Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, English/Literature

This thesis puts into conversation the work of four influential late medieval writers whose lives or writings skirted the fringes of Christian orthodoxy - Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, John of Morigny, and Marguerite Porete - in order to explore the way "autobiographical" theological and/or mystical writers asserted spiritual authority and subjectivity under the constraints of both the threat of condemnation for heresy and the inherent inexpressibility of mystical or visionary experiences. Beginning with Marguerite Porete and reverberating out, the performance-based rhetorical strategies in storytelling, in self-narrativization, in discernment, and in revision employed by writers in response to the dynamic, complex, and in many ways increasingly hostile social and religious environments of the long fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in France and England provide an important window into the relationship between these writers' ideas and the environment which shaped them. Each of these writers struggles with the limitations of the written word to express the truth of their spiritual experiences, and each engages in an experiential and bodily performative, rhetorical, and/or apophatic discourse in order to understand, assert, or make real their encounters with and understanding of themselves, the divine, and the relationship between the two.

Committee: Erin Labbie Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Casey Stark Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender; Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Rhetoric; Spirituality; Theology

M.A. (Master of Arts in English), Ohio Dominican University, 2021, English

This paper examines Geoffrey Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale using one of Chaucer's most important sources: Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy. Chapter one examines Boethius' contributions to philosophy, his contributions to education, and most importantly, his impact on Chaucer's literary art. Chapter one uses Boethius' Consolation to describe the consolatio genre and provides a contrast between authors like Dante, who use similar philosophical material to place judgement, and Chaucer, who uses philosophical material to promote questions instead of answers, shedding light on individual human choice. Chapter two analyzes the effects of Boethius' Consolation on The Pardoner's Tale. It examines Chaucer's translation of the Consolation, reveals the Boethian question addressed in the Tale—what is the outcome of the wicked?—and demonstrates Chaucer's ability to use medieval sermon structure to arrive at consolation. Chapter three surveys a flurry of scholarship surrounding perceptions of the Pardoner's audience and resulting character. This chapter encourages readers to apply a Boethian lens, considering consolation genre in addition to medieval sermon structure in order to ascertain a more contextually complete, and therefore hopeful, view of the Pardoner that is at odds with the predominant view of the character's ultimate fate.

Committee: Jeremy Glazier (Advisor); Martin Brick (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Medieval Literature; Philosophy

Bachelor of Arts, University of Toledo, 2018, English

The ideology established by Sir Gawain's literary past depicts the knight as the “unblemished paragon of chivalric virtue” (“Gawain and Popular Chivalric Romance in Britain” 217). This image bleeds into the first fitt of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, stealthily establishing the plot as Gawain's participation in the beheading game in order to meet his obligations to the Green Knight and King Arthur. However, I find that there are complexities to the storyline that reveal it as not being simply dictated by masculine identity and the homosocial, but by a fluid existence of all things masculine and feminine. I propose that this fluidity disrupts the superficial appearance that Gawain's trek to the Green Knight is merely a path to the completion of the beheading game, but instead creates a complicated journey that reveals the world of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight operating under the holistic blend of all gender roles. This proposed fluidity, in turn, questions the conventional binary gender system of the late Middle Ages and informs both the reader and Sir Gawain that the agendas of the masculine and feminine do not exist separately, but together. The existence of fluidity is revealed through analyses of Gawain's liminality, the functions of Hautdesert and Camelot, Gawain's interactions with Lord and Lady Bertilak, as well as his interactions with the pentangle and the green girdle. These analyses signify the shift in Gawain's chivalric values and propel the reader to see the influence of differing genders that exist in the poem. Arguing gender fluidity as the basis under which the world of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight functions results in an interpretation that enriches the current conversation surrounding gender ambiguity in medieval literature.

Committee: Christina Fitzgerald Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, English

My dissertation establishes a new framework with which to interpret the textual landscapes and ecological details that permeate late-medieval British romances from the period of c.1300 – c. 1500, focusing on the ways in which such landscapes reflect the diverse experiences of medieval readers and writers. In particular, I identify and explain fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English and Scottish conceptions of the relationships between literary worlds and “real-world” locations. In my first section, I analyze the role of topography and the management of natural resources in constructing a sense of community in Sir Isumbras, William of Palerne, and Havelok the Dane, and explain how abandoned or ravaged agricultural landscapes in Sir Degrevant and the Tale of Gamelyn betray anxieties about the lack of human control over the English landscape in the wake of population decline caused by civil war, the Black Death, and the Little Ice Age. My next section examines seashores and waterscapes in Sir Amadace, Emare, Sir Eglamour of Artois, the Awntyrs off Arthure, and the Constance romances of Chaucer and Gower. Specifically, I explain how a number of romances present the seaside as a simultaneously inviting and threatening space whose multifaceted nature as a geographical, political, and social boundary embodies the complex range of meanings embedded in the Middle English concept of “play” – a word that these texts often link with the seashore. Beaches, too, serve as stages upon which the romances act out their anxieties over the consequences of human economic endeavor, with scenes where shipwrecks are configured as opportunities for financial gain for scavengers and as mortal peril for sailors. In my third section, I move beyond the boundary space of the sea to consider the landscape descriptions of foreign lands in medieval British romance, focusing in particular on representations of Divine will manifested through landscape features and dramatic weather in the Holy Land (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lisa J. Kiser (Advisor); Ethan Knapp (Committee Co-Chair); Richard Firth Green (Committee Member); Karen Winstead (Committee Member) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Environmental Studies; Literature; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, English

This dissertation, “Saints' Relics in Medieval English Literature,” examines how the occlusion, control of and access to saints' relics became the source of significant tensions in late medieval culture and literature. I argue that in England, conflicting ideas about papal control, institutional power and the role of the laity directly influenced the literary presentation of relics and their cults. Because saints' relics were thought to channel God's healing power and to work miracles, clerics highly regulated access to these body parts and objects. Literary scholars have seldom recognized this highly politicized regulation of relics. Instead, the assumption has been that relics are, as medieval theology would have it, an uncontroversial bridge between heaven and earth. I show that in fact, when they discussed relics, medieval authors were frequently using relics to explore lay experiences of hierarchical power. Relics inspire interest and even repulsion in the contemporary scholar, but in the Middle Ages, they were a crucial focal point for lay devotion and, because of their miracle-working capabilities, institutional control. Situated as they were in the shrines and churches that became places of pilgrimage, relics inspired saints' cults and pilgrim communities, but also enabled a parish's or cathedral's assertions of institutional dominance. By examining the cultural history of relics, I argue that these objects functioned to consolidate Church authority and hierarchy. In this historical context, control over relics tended to be material and tactile: pilgrims were often literally kept from seeing or touching relics. In literature, however, writers tended to explore relics' management by presenting relics as rhetorically, as well as materially, occluded. This literary phenomenon is nevertheless based on the actual incorporation of the saint's body into the Church (in the form of a relic) and draws from the historical exclusion of lay bodies from full participation (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lisa Kiser (Advisor) Subjects: Literature, Medieval

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2003, English

My dissertation investigates the cultural significance of vernacular debate poems from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. Debate poems were hugely popular in late medieval England; dozens survive, often in multiple copies, and authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, and Dunbar contributed to the genre. The disputants in these poems—birds, corpses, worms, and occasionally humans—argue about seemingly frivolous topics to no clear end, for the debates are never resolved. Debate poems are not empty rhetorical games, however, but fascinating literary and historical documents: they address, and often voice strong opinions on, issues of vital interest not only to medieval audiences but also to modern critics. After an introductory chapter that briefly traces the evolution and criticism of the debate genre, my dissertation focuses on three recurring themes in debate poetry: law, gender and eschatology. Chapter two focuses on the legal ramifications of three debate poems, The Owl and the Nightingale, Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, and The Assembly of Ladies, contending that the irresolution of these debate poems mimics the slow pace of the law courts, and that the poems comment on the delays endemic in the English legal system. Chapter three shows that debates between the body and soul, far from being the straightforward vehicles for conveying moral lessons they are generally assumed to be, are, in fact, explorations of human identity that grapple with fears and uncertainties about the afterlife. My fourth chapter argues that characters engaged in debates purporting to be about the vices and virtues of women generally agree on the nature of women but disagree about how their sexual behavior affects men's reputations. I contend that these debates represent ideas about masculinity and social control. Ultimately, my dissertation both reassesses the debate genre and shows the diversity of opinions that could circulate around these three issues, enriching our understanding of (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Karen Winstead (Advisor) Subjects: Literature, Medieval

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1921, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2018, English

As a recurring figure representative of the institution of kingship, King Arthur presents a unique rhetorical opportunity to examine sociopolitical anxieties of the Middle Ages. Because of his unique position, I propose Arthur himself is a text to be analyzed. With Arthur established as a text, specifically one of rhetorical significance, I analyze his subsequent iterations (historical and literary) as paratexts. Traditionally, paratextual analysis has involved an investigation of the literal and physical artifacts surrounding a text; however, by examining Arthur-the-figure as a text, I apply paratextual analysis theoretically. Rather than examining book bindings or author's notes, I argue Arthur's paratexts involve genre and the sociopolitical rhetoric of his authors. Through this method, I argue that Arthur is a transcendent text onto which sociopolitical anxieties are imposed, making him more than a literary figure but rather a rhetorical device of cultural memory and anxiety, particularly an anxiety of belonging. The works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Geoffrey Chaucer, Marie de France, and Sir Thomas Malory afford both an illustration of Arthur's transcendent temporality and insights into attempts at self-actualization. Reading Arthur-the-figure as a text provides not only significant opportunities to recover marginalized narratives of medieval England, but also insight into present sociopolitical anxieties.

Committee: Miriamne Krummel (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Folklore; Gender; Literature; Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, English

This dissertation argues that literature in Old English and early Middle English characterizes legacy-giving as a serious obligation of fatherhood and key paternal role. I contend that the father's legacy in this cultural context can be understood to include property, heirlooms, wisdom, and kin ties. This project contributes to the emerging study of fatherhood, which has begun to examine fatherhood as a previously under-explored phenomenon that is both a cultural institution and a part of many men's lived experiences. I examine Anglo-Saxon law-codes, Old English wisdom poetry, Beowulf, and the Middle English texts The Proverbs of Alfred and Layamon's Brut in order to argue for the cultural importance of this fatherly role. I argue that many of the same cultural markers of Anglo-Saxon paternal legacy continue to be relevant after the Norman Conquest, but that the Norman practice of strict patrilineal primogeniture alters certain aspects of fatherhood. While Old English literature prizes a relationship between father and son that includes an ongoing giving of self on the part of the father, early Middle English literature prefers an ideal father who serves as a prototype for the son, dying just as the son reaches adulthood.

Committee: Christopher Jones PhD (Advisor); Leslie Lockett PhD (Committee Member); Karen Winstead PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, English

In “Money and the Man: Economics and Identity in Late Medieval English Literature,” I explore the relationship between the profound economic changes of the late medieval period and shifting models of subjectivity. I argue that often-noted economic transformations, such as the expansion of the money economy, the commercialization of English society, and the general increase in personal wealth, had consequences far beyond the marketplace. Indeed, such changes had a significant impact on how people imagined themselves and others to be defined, causing a shift from societal models of birth and function to paradigms emphasizing economic activity and income. Increasingly, I suggest, being was related to having. Further, I posit that these changes were awkwardly embraced, generating widespread yet local anxieties among various groups, such as the gentry, the religious, and the merchant class. It is the work of this dissertation to explore a group of texts—romances, saint's lives, and ballads—which chronicle the struggle to formulate meaningful identities in a society in flux.

Committee: Lisa Kiser (Advisor) Subjects: Literature, Medieval

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, East Asian Languages and Literatures

Our understanding of what wisdom (zhi 智 in Classical Chinese) is, as well as what it means to be wise or to be seen as wise, is deeply rooted in our local habitation—the spaces, times, cultures, and experiences in which we live. Genres are one way we articulate wisdom as we see it, and some genres form precisely to express that wisdom. Moreover, because our imagination of a genre carries with it an imagination of the writer's identity, “wisdom genres” are often laden with assumptions about who the wise person writing them is or should be. In early medieval China, a genre called lianzhuti 連珠體 (strung pearls) was constructed, which in its earliest instantiations was presented as short remonstrative sets of important principles by ministers to the emperor. Thus, it was invested with ideas about the sort of person most suited to speak wisdom to the ear of power. However, as time passed and the genre was taken up by new and ever-expanding communities of writers, the wise advisor's persona also shifted and expanded—and in some cases was parodied—though it was always a component of the sense of the lianzhu genre. In this thesis, I examine strung pearls from the perspective of genre and practice, covering writings from the Han dynasty to the twentieth century with a focus on the works of Lu Ji 陸機 (261–303), Liu Xiang 劉祥 (451–489), Song Lian 宋濂 (1310–1381), Ye Xiaoluan 叶小鸞 (1616–1634), and Yu Pingbo 俞平伯 (1900–1990). I found my study on the theories of habitus and ritualization advanced by Pierre Bourdieu and Catherine Bell respectively, and I frame it with the work of genre theorists such as Amy Devitt, Anis Bawarshi, and Thomas Beebee. In doing so, I attempt to show that identity is a core element of how we formulate and use genres and that in the case of strung pearls, the persona conventionally associated with the genre (the wise advisor) continued to surface in the pieces even long after its original function became irrelevant.

Committee: Meow Hui Goh (Advisor); Patricia Sieber (Committee Member); Patricia Sieber (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Literature; Asian Studies; Literature; Medieval Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, English

No surviving medieval text puts forward an explicit theologia tangendi (a “theology of touching”). Still, the religious literature of the English Middle Ages is nonetheless replete with devotional acts of touching, reaching, grasping, holding, shaping, and caressing. Touch may constitute one small facet of the phenomenology of religion, but it requires more scholarly attention. That the literature and material culture of the Christian Middle Ages were often oriented toward achieving contact with the divine underscores the need to consider the theological implications of touch. This dissertation puts a name to these myriad, disconnected references to touching that crop up across medieval English literature — a “tactile theology” that acknowledges the centrality of the hands in medieval texts, the lives of those texts, and the lives of their writers and readers. Put simply, tactile theology is a reciprocal process: just as theology shaped medieval understandings of touch, acts of touching, in turn, were avenues for approaching theological questions. The dissertation takes as its primary focus the touch and embodied experience of medieval women because gender difference in the Middle Ages was often described in theological and sensory terms. Using tactile theology as a lens for teasing out the significance of tactile language and metaphor, the following chapters explore how medieval readers and writers considered (sometimes in conflicting terms) women's embodiment and women's participation in religious life. Individual chapters offer case studies in the Junius 11 manuscript of Old English biblical poetry (particularly Genesis B, ca. 960–990), the thirteenth-century Ancrene Wisse (ca. 1225) alongside one of its fifteenth-century Latin translations, and the Book of Margery Kempe (ca. 1438). A final chapter on the medievalism of Emily Dickinson further underscores how tactile theology supports productive readings of women's writing beyond the tradi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Leslie Lockett (Advisor); Ethan Knapp (Committee Member); Christopher Jones (Committee Member); Karen Winstead (Advisor) Subjects: Gender Studies; Medieval Literature

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2022, English/Literature

Images have always played an integral role in the formation of identity throughout courtly love literature. This can be seen through the first look between the servant and his Lady as it becomes the foundation for their mutual identities both in relation to one another and apart. They become centered around only truly knowing the self once they have known one another. This initial moment of recognition, following the path of the Hegelian master-slave dialectic, is the moment when self-consciousness is formed by a confrontation with the other (Hegel 541-547). The first look is a pivotal moment that sets the stage for the way the subject perceives the world as he now views himself as merely a part with the image reflected back being the promised ‘whole' he has come to anticipate. When this becomes the central driving force behind the servant's motivations, it becomes a phenomenon that must be examined to better understand the characters and the possible implications of their actions. This thesis investigates the role that identity formation plays within courtly love literature using Jacques Lacan's mirror stage theory and a new framework designed to assist in literary criticism. I engage W. J. T. Mitchell and Michael Camille's debate surrounding images, objects, and desire as a foundation for my examination. The primary texts that I engage are Dante Alighieri's Vita Nuova and Commedia as well as the unknown poet's “Sir Orfeo.” For Dante, I examine his desire for the identity of the servant and his missteps in attempting to reach this goal. In my analysis of “Sir Orfeo,” I shift the focus to an examination of mourning within identity formation, with an emphasis on Sir Orfeo's grief over the loss of Heurodis. Through this engagement, I suggest that the first look between the servant and the Lady is pivotal to the servant's retroactive and anticipated identity.

Committee: Erin Labbie (Advisor); James Pfundstein (Committee Member) Subjects: Medieval Literature; Psychology

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2021, English

Gold is a central figure in early medieval northern European literature. In early English and Icelandic cultures, it theoretically served as a system stabilizer and maintained social bonds. In practice, however, as seen in Volsunga Saga and Beowulf, gold is clearly a volatile substance that serves only to sow discord and create violence. In its truest form of the hoard, gold operates as a site of both psychological and physical transformation. It is a threat to the very societies it is meant to protect. Ultimately, its use shows the inevitability of the decline of the societies that heavily relied upon it.

Committee: Mary Kate Hurley (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Icelandic and Scandinavian Literature; Literature; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

MA, Kent State University, 2021, College of the Arts / School of Art

The aim of this thesis is to offer alternative approaches and solutions of the Italian Medieval artists and contemporaries in response to the catastrophic Black Death. As opposed to the pessimistic views of the time, which are largely the only responses considered, I offer benevolent approaches, displaying contemporaries' positive and effective steps toward faith, religion, morality, and ultimately, salvation. First, I align my views with those of Millard Meiss in his celebrated book, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death, in the tracing of a stylistic change following the epidemic. I continue to offer alternative approaches through the analysis of plague imagery, which calls upon saints and holy figures for divine intervention and celestial protection from the Black Death. The reappropriation of traditional icons such as Saint Sebastian and the Madonna della Misericordia, as well as the new invention and veneration of San Rocco in the late fifteenth century serve as a means of moving toward their faith and redemption. The final response this thesis offers is a piece of literature, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. Throughout the Decameron, Boccaccio offers a map of morality of sorts to his readers, while also leaving the one hundred stories open for interpretation, allowing the readers to decide for themselves, which behaviors and characters are to be emulated and which are to be avoided.

Committee: Gustav Medicus Ph. D (Advisor); Kristin Stasiowski Ph. D (Committee Chair) Subjects: Art History

MA, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This thesis examines queer identity in the twelfth-century theological treatise Spiritual Friendship by Aelred of Rievaulx, and the anonymous thirteenth-century Aucassin and Nicolette. I argue that these texts queer medieval and contemporary understandings of gender and sexuality, both spiritually and narratively. In Part One of this project, I focus on Rievaulx Abbey in the North of England as a space for free expression from strict social binaries of sex and gender. Here I focus on Aelred, an abbot who promoted close, intimate bonds with others as a means of understanding theological notions of God in his text, Spiritual Friendship. Rather than contributing to the exploration of Aelred sexuality as a gay man, my aim in this chapter is to offer a shift in focus towards Aelred's gender expression and performance. Ultimately, I argue, Aelred queers traditional notions of love, God, and Cistercian theology through his emphasis on community and shared love in Spiritual Friendship. In Part Two, I move from English mysticism to French chantefable, or “song-story,” in Aucassin and Nicolette. I argue that the text engenders in its two main characters queer identity through the inversion of traditional gender roles. Further, I argue that the performative aspect of the text allows for a dispersal of transgressive, queer identity via performance. In doing so, I push the definition of queer further than the tale's characters, arguing that the text itself becomes queer in its interaction with the reader. In expanding the genre and scope of this project from twelfth-century England to thirteenth-century France, I illustrate how expansive queer identity was in the Middle Ages.

Committee: Christopher Roman (Advisor); Ryan Hediger (Committee Member); Ann Martinez (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender Studies; Glbt Studies; Literature; Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, French and Italian

This dissertation is a study in physical and spiritual transformation in medieval French and Occitan literature from the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries. By considering the Ovidian and biblical tropes of metamorphosis and transfiguration that are present in medieval French and Occitan literature, particularly in works such as Robert le diable, Flamenca, La Vie de Sainte Marie l'Egyptienne, the various Tristan narratives, and the works of Chretien de Troyes, one can have a clearer understanding of the influence that both Ovidian and biblical narratives had on medieval French and Occitan literature. By examining Ovidian metamorphic trope of metamorphic degradation and exploring the instances in which this trope appears in medieval French and Occitan literature, one can arrive at a greater appreciation for the influence that Ovid and his works exercised on medieval authors and readers. It is also possible to foster a greater appreciation for transformation by examining instances of disguise, costuming, and clothing presented in medieval French and Occitan literature it is possible to further explore the tropes of transformation as one gains a clearer appreciation for the role that clothing and disguise play in transformation narratives.

Committee: Sarah-Grace Heller Ph.D (Committee Chair); Jonathan Combs-Schilling Ph.D (Committee Member); Leslie Lockett Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2016, English

Fable collections circulated widely throughout the Middle Ages. A popular classical form, the fable plays a significant role in medieval language education, storytelling, and social and political commentary. These collections were so popular that there are over 200 extant manuscripts and later became some of the first works put into print by British printer William Caxton. While other scholars have noted the widespread popularity of the fables, this dissertation addresses the implications of this popularity. Fables seem to have played an integral part in medieval language and literacy education, and later became a significant part of medieval literature. Ultimately, the fable played an integral role in the development of imaginative literature in the medieval period. This dissertation focuses on the transition between and overlap of the fable genre and the development of literacy education and medieval literature. It intervenes in the field of medieval literature and the history of the book. Focusing on the ways that various authors and translators use the fables differently, this dissertation explores how fable editions can enhance our knowledge of the reading practices of their time. Each of these topics can shed light on the other—a better understanding of the way that fables are working can help us better understand the history of the book, while understanding the history and rise of the book can also help us understand the significance of the fable genre. As the fables becomes a part of literary tradition, and later a part of print culture, the content and nature of fable collections shifts. In the Middle Ages, fables move from the classical model of detached short narratives with a pithy moral, collected together only because of their similar genre, into collections that offer a narrative structure with coherent characters across fables, and eventually into collections that are carefully organized to convey a series of messages, building from each individua (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Cynthia Klestinec Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Katharine Gillespie Ph.D. (Committee Member); Patrick Murphy Ph.D. (Committee Member); Tory Pearman Ph.D. (Committee Member); Stephen Nimis Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, French and Italian

This dissertation examines the ways in which the newly emerging commercial society impacted the conception and expression of time in thirteenth century Parisian poet Rutebeuf's corpus. It does so by examining how Rutebeuf's narrator employs commercial metonymies, metaphors, and mindsets to manipulate the expression of time for his own benefit. Rather than be a product of his time, time becomes a product of the narrator. The use of figural manifestations of commerce to manipulate time appears to be unique to Rutebeuf and testifies to the influence of the urban environment on his work. The narrator's manipulation of time would not have been possible if it were not for the new ways of conceptualizing time brought about by the thirteenth century commercial revolution. Rather than fixed and rigid, time with the (re)development of the commercial network became fluid and mutable, allowing the narrator to reshape his past, present, and future.

Committee: Sarah-Grace Heller (Advisor); Jonathan Combs-Schilling (Committee Member); Ethan Knapp (Committee Chair) Subjects: Economic History; European History; Medieval Literature

BA, Kent State University, 2015, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

For centuries, Dante's Commedia has inspired artists and musicians alike with its dense themes of redemption, atonement, religious ecstasy and reconciliation. His immense three-volume work is rife with musical metaphors and linguistic musicality qualifying it as a more than a poem: something that many in the field of Dante Studies term a masterpiece of an all-encompassing artistic nature. In this thesis, I explore the Commedia in terms of its musical construction, examining the specific choices by a linguistic genius to instruct his listeners of life, language and love through song.

Committee: Kristin Stasiowski Phd (Advisor); Kenneth Bindas Phd (Committee Chair); Jay White Phd (Committee Member); Stephanie Siciarz (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Middle Ages; Music; Philosophy; Religious History