The Invisible Blackness of Harryette Mullen's Poetry: Writing, Miscegenation, and What Remains to Be Seen

This essay addresses the poetics of Harryette Mullen, an awarded African-American female poet whose work questions the boundaries that shape the expectations for accessible intelligibility in African-American literature. Mullen’s poems skirt the edges of intelligibility by going beyond the expectations for a visible/intelligible form of language that would embrace the experience of blackness. I argue that writing in Mullen’s poetry works as process of miscegenation by playing on the illegibility of blackness, beyond a visible line of distinction between what is or should be considered part of blackness itself, which engages new forms of reflection on poetry as a politically meaningful tool for rethinking the role of the black (female) poet within the black diaspora.

Estratégias do desejo: amor e erotismo na obra poética de Cristina Peri Rossi

This work discusses some of the most representative poems of Uruguayan writer Cristina Peri Rossi (1941 -), compiled in the book Poesía reunida (2005), by analyzing the exploration of recurring themes, like love and eroticism. The proposed analysis will feature the theoretical support of the works of Georges Bataille (1987) and Octavio Paz (1993).

Species of Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) attracted to dung and carrion baited pitfall traps in the Uruguayan Eastern Serranías

This study investigates the species richness and abundance of Drosophila Fallén, 1823 attracted to dung and carrion baited pitfall traps in natural areas with heterogeneous habitats at the Sierra de Minas, Eastern Serranías, southeastern Uruguay. Collecting was carried out on a monthly basis (May 2002 through April 2003). Drosophilids accounted for 0.84% (n = 131) and 3.61% (n = 158) of the Diptera collected from dung (n = 15,630) and carrion (n = 4,382) pitfall traps, respectively. A total of 12 species were identified, 11 of which belong to the subgenus Drosophila (the richest) and one to the subgenus Sophophora Sturtevant, 1939. Over 90% of the Drosophila specimens collected belong to five species of the subgenus Drosophila, namely D. gaucha Jaeger & Salzano, 1953, D. immigrans Sturtevant, 1921, D. mediovittata Frota-Pessoa, 1954, D. aff. nappae Vilela, Valente & Basso-da-Silva, 2004, and D. ornatifrons Duda, 1927. Drosophila cardini Sturtevant, 1916 is recorded for the first time from Uruguay. Drosophila abundance and species richness in the four habitats sampled in the Uruguayan Eastern Serranías, namely woodlands sierra, riparian forest, pine plantation and grazing grassland, were considered to be a function of habitat conservation. Diversity indices were low in all habitats. Different habitats supported particular coprophilous and necrophilous Drosophila species. The woodland sierra represents the most preserved habitat, and contributed with the highest species richness observed. Drosophila ornatifrons was the dominant species, with a restricted habitat distribution. On the other hand, grazed grassland, an environment modified by livestock management, had the lowest species richness: only a few specimens of D. repleta Wollaston, 1858. Regarding species composition, significant differences were found in some pairwise comparisons of groups of Drosophila species that included D. ornatifrons. Fly attraction to dung can be exploited as an alternative and/or complementary collecting method in ecological studies of Drosophila assemblages in natural areas.

Studies on the dual in Mycenaean, in the Homeric poetry and in the Attic Theatre of the 5th century — morphological, dialectal and stylistical variations

The present dissertation focuses on the dual number in Ancient Greek in a diachronical lapse stretching from the Mycenaean age to the Attic Drama and Comedy of the 5th century BC. In the first chapter morphological issues are addressed, chiefly in a comparative perspective. The Indo European evidence on the dual is hence gathered in order to sketch patterns of grammaticalisation and paradigmatisation of specific grams, growing increasingly functional within the Greek domain. In the second chapter syntactical problems are tackled. After a survey of scholarly literature on the Greek dual, we engage in a functional and typological approach, in order to disentangle some biased assessments on the dual, namely its alleged lack of regularity and intermittent agreement. Some recent frameworks in General Linguistics provide useful grounds for casting new light on the subject. Internal Reconstruction, for instance, supports the facultativity of the dual in each and every stage of its development; Typology and the Animacy Hierarcy add precious cross linguistical insight on the behaviour of the dual toward agreement. Glaring differences also arise as to the adoption — or avoidance — of the dual by different authors. Idiolectal varieties prove in fact conditioned by stylistical and register necessity. By means of a comparison among Epics, Tragedy and Comedy it is possible to enhance differences in the evaluation of the dual, which led sometimes to forms of ‘censure’ — thus triggering the onset of competing strategies to express duality. The last two chapters delve into the tantalising variety of the Homeric evidence, first of all in an account of the notorious issue of the Embassy of Iliad IX, and last in a commentary of all significant Homeric duals — mostly represented by archaisms, formulae, and ad hoc coinages.

The Bible in Medieval Love Lyrics: A Fundamental Element of European Poetry Books

The focus of this study is the relationship among three different manuscripts (Modena, Bibl. Estense, MS α.R.4.4; Firenze, Bibl. Laurenziana MS Rediano 9; and London, BL, MS Harley, 2253) and the poetry they transmit. The aim of this research is to show the ways that the Bible was used in the transmission of the lyric poetry in the three literatures that they represent: Occitan (primarily through Marcabru’s songs), Italian (through the love poetry of Guittone d’Arezzo), and Middle English (through the Harley love lyrics and the MS.’s primary scribe), in a medieval European context.

Soundward: Analisi e traduzione di una selezione di brani della jazz poetry

La letteratura e la musica hanno da sempre condiviso molti aspetti del processo creativo. Questa affinità intellettuale si è più volte espressa attraverso la produzione di opere che si incontrano a metà strada tra le due arti. All'interno di queste occorrenze si è delineata una frangia letteraria, la Jazz Poetry, che trova nel jazz e nei suoi esponenti le proprie muse. Questo lavoro analizza il fenomeno della Jazz Poetry e propone le traduzioni dall'inglese all'italiano di alcune opere esemplificative. Per essere in grado di affrontare questa sfida adeguatamente, la prima parte della tesi verte sullo studio di alcuni punti cardine della traduzione poetica e sulla costruzione di una cornice storico-culturale. All'interno di questa cornice viene analizzato il ruolo del jazz e della Jazz Poetry all'interno della società, con particolare focus sulla sua posizione rispetto ad alcune tematiche di rilievo del Novecento. Vengono evidenziati i principali autori e le distinte genesi storico-letterarie che hanno contribuito alla formazione di questo movimento. Nella seconda parte viene presentata al lettore la traduzione e la successiva analisi dei brani scelti. I sei testi sono stati divisi in due sottocategorie: la poetica di Kaufman e i Coltrane Poems. In entrambe le categorie un breve capitolo introduttivo evidenzia le tematiche affrontate e la rilevanza della cornice storico-sociale all'interno dei testi. Dopo ogni traduzione viene fornita un'analisi approfondita del testo e delle scelte operate a livello traduttivo, comprensiva di un'esegesi del brano. In linea di massima si è cercato di riprodurre il continuo dialogo tra il poeta e il soggetto poetico, sia esso musica o musicista, mantenendo un equilibrio costante tra la potenzialità orale e la realtà scritta del testo.

Nature, Poetry, and Liminality in the Poetry of Robert Frost

Explores how Frost examines and configures the divide between life’s imperfections and its rewards. I am particularly interested in how Frost positions both the non-human natural world and poetry itself as intermediary (or liminal) realms that might help us live simultaneously in the worlds of reality and the imagination, or truth and beauty, or heaven and earth.