threatened the influence of literature whether homegrown or international. What materialized was a dynamic in …

Transferring Paremias. Cultural, Linguistic, And Literary Transitions Of Proverbs And Proverbial Phrases By Vincenzo Brusantino, Pompeo Sarnelli, And John Florio, Daniela D'Eugenio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation demonstrates how literary paremias, i.e. proverbs and proverbial phrases, constitute a rich archive of considerable historical, cultural, and linguistic significance. As discursive phenomena, paremias are usually studied in the context of oral traditions, but this study examines them in terms of what they reveal about the literary works in which they appear. Specifically, it analyzes the context in which they are employed and, through them, it extracts the author’s perspectives, references to and borrowings from previous works, responses to the social and cultural conditions of the time, and effects on the narrative. The exploration of paremias in literary …

Pirandello Proto-Modern: A New Reading Of L’Esclusa, Bradford Masoni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Luigi Pirandello’s first novel, L’Esclusa, written in 1893, but not published in its definitive edition until 1927, straddles two literary worlds: that of the realistic style of the Italian veristi, and something new, a style and approach to narrative that anticipates the theory of writing Pirandello lays out in his long essay L’Umorismo, as well as the kinds of experimental writing that one associates with early-20^th-century modernism in general, and with Pirandello’s later work in particular. The novel’s living in both worlds, however, makes it an interesting and problematic text. First, it gives readers insight into …

Lyrical Mysticism: The Writing And Reception Of Catherine Of Siena, Lisa Tagliaferri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lyrical Mysticism: The Writing and Reception of Catherine of Siena (https://caterina.io) affirms the 14th-century mystic Catherine of Siena as a writer through contextualizing her texts among the corpus of contemporary Italian literature, and studying her reception in the Renaissance period of Italy and England. Joining an increasing body of recent meaningful scholarship that has been making significant progress to recover many overlooked and peripheral female voices of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, this work serves to fully assert Catherine as a writer of work that is literarily significant and worthy of textual analysis alongside contemporary male Italian …

Not My Queer: Queer Representation In Contemporary Italian Serial Television, Julia Heim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Contemporary Italian television, like many national televisions, has entered a period in which the relationships the producers and consumers of televisual content are increasingly indistinguishable. In this age of media convergence the new participants of this medium work across platforms to actively engage, consume, create, and recreate both televisual content and our understanding of the medium. These new relationships require a new understanding of the semiotic and discursive changes taking place in television so that we may reconceptualize the contemporary interplay between media and society.

This dissertation maps out a new understanding of the televisual economy through an elaboration of …

Mermaid Song: The Notebooks Of The Writing Woman, Gianna T. Ward-Vetrano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is built on the model of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, that is, it is a feminist project of holistic integration that does not reject fracturing, ambiguity, or contradiction, but aims to attain a more complex and thus truer portrait of the woman writing. Lessing’s notebooks examine conflicts between communism and capitalism, racial conflict in Africa, conflict between men and women, and the conflict between the protagonist Anna Wulf’s identity as a woman and her identity as a writer, each of which she then attempts to integrate into the singular golden notebook of the title. I propose …

Poesía Amorosa De Una Erudita Del Xvii: Traducción Y Creación En El Pastor Fido De Isabel Correa, Almudena Vidorreta

Publications and Research

Este trabajo pretende insertar en el contexto humanista de su tiempo la escritura poética de Isabel Rebeca Correa, erudita portuguesa del siglo XVII que residió en Ámsterdam. Aunque no se conserva buena parte de su obra, podemos conocer el estilo de la autora a través de su traducción al español de El pastor Fido, tragicomedia pastoril de Guarini. Se incluye por primera vez una transcripción completa y modernizada de los fragmentos de dicha versión que, según la traductora, proceden de su propia inventiva. Por medio de esta amplificación de la obra del italiano, Isabel Correa legitima y justifica su …

Dialogic Faiths: Multi-Genre Expression In Religious Narrative, Rosemary L. Demos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As persuasive or expository texts, religious conversion narratives tend towards monologic language, and texts that advocate one particular creed or institution often reflect the unity of faith through linguistically totalizing methods. This study, however, examines the dialogic interactions found in certain religious narratives. The texts included in this analysis recount unusual conversion outcomes: not to formally established church institutions, but rather to a heightened religious experience and in some cases a call to leadership in establishing new social orders. In these texts, the dynamic between personal and communal religious experience is tense, sometimes precarious; the difficulties of engaging in social …

Between Life And Literature: The Influence Of Don Quixote And Madame Bovary On Twentieth-Century Women's Fiction, Victoria Tomasulo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project demonstrates the influence of two foundational novels in the Western canon, Don Quixote and Madame Bovary, on twentieth-century British, Italian, and Anglo-American women’s fiction. Both novels illustrate the dangers and pleasures of literary influence. Stylistically innovative, they anticipated concerns that were of import to feminist literary critics in the seventies and beyond: the transformative power of the reading encounter, its normative and subversive effects on gendered identities, and the need of individual writers to liberate themselves from the shackles of literary convention. Drawing upon textual and paratextual evidence such as interviews, journal entries, and essays, I argue …

Export / Import: The Promotion Of Contemporary Italian Art In The United States, 1935–1969, Raffaele Bedarida

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Export / Import examines the exportation of contemporary Italian art to the United States from 1935 to 1969 and how it refashioned Italian national identity in the process. I do not concentrate on the Italian art scene per se, or on the American reception of Italian shows. Through a transnational perspective, instead, I examine the role of art exhibitions, publications, and critical discourse aimed at American audiences. Inaugurated by the Fascist regime as a form of political propaganda, this form of cultural outreach to the United States continued after WWII as Italian museums, dealers, and critics aimed to vaunt the …

Creating With Anger: Contemplating Vendetta. An Analysis Of Anger In Italian And Spanish Women Writers Of The Early Modern Era, Luisanna Sardu Castangia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the vast gamut of human emotions, anger is one of the most complex, provocative, and enduring. From Greek philosophers working in antiquity to today’s most recent theories on emotions, most scholars agree that anger has a multifaceted nature. This near universal agreement across the barriers of time and geography stems from the following facts: in order to exist, anger involves the participation of other emotions; anger does not have an opposite; anger leads an individual to engage in an act of self-analysis and in an evaluation of other individuals; and, finally, anger inspires action to right a wrong that …

Beating The Odds: Teaching Italian Online In The Community College Environment, Giulia Guarnieri

Publications and Research

This study analyzes data collected from Italian language online classes during the course of four consecutive semesters at Bronx Community College in order to measure the impact that distance learning has on students’ retention and success rates in elementary courses. The results reveal that reconfiguring the online meetings to a lower percentage and implementing social pedagogies reduce course abandonment and favor the creation of strong learning communities. Furthermore, the data relative to the grade distribution shows no substantial difference between online courses and face-to-face instruction.

Estudio Y Edición De Las "Poesías Varias" De José Navarro (1654), Almudena Vidorreta

Graduate Student Publications and Research

José Navarro Bermuz, an Aragonese intellectual who worked for the Italian family of the Ludovisi, was known for his active participation in the literary academies and poetic competitions of his time, and for his collection of Poesías varias. My research entails an in-depth study of the intellectual and political landscape of the second half of the 17th century in which Navarro lived and wrote. My aim was emphasize the significance of his literary production within the context of Spanish Early Modern literature, together with the critical edition of both his Poesías varias, and the Loa para la comedia …

Amanda Knox And Bella Figura, Denise Scannell Guida

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Prospero’S Muccs: The Meaning Of Martin Scorsese’S Italian American Dialect, George Guida

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Conformist, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/01/the-conformist.html