Theses (Hispanic and Italian Studies)
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Item The sword and the veil : an annotated translation of the autobiography of Doña Catalina de Erauso(2001) Pedrick, Daniel HarveyCatalina de Erauso was one of the few women of Counter-Reformation Spain to effectively escape the enclosing and confining strictures imposed on women by the Church and the Crown. Her purported autobiographies, first published in 1625, enjoyed wide popularity and elevated her to the status of national hero. Erauso's relationships with other women, frankly recounted in the autobiographies and mentioned in other contemporary sources, were regarded by most of her male contemporaries as part of an elaborate masquerade feigned in order to achieve the socially acceptable goal of defending the interests of the Spanish Empire as a soldier. This essay, which includes an annotated translation of a version of the autobiography from the original Spanish, takes the position that the popular success of the highly embellished accounts of Erauso's escapades was abetted by the phallocentric view of sexuality commonly held by church authorities and male-dominated society in Counter-Reformation Spain, a view which precluded recognizing, much less understanding, female homosexuality. This attitude blinded most observers to the more probable nature of the brash Erauso, whose own words and deeds, when considered from a modem perspective, suggest that she was most likely homosexual. The style in which she presented herself, in the pages of her books as well as in real life, amounted to a successful survival strategy that won her the approbation of the most influential and powerful men of her time.Item Jesusa Rodríguez and her cabaret theatre(2000) McBee, Gabriela WielandThis Masters Thesis explores playwright, director, and performer Jesusa Rodriguez's satirical treatment of Mexican society, politics, and government in her two sketches La gira mamal de la Coatlicue and La Malinche en: Dios T. V., and in the one-act play Sor Juana en Almoloya. Pastorela virtual. In her work Rodriguez deconstructs and revises the official story to render new versions of old myths and beliefs. In her cabaret theatre she intertwines themes of the past and the present to trigger the audience's imagination, in an attempt to awaken their interest in Mexico' s cultural roots and to make provocative comments on societal ills. With her performances Rodriguez strives to create a more inclusive and egalitarian society.Item Chiara Matriani and Doña Catalina Clara Ramírez de Guzmán : marginalized poetic voices of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries(1997) Lorenzi, DanielaThis thesis examines a portion of the work of sixteenth and seventeenth century poets Chiara Matraini and Clara Ramirez de Guzman in order to determine possible reasons for their non-inclusion in the lyric canon of the time. A general background is provided for the development of the lyric genre in Italy and Spain as well as a summary of socio-historical influences which affected canonical acceptance of women poets. The Italian and Spanish lyric canons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are examined, with particular emphasis on the seminal texts of Pietro Bembo in Italy and Fernando de Herrera in Spain and with special attention paid to the Petrarchan fashion which dominated lyric poetry at the time. Subsequently, the study then proceeds to a detailed textual analysis of poems from the corpus of both women. The conclusion reached is that Matraini and de Guzman, while writing within what appears to be a traditional Petrarchan framework, to a degree subvert the canon established by Bembo and Herrera.Item ¿Baño ritual o baptismo? Un análisis textual de la descripción del baño ritual en el Códice florentino(2019-12-18) Panter, Tobi Jane; Restrepo-Gautier, Pablo; De Alba-Koch, BeatrizThis thesis consists of a close textual reading of the three chapters of Book VI of the Florentine Codex in which the ritual bathing of the Nahua infant is described. Bernardino de Sahagún’s Spanish translation is compared, within its historical and social context, with a modern paleographic translation by Josefina García Quintana in order to highlight the specific rhetorical strategies that Sahagún adopted in his paraphrastic translation. These include expressions with a Christian connotation such as “Oh, heavenly lord and lady gods who art in the heavens,” evocative imagery which paralleled Christian baptism, significant omissions related to important indigenous principles, and other subtle adaptations. Though his objective was to understand and faithfully portray Mexica culture as it was, Sahagún’s strategies resulted in the Christianization of the description of the ritual bathing, and in a concomitant diminishment of the Mesoamerican worldview.Item A picture perfect prince: Spanish emblems and Machiavelli’s Il principe(2017-08-29) Barzetti, Joseph; Restrepo-Gautier, PabloThis thesis compares Spanish Golden Age emblems on the education of the prince to Machiavelli’s Il principe to determine how Spanish emblem writers position themselves with respect to Machiavelli’s ideas on the topic. Keith David Howard’s The Reception of Machiavelli in Early Modern Spain serves as the theoretical and methodological basis for this study. Howard identifies three categories that historians have used to classify Spanish authors and their positions towards Machiavelli’s ideas: those who reject Machiavelli’s ideas, those who accept them almost completely, and those who attempt to blend Machiavelli’s ideas with Christian values. Howard believes that the first two categories are oversimplifications that lead to a misunderstanding of the Spanish reception of the works by the Florentine author. This research project aims to determine whether Howard is correct in stating that the first two groups are oversimplifications and explores how Spanish emblem writers position themselves vis-à-vis Machiavellian ideas. Three case studies provide an analysis and comparison of emblems to Machiavelli’s Il principe. Machiavelli’s Discorsi offer further material for analysis and comparison.Item El Neptuno alegórico y su cristalización poética: análisis de los mensajes políticos, filosóficos y simbólicos del arco triunfal sorjuanino(2016-09-09) Lundin Gaona, María Paz; De Alba-Koch, BeatrizConsidering that during the Baroque there was arguably nothing more enigmatic than the emblematic tradition, this thesis discusses how emblems played a role in the configuration of subjectivities in New Spain and, more precisely, in their production of symbolic imagery. Through the analysis of the poetic, political, and philosophical functions of the 1680 Neptuno alegórico (Allegorical Neptune), this this study discusses the concepts of "emblem,"ekphrasis"," "syncretism," and "neoplatonic tradition" in one of the most rethorical and multifaceted texts of the humanist writer and Hieronymite nun sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695).Item Luis de Sandoval Zapata: poesía y libertad(2015-08-31) Guadarrama Gómez, Fernando; De Alba-Koch, BeatrizThis thesis argues that the playwright and poet from New Spain, Luis de Sandoval Zapata (1620?-1671), freed himself from the social restrictions of his time through his creative work. Sandoval Zapata was a well-educated, land-owning "ciollo" (Creole). His poems are studied within the historical and artistic contexts of the seventeenth century in which the Barroque, a European cultural movement transplanted to the Americas, played an essential role. Connections between Creole patriotism and Baroque aesthetics are traced through the contextualization of his "Relación fúnebre," a politically charged "romance" or ballad. At a time when social life and artistic endeavours were closely regulated, this poet broke with his own literary tradition by paradoxically using the same cultural resources of his time, arguably trascending himself in doing so. This search for autonomy is shown through the close textual analysis of the metaphors used in seven of his sonnets of "desengaño" or desillisionment.Item Schadenfreude and the Don Juan Archetype in the Theatrical Works of Seventeenth-Century Spain(2015-08-26) Makalima, Teboho; Restrepo-Gautier, PabloThis thesis explores the various manners in which schadenfreude – taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others – functions in the theatrical works of Golden-Age Spain, specifically in three donjuanesque plays of the seventeenth century. The first chapter of the thesis analyses schadenfreude as exercised in Tirso de Molina’s "El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra," a play in which Don Juan’s pleasurable deceptions incur the enjoyment of his demise. In the second chapter, a variation on the theme of Don Juan finds playwright Alonso de Córdoba y Maldonado applying schadenfreude as a literary technique in his play "La venganza en el sepulcro." Finally, a female representative of the Don Juan archetype is examined in the third chapter, which features María de Zayas y Sotomayor’s only known comedy "La traición en la amistad."Item Don Quixote de Loyola: Cervantes' reputed parody of the founder of the Society of Jesus(2014-03-18) Davidson, Philip Ross; Andrachuk, Gregory PeterReaders have associated Don Quixote and St Ignatius of Loyola for centuries. Many have inferred an intentional parody of Loyola in Cervantes’ classic novel, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha. The first part of this thesis traces reader associations of Don Quixote and St Ignatius since the publication of Part I of Don Quixote in 1605. The second part analyzes two texts commonly cited as sources for reader associations of St Ignatius and Don Quixote, Loyola’s Autobiografía (1555) and Pedro de Ribadeneyra’s Vida de Ignacio de Loyola (1583), and proposes a hypothesis for how Cervantes may have intended to parody the founder of the Society of Jesus. The third part analyzes narrative, substantive and thematic parallelisms in Don Quixote, the Autobiografía and Vida and discusses the likelihood of Cervantes intentionally parodying Loyola in his most famous and enduring work.Item Cuba and the neobaroque: twentieth-century reformations of Cuban identity(2013-06-27) Cruikshank, Stephen; De Alba-Koch, BeatrizThis thesis project explores the connection between Cuban identity and the twentieth-century Neobaroque. The paper approaches the Neobaroque as a concept that reoriginates or "refracts" culture, implying a relationship between Baroque forms and post-colonial Latin America that creates a transformation of cultural expression. Furthermore, the Neobaroque is seen relating to questions of cultural identity, post-colonialism, transculturation, mestizaje, and Latin American modernity. The Neobaroque's relevancy with Cuba is stipulated in twentieth-century writings of three Cuban authors known as the Cuban triumvirate: José Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, and Severo Sarduy. Similar themes of these writers concerning the Neobaroque's connection with the urban environment of Havana as well as connections to José Martí's writing Nuestra América are highlighted as key components connecting the Neobaroque with Cuban culture.Item Sor Catalina de Jesús María Herrera: visionaria teresiana de Quito Colonial Siglo XVIII(2013-01-18) Armstrong, Ximena Elizabeth; De Alba-Koch, BeatrizThis thesis focuses on Secretos entre el Alma y Dios, the autobiography or vida of Catalina de Jesús María Herrera (1717-1795), a nun who belonged to the Dominican Convent of Santa Catalina in Quito, Ecuador. Catalina wrote in a direct and engaging style of her monastic life and spirituality. Her text allows us to better understand the society in which she lived and particularly her relationship with her confessor, fray Tomás del Rosario Corrales, to whom she writes her autobiography. Her numerous visions are classified here as divine, evil and death visions. They draw from traditional hagiographic accounts and provide evidence of how Saint Teresa of Ávila’s Libro de la Vida was read in a colonial context. A close-textual reading of Catalina’s vida, sheds light on her claims to have reached God as the expression of a female voice long suppressed in this patriarchal society.Item Las trampas de la ambiguedad: la narracion neobarroca en "Casa de campo", de Jose Donoso.(2011-06-01) Campirano Sanchez, Manuel; De Alba-Koch, BeatrizThis thesis analyses the modes of narration in the 1978 novel Casa de campo by Chilean writer José Donoso (1924-96), an overlooked aspect of its neobaroque aesthetic. It surveys some of the most important conceptualizations of the baroque as well as of the neobaroque, utilizing Severo Sarduy‟s theory of the neobaroque in order to examine the text‟s plurality of points of view and narrative modes. Not only does Donoso employ first- and third-person narrations in Casa de campo, the narrative voice seems, simultaneously, omniscient and limited, intrusive and objective, often unreliable, and frequently self-conscious. A wide range of narrative techniques appear in the novel, including free indirect discourse, stream of consciousness, interior monologue, and passages reminiscent of the so-called testimonio. This plurality of points of view and narrative modes constitute Donoso‟s revolt against contemporary literary conventions, and exemplify the diversity of the neobaroque.Item Quijotita y su prima de Fernández de Lizardi: manual y novela de formación femenina novohispana(2010-01-12T17:23:01Z) Gamboa, Xavier; De Alba-Koch, BeatrizLa Quijotita y su prima (1818) by Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi (1776-1827) is a highly significant consideration of women and their role in New Spain presented in the form of a novel. It is the first book-length treatise dedicated to a discussion of the education of women in the viceroyalty. Lizardi emphasizes the importance of preparing women for marriage, while denouncing the oppression and violence to which they were often subjected. He stresses their role as heads of the domestic sphere, but ultimately ascribes their success to the guidance of an enlightened paterfamilias. A discussion of Lizardi's controversial career as a reformer and writer at the end of the viceregal regime, his position with regard to the Church, and his reading of Cervantes, Fénelon, Feijoo, Montengôn and others, provide a context for his reflections on education. This analysis calls into question some of the anachronistic interpretations of La Quijotita.Item Lamentación de Dido: Rosario Castellanos' quest for a feminine voice(2009-12-14T23:11:51Z) Ulysses, Alicia Flores de; Restrepo-Gautier, PabloThis study undertakes an analysis of Rosario Castellanos' 1953 feminist poem "Lamentación de Dido". It takes into account the influence of Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf and Simone Well, the classical foreground of Virgil and Homer, and the relations of the poem to Luis de Gongora's cultismo. In "Lamentación", Castellanos attempts to create a public feminist discourse in a time and space where women were supposed to remain in the domestic-private sphere. An in-depth analysis of "Lamentación" shows that for Castellanos the issues of race and gender were tightly intertwined. For Castellanos, the creation of a discourse that could change the extreme discrimination suffered by women and the indigenous people of Mexico became a life-long quest.Item A study of the illustrations in the 1674 edition of "Don Quijote"(2008-04-10T06:00:16Z) Slavik, Steven Duane.; Restrepo-Gautier, Pablo.Item "Así me gustas gordita": Representaciones de la gordura en la música popular y la literatura del Caribe hispano(2007-12-17T23:53:01Z) Braden, Emily; De Alba-Koch, BeatrizThis thesis examines contemporary musical and literary representations of female fatness in the Hispanic Caribbean. Chapter I explores the stereotype of a greater acceptance and valorization of fatness within the African Diaspora using contemporary feminist scholarship on cultural aesthetics and the body. Fatness is discussed as being both sexually transgressive and traditionally feminine. Chapter II juxtaposes male representations of “la gorda” in the lyrics of popular music of from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico with the feminist politics of underground hip hop. Chapter III analyzes Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s hyperbolic representation of La Estrella, his fictionalization of Cuban bolero singer Fredy Rodriguez, in Ella cantaba boleros y “Metafinal” (1996). The aquatic subtexts and grotesque characterization of La Estrella’s body construct her as an icon of musical authenticity and exceptionality as well as a symbol of strength and resistance.Item El doble momento: la visión moral de la historia en "La casa de los espíritus" de Isabel Allende(2007-08-30T18:39:23Z) Fraser, Barbara; Russek, DanThis thesis examines the representation of social conditions and historical events in Isabel Allende's first novel from a moral perspective. Using David Hume's moral theory, we explore Allende's judgement of the causes of the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat based on her representation of both the event itself and the social conditions surrounding it. The thematic focus of this study is on issues of affectivity and violence in the novel. This thesis is written in Spanish.